Mike Masnick 0:00

So Chris, we have a lot to talk about this week regarding kids and technology, some of which I am warning listeners may get a little bit dark. so before we start, let us remind each other about how the internet can be fun. Uh, what, what kind of fun thing did you find on the internet this week?

Chris Messina 0:20

You know, I, it's always an interesting week when Jack Dorsey drops another product, uh, especially, you know, kind of in the Blockhead lineage. And so he's been doing a bunch of interesting things in the agent world. First, he launched something called Buzz, to reuse Google's old, uh, product name, uh, which I worked on. but this week he launched something called Bird, B-E-R-D.xyz, and I found this to be so cursed and so bizarre and yet very worth looking at because, you know, I think a lot about AI and creativity and expression, and literally it's like going into the, Willy Wonka-like factory and seeing a bunch of, like, Willy Wonka-ian agents running around that do things for you. And the characters are quite literally, like, out of a Willy Wonka-type, 1930s-style movie. Um, and so imagine ChatGPT but in a Willy Wonka factory, and that's kind of what, Bird looks like.

Mike Masnick 1:16

Yeah, I did see that, and it, it is... I keep hearing people, building similar things themselves, like personally. like I have a friend who, who's set up, you know, has a whole bunch of different AI agents running, but he has built like a little anthropomorphic system so that like when an agent isn't working, it shows it's sleeping, and he can click on it, and

Chris Messina 1:38

There are these pets that you can enable inside of ChatGPT it's a whole trend, and I think we're gonna see more of them. And it's finally because, you know, once you have all these agents, they need some sort of identity, some kind of expression, or else you lose track of them. they are like pets. And so I think that's what this is, showing us, and it sort of leads into a story that we'll talk about later around, uh, AI companions

Mike Masnick 1:57

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will say the fun thing that I found this week was I went down this rabbit hole. I did not know about this. you might 'cause you know about everything that is happening on the internet. Uh, but, this concept, which I guess first became very popular in South Korea and is now spreading around the world, which is, vaguely referred to as dopamine shopping. Have you come across this?

Chris Messina 2:20

Oh, I I can sort of instantly get an im- an image for what this might be, but, but please go on. Tell me more

Mike Masnick 2:25

so it is basically based on the idea that a lot of people... You know, e-commerce is very easy. We, all use it in some form or another, and there are times where it feels like maybe some of us buy stuff just because it's fun to shop

Chris Messina 2:39

It feels good. Of course. Yeah, it's shop- shopping therapy, you know, used to be something we do in the real world.

Mike Masnick 2:43

Exactly. but this trend and there are a bunch of different sites for it, and I have gone down the rabbit hole of looking at, a whole bunch of them, is allowing you to shop without the actual shopping.

Chris Messina 2:54

Oh, man. Oh, so it's like you have infinity dollars and you can buy everything and you can LARP as an internet shopper.

Mike Masnick 3:01

Exactly. It is exactly

Chris Messina 3:02

I kind

Mike Masnick 3:03

You can put it in... You can put in your address, and it will track where the non-existent package is, showing it traveling to you even though no money is you, you know, you put it in your shopping cart, you put in, you can put in fake credit card details on some of them or whatever, and they don't charge you, but you can track your package. You can see it shipping to you. You can buy all sorts of expensive stuff, clothing, electronics. So the main one I found was called dopamineshop.co, but there's also, Food Never Comes, so you can order food that literally never comes, or Fake Eats, which is like a DoorDash kind of thing, so you can, if you're, too obsessed with that. there's a whole bunch of these sites, and I was overjoyed at finding

Chris Messina 3:48

This is like, it's so Matrixian. It's just like, you know, if, if you were wondering if we're living in a simulation, now you can literally simu-shop. honestly, I would imagine people would pay a subscription for this that would actually c- lower the cost of their monthly spend, and they'd have, like, less crap that they have to deal with. I, I don't know what that would do for, you know, the actual retailers, but, um, I kind of

Mike Masnick 4:08

it is, it is fun. Yeah. Hello, and welcome to Ctrl Alt Speech, the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation, I guess fake shopping, and the future of the internet as well. It is August 20th, 2026, and this week we're discussing how schools are dealing with technology, how courts are looking at technology, why Discord made some changes in Brazil, and for our Patreon subscribers, the rise of AI companions around the globe and the laws that seek to regulate them. Ctrl Alt Speech is my weekly venting session hosted by me, Mike Masnick, the founder and editor of Techdirt. And this week, my regular co-host Ben is on vacation, so we have a special guest host. this is Chris Messina, who has been involved in Silicon Valley and open source software and social media for a couple decades now. but it has to be said every time your name is mentioned, your biggest claim to fame, and I know this hangs over you like an albatross, is that you are the inventor of the hashtag. So whether you like hashtags or hate hashtags, Chris is to blame.

Chris Messina 5:31

Yes, I am. And we just actually celebrated or, ridiculed the, the 19th birthday of the hashtag. So the hashtag predates almost all of these topics that we're talking about today

Mike Masnick 5:40

Yes.

Chris Messina 5:41

So if I have a, if I have a, jaded or dated lens, uh, it is because of that

Mike Masnick 5:46

excellent. I will note that, Chris is a Patreon supporter, as are many other listeners. And so you too can support us via Patreon, and you will get early access to episodes, longer episodes with a more in-depth story as well, and also at certain levels, a chance to submit suggestions for other stories to cover. You can find us at patreon.com/ctrlaltspeech. That's C-T-R-L-A-L-T speech, which you know how to spell. Also, if you sign up during the month of August, which somehow is rapidly c- coming

Chris Messina 6:25

know.

Mike Masnick 6:26

I-- this is in- incredible. if you use the discount code TRUSTCON, all capital letters, T-R-U-S-T C-O-N, you get 90% off your first month, which means you have nothing to lose, or rather maybe a

Chris Messina 6:42

10%?

Mike Masnick 6:43

a dollar, or so to lose. All right.

Chris Messina 6:46

Take all the money you save from dopamine shopping and

Mike Masnick 6:48

There you go. Exactly. thank you. that is the sales pitch. let us get into this week's stories. Chris, both you and I have kids in high school, and I think we have both been thinking a lot about back to school stuff, because that is the time of year It

Chris Messina 7:05

in California. Yeah.

Mike Masnick 7:06

it's, it, it has already happened. I have, one kid in high school and one in middle school, and somehow in where we live, the high school and the middle school are in different districts, which means they have different schedules. and so they started at different times and different weeks, which has been bizarre. But my kids are back to school, as are yours, and so we've been thinking about the, back to school and technology side of things. So, you found a story that you thought, was interesting and worth talking about.

Chris Messina 7:35

Yeah. Yeah. So, my 16-year-old, you know, went back to, high school in Oakland, and, came home with a new set of restrictions on their devices, you know. And there had been some restrictions last year, but this year, you know, there was a new California law that effectively, makes it so that kids cannot use their devices all day long. and in fact, from the start of school, they have to put them in these little pouches, That's one of the things that, um, my teen is most annoyed by. It's like, why are they spending all this money on these stupid pouches when kids are just finding ways to get around them? but it sort of-- brings to light, I think, the real-world implications of a lot of the topics that you guys discuss here in terms of when these bans go into effect, how they affect kids, whether or not these things are actually effective. as you and Ben have discussed how kids find a way around these types of prohibitions. I've heard that even some teachers, in the schools are actually giving their, their kids who go to these schools, burner phones to put into the pouches because there's no verification. and that e-effectively, these little pouches, I guess, are magnetized. And so essentially, you know, you put the device in the pouch, it's like magnetically sealed, and then later in the day, you sort of go through a, process of demagnetizing it. And the magnets themselves, I guess, are not guarded, so kids will just go and sort of like open the pouches. so it's, it's just this like, cat and mouse kind of arms race circumstance, presumably, with the intention, I guess, of, preserving kids' attention and helping and supporting them in focusing on, their schooling. But it also feels a little bit like, I guess there's, there's a question of like when and how should kids learn effective use of technology, and whose responsibility in society is it? And is prohibition the best way to arrive at an outcome where kids are savvy about how to use these technologies in effective and pro-social ways? And I don't know that we have like a, a permanent answer to it, and I don't know that there is just one answer. But seeing these bans go into effect, sort of feels like both, I don't wanna say it's like the easiest and simplest thing to do, but from an adult's older generation who's like looking at the kids, barely looking at themselves and saying, "Oh my God, we must do something," putting the devices in a hermetically sealed envelope for the course of the, the school day, feels like, you know, job done, I can like, wipe my hands and, and move on. And yet it doesn't actually, I think, address the underlying, issues around how society and culture needs to adapt and change to one where these, technologies are, are part of our everyday experience. You know, one of the, things that was crazy about this was just that on one of the syllabuses, it sort of outlined the expectations for the kids for the year, and one of them was, of course, no devices in class. And then the very next line was, "And we will be distributing the assignments on Google Docs in Google Classrooms." And like you're like left to like wonder like, okay, so you've taken away the, the devices, and yet that is exactly how the kids are supposed to perform their, their studies.

Mike Masnick 10:15

Yeah. I, I mean, one of the things that I saw with my high schooler too was, not just that, like, they do take away the devices, but then often they have to do homework where it's on paper and they have to

Chris Messina 10:26

Yes,

Mike Masnick 10:27

math, they have to... Yeah, either writing or, or math where they'll have to, do the equations on paper, but then to submit them, they have to take a photo of the homework with their phone and then upload it. And I was just like, "Oh my God, this just doesn't seem like the right way to be doing this." and none of that actually does teach kids, like, the appropriate use of the technology, and there's also this sort of weird assumption that as soon as you either get out of high school or graduate from high school that you're, now suddenly you're okay with using the phone when, when you've had this sort of prohibition. I mean, there are obvious parallels and, you know, not all of them are entirely fair with, like, underage drinking and stuff like that, where you have the, the prohibition and you say you can't drink until 21, and you, of course, one, kids get around it and they figure out ways to, drink underage. And then two, like, you don't have the kind of thing where you sort of teach kids how to drink responsibly or, you know, be, you you

Chris Messina 11:26

in Europe,

Mike Masnick 11:27

You're right. Right. Where they, they tend to do better. Obviously, there are exceptions and extremes in, in all cases. and so, I fear that we're sort of heading down a similar path. it's funny. So the high school here, they're not doing the hermetically sealed pouches. I know a lot of schools are. That has become very popular. I'm in the middle of Silicon Valley, and so I think there's a big push and pull among parents around here. And, like, the school last year when this law went into effect, they sent out these emails and they had, like, board meetings or whatever where they, they wanted parents to weigh in, and you had very, very extremely different positions where there are lots of people who are just like, "Ban the technology entirely." There are lots of people who are saying like, "No, I would like my kid to learn how to use these things appropriately," and there are, you know, some benefits to using them well. and so the sort of compromise that the school has is that... And we had this before, and I have actually spoken about this on the podcast, where every room, every classroom has a board with pockets, not hermetically sealed pockets, just pockets, and they're, they're numbered

Chris Messina 12:34

I think that's what OUSD had last

Mike Masnick 12:36

Okay. so the high schools here have had that for I think going back three years now, and they're continuing to use that, though this year because of the California law, they're also banning smartwatches, which they, they didn't before. And so

Chris Messina 12:52

Because kids would be like chatting, you know, like, like using like the, the watch, right?

Mike Masnick 12:56

will find a way.

Chris Messina 12:57

They will, yes. Yeah

Mike Masnick 12:59

we've spoken before about the, the fact that like, if it's not this, they'll, build their own social media in, like, Google Docs comments or famous one that we discussed, last year at some point was, Spotify comments. Like, kids would pick an old, podcast that nobody was paying attention to.

Chris Messina 13:17

like an internet alleyway, and they'll go hang out

Mike Masnick 13:19

And just find a spot where they can communicate. you know, I imagine that that still happens, but, I think, y- there are different things here where talking to teachers about it, every teacher I've spoken to loves the idea of having a school ban. That's one where I haven't heard Like, so many teachers seem to say that it does make a difference and that kids are paying more attention in class.

Chris Messina 13:40

it's a collective act- action problem, right? So you kind of have to who- do the whole school so that there's not kids that are kind of like skirting around it and, you know.

Mike Masnick 13:48

Right.

Chris Messina 13:49

that makes sense.

Mike Masnick 13:50

there were studies where there had been about, 10 years ago, there had been another, you know, there had been attempts to ban phones in, in certain schools, and almost all of them went back and switched after a few years. And there was a famous one, New York City had done it, and what they found in New York City, though New York City has now since re-banned phones in schools, but they had done it about 10 years ago. and what they found was that the enforcement then was very uneven. And in fact, lower resourced minority students tended to get in trouble much more, that it just became this tool

Chris Messina 14:21

Of like repression.

Mike Masnick 14:22

Exactly. you know, so I worry about that, though it feels like the approach this time around with schools and, phone bans is a little bit more thoughtful. Yeah. But I mean, as you said, like people are bringing in burner phones and, so the extreme case that every- that lots of parents say is like, "Well, there are school shootings. If there's a school shooting, I wanna be able to communicate with my kid, and I hate this idea that you're not letting me do that." and then there are other cases where it's like there are stories of phones being used to capture a teacher being abusive. and if kids don't have access to their phones, they don't do that. There are stories of, school newspapers and student reporters who need their phones to document things that are happening in the school. you know, there are some cases I've seen where like student reporters get, an from the rule because they have a legitimate use

Chris Messina 15:10

if they, they actually would allow them to go back to, like, film cameras or something.

Mike Masnick 15:14

Yeah. I, I I don't know. There's, there's all sorts of ways of, dealing with this, but I... You know, it does seem weird. I mentioned to you, like, right before we, we sat down to discuss stories today, I'd been out for my morning walk, and, uh, I was listening to a podcast in which there was a, Gen Z, a young woman who is, uh, you know, angry about how unsafe she believes technology is for her generation, and she, you know, has argued that she had eating disorder problems which she felt were brought on by scrolling too much Instagram. and she was interviewing Jonathan Haidt, who is, you know, sort of, The bogeyman of, of the...

Chris Messina 15:56

of, of some of these bands? Yeah.

Mike Masnick 15:58

And it was interesting because she was certainly a, huge critic of technology. and he went into the interview sort of thinking like this was his audience and his crowd, and, he talks about all the problems that he sees with technology. And about halfway through the interview, she didn't quite turn on him exactly, but she kinda pointed out, like, Your entire approach is this prohibition and banning, and that doesn't really help because it makes the technology more appealing to young people, and it never teaches us how to use it, and it does absolutely nothing to make it safer for everybody else." And he didn't quite know how to deal with that, which I thought was really interesting as well, that he just kind of, like, stumbled over it a bit. And, there was audience questions, and, and a couple other people brought up this idea of, our community, we meet people and have friends and all this stuff through our phones. They're mediated through our phones, but we've... in many cases, it's been really helpful. And he basically denied their lived experience and was just like, "Well, you know, if you didn't have social media and the phone, you would have better relationships with people around you." And I... Yeah, exactly. It's like, I don't, I don't know that that's true. There was this, this assumption that, like, phone-mediated interactions are not real. and I think we need to get past that because that's not true.

Chris Messina 17:20

I mean, a- as we've taken away, like, third spaces, you know, that are safe for kids to go in, or, you know, we vilified walking down the street, you know, as a solo teenager or teenager with friends, or there's just, like, fear about, other people. It's made it, I think, very hard for people to, like, le- and I know, like, at least, uh, again, speaking from my experience in, with my kids, like, they are happy to put the phone down and hang out with friends. They also will use their phone to find new friends. Instagram is a great place to find and discover people that share an interest in music, you know, going to concerts, things like that. And so especially if you're in some kind of school environment where there's not a lot of people who, are interested in the same things or share your values, I mean, like, these types of social platforms cut across all those divisions and allow y- like, expand the pool of people who you might discover that are actually quite compatible and quite interesting to you. And so, it just sort of feels like there's this conservatism in Haidt's approach, where it's like, "Oh, back in my day when we didn't have these devices, well, we were all so social, and we all loved each other, and we were all eg- egalitarians, and there was no racism, and there was no sexism, and everything was equal, and we just loved each other, and kumbaya, man." And you're like, "That never happened, bro." Like, that wasn't the way things were, and it's not that way now, you know? And so, like, you're kinda coming at this from this, fantastical perspective that I think isn't... I don't know. I mean, I, like, I read his book and I've listened to a lot of podcasts, and there's, like, some useful things in there. But my feeling all along, I mean, has been there's a need to figure out how we equip humans and humanity and society to meet this moment, and that we will be using these technologies for a long time to come, and that it requires people to, like, elevate themselves and to meet the moment and all the challenges that these technologies present to us, as opposed to saying, "Well, if we just, you know, minimize their use or, you know, sequester them," that somehow putting them away and only allowing a certain segment of the population to have access to them, that's the way that it's going to go well. I mean, these are, these are information tools. These are social tools, and if people and humans cannot learn to interact together with these tools, we're gonna, I think, stay pretty stuck in this, like, adolescent, juvenile, kind of moment. and I don't think it's gonna be that way forever.

Mike Masnick 19:31

Yeah. I mean, I, I do think, you know, some of this, and this is not to put it all on the parents, but, there has to be some role for the parents as well in terms of helping kids learn to use the technology well if the schools are not going to do it.

Chris Messina 19:44

I think this is a very important and, dicey topic. You know, as parents, right, there's a question for us, right? Like, what are we doing or what have we done? What tools do we make available, you know, to, to help our ki- Like, I'll give you sort of an example. as, as a relatively tech-savvy person, I'm trying to set up my 16-year-old with an Apple Cash account so they can go out and buy things. Because it turns out, like cash isn't king anymore. Uh, Apple Cash is. and so when they wanna go to like, you know, the store or whatever and get something, They'll have their phone, and they'll, they'll use it for that purpose. And there's, a process or a flow now that Apple requires a teen to have an ID in order to get, an account. And obviously, this defends against, fraud and other things like that. But the gates that we put in the way of using some of these technologies are, I think, baffling to a teen user. They don't understand the threats. They don't understand the risks. it's one thing to sort of say, "Hey, you know, you drink a lot of alcohol, you're probably gonna throw, throw up and, you know, make bad decisions." You know, you can point to like movies and things like that to show people what that looks like. On the other hand, when it comes to, technology, I think it's, it's harder to provide, uh, like a cause and effect narrative or, or to show technology and be like, "We're gonna put these parental controls on your device or on your use of, uh, you know, Instagram and things like that because we're anticipating that, you may do things that are negative or that you may be bullied or things like that." Now, I would be very interested to know, and I haven't seen any stats on this, like in terms of what the adoption of these parental controls are. Because I think the point that you're pointing to is, well, parents have some duty of care and responsibility, and I agree with that. At the same time, for every single app that exists, there's a different set of parental controls. And in fact, ChatGPT just came out with their version of ChatGPT for teens in addition to the parental controls that they launched last year. And so, you know, we're, we're a Claude household. You know, we're not really a, a ChatGPT household. So does that mean that I have to go into each one of my kids' apps and, turn on parental controls and then learn each of those systems? And again, as technically savvy people, we might be able to do that and make that work. On the other hand, for the vast majority of parents who are already stressed out and worried about it, I, I suppose maybe this is why the, the, prohibition and the ban happens because getting the time and the attention to fine-tune the controls to meet a, a, parent's values just takes too goddamn long, And like they may not even have visibility, right? 'Cause like then you talk about like Discord or other platforms that kids are spending time on, and the parents may not have a lot of visibility into what actually goes on in those places.

Mike Masnick 22:12

Yeah. Though, though, yeah, I mean, it's ha- has parental controls. All these have parental controls, but, I mean, the argument I was making was even, different than that even because, like, I agree all those things are effectively impossible to keep up with. You might have, like, on one or two apps, but you can't do parental controls on, all the apps. to me, the thing that becomes important is, being able to communicate with the kids about, like, generally understanding potential risks and also, having an open path for communication where it's just like if you come across something online that, you don't understand or is problematic, do you have someone that you feel comfortable talking to? Whether it is us, your parents, or if there's a trusted teacher at school or something along those lines, where it's not so much we're going to lock down and limit what you can do. It is like, please understand that there are potential dangers. We can't predict them all. We can't stop you from coming across all of them, but please understand that there's someone that you can talk to if you do come across these things. And to just, begin to teach them how to recognize the potential dangers.

Chris Messina 23:17

I mean, it's a really good point, and I don't think I've talked to another, enough parents, like, about this specific matter. It's like, if your kids bring you something, you know, that's like salacious or they clearly shouldn't see or shouldn't have access to, but maybe one of their friends sent it to them or it was just making the rounds, how do you greet that with, you know, curiosity and without shaming them or without blaming them? Without saying, "How could you look at this?" Like, you know, those types of responses because I think that the amount of content that, kids can be exposed to is enormous and it really is more about guiding them, I think, with, you know, support and structure and kind of like welcoming that in which requires, you know, at least when I think about my parents, like my parents were like, I think pretty aggressive about blaming me and blaming the messenger. Like if I came with a question like, "Well, what do you think about this?" And they'd be like, "Oh, how dare you," you know, "talk about drugs," you know, or something. So it requires I think parents to really have that kind of open-endedness, um, when they encounter these types of, you know, materials and I, don't know where the discourse is on that.

Mike Masnick 24:14

Yeah. No, I think it's important. I mean, one of the things that I've tried to get across, and haven't had to use this, but, like, I've expressed to my kids that, like, if they ever feel that they've come across something where they're in trouble online, to come to me and start out by saying, like, "I need help." Or like, I, I gave them a specific phrase which is, like, supposed to signal to me, too, like, "Don't be mad at me. right now I need help

Chris Messina 24:38

Yeah

Mike Masnick 24:39

I need you to scold me for this," because...

Chris Messina 24:40

In case of fire, break

Mike Masnick 24:42

Exactly. and so I find that something like that, where it's just like, "Look, Don't think that I'm going to be upset with you. come to me and be able to talk to me about it. And if you use this, it's like a signal to me, now is not the time to worry about why you got into this situation. Let's deal with the situation first." But that is, it's tricky and, like, having both parents and kids accepting that you know, feeling comfortable with that is, very difficult. I wanna move on. though this is, the next story is sort of similar kind of thing, which is that in France, they, put in place a similar social media ban, for under 15s, is sort of copying the Australia ban and, and elsewhere that is trying a ban, except that this constitutional court said, "No, you can't do that." And this was, a thing that, Emmanuel Macron rushed in. He, uh, wanted it to be his legacy, and he wanted it in place before the school year started. Um, he got it done, and then it got undone by the French Constitutional Court, which was very interesting, where they, you know, very short, very easily readable decision where they just said, "This is way too broad. and even if there is a legitimate interest," and they said, you know, "The government has a legitimate interest in protecting children, this is not the way to do it. kids have some amount of rights as well that we have to respect. And also, the only way to implement this is through universal age verification, and that creates massive privacy problems." and I think was, like, you know, it was really good to see the court come out and say that, and I think, some of the, the reasoning behind it also applies elsewhere in Europe as other countries in Europe start rushing to, try and apply this as well. What, what did you think of that, ruling

Chris Messina 26:23

Yeah. You know, I mean, there's been so many of these now, that I guess I wonder, you know, if this is a, almost like Project 2025 kind of initiative where there's model legislation that has been written and then just gets copied and pasted in all these different jurisdictions

Mike Masnick 26:35

It's, I was gonna say, it goes back to Jonathan Haidt. I mean

Chris Messina 26:38

Yeah, yeah. I guess I, I, I felt like There was like this like there was a tipping point after which there was like the narrative, and I do think like, you know, the anxious generation

Mike Masnick 26:47

Yeah

Chris Messina 26:47

cauterized, or not cauterized, like sort of like mobilized a lot of people to be like, "Oh, we must take action. We must do something." And then the, the question is, "Well, what do we do?" And then it's like ban hammer, and that became like the solution. And as a result of seeing that play out, I think a lot of the nuance and trade-offs, you know, that many of us in this space have been talking about for years now suddenly come to the fore because you're like, "Oh, well, you ban that, but now you have to implement universal age verification." And then we go to the question of, well, where, at what level of the stack does that exist? And that means now your computer is adversarial to the user because it requires you to reveal information about yourself in order for you to gain access to it. And so that is a very different sort of proposition where it's almost like a citizenship verification now. It's like age verification in order for you to use the thing that unlocks communication, unlocks commerce, unlocks all manner of different things. And yeah, I mean, just again, going back to my Apple Cash experience, you know, where it's like there had to be like an identity, card that was like taken a photograph in order to get the age verification in order to open up this Apple Cash account. Now you're talking about doing that just to allow anyone to use any kind of device, and the ways in which that can go wrong, the problems with that are, rife. And so unless you have the apparatus set up to provide support to that, you know, and in the era of like reducing government and DOGE and like things like that, you know that there's gonna be this like massive set of people that are disenfranchised because they can't get through the system because they look too old, or they type like an adult, or they don't, or they type like a child and they're 35, you know. And there's just like these false positives, and you're left in this kind of like, you know, limbo state, this, um, uh... Who was the, uh, the author that talked about being in like this purgatory? Anyways, classic story. Uh, Kafka, like a Kafkaesque sort of situation, right? Where like you just, you can't use computers because it thinks that you're like 12 when, when you're not.

Mike Masnick 28:36

Right. Yeah

Chris Messina 28:37

So, anyways, I think it's, it's good though that the, courts are pushing back to some degree, especially in these overly broad circumstances. 'Cause as we mentioned before, it's the implementation and the enforcement that ultimately imperils people who are less well-resourced. And so it's fine if you have like an absolutely like, uh, homogeneous, society or culture and it's like relatively small and, everyone agrees and has the same values, but that's just not the real world,

Mike Masnick 29:01

Yeah. No, it, it is, it is tough. It'll be interesting to see what happens with these other laws. But, was sort of pleasantly surprised that the French court was, you know, was willing to, to do this

Chris Messina 29:10

we'll, I guess we'll, we'll see, 'cause like the thing that seems to be happening in that case is that they're going to be maybe attempting again, but

Mike Masnick 29:16

Yes.

Chris Messina 29:17

set of rules, right?

Mike Masnick 29:19

And so Macron has sort of instructed the, I guess the French assembly to, figure out a way to get this through, and he wants it before he leaves office. So this is very much like tied to his legacy as opposed to necessarily like what actually works. What does, what, what actually makes sense?

Chris Messina 29:36

Is, is the guy who was like so pro tech, he's, he's sort of fallen far from that tree, I guess

Mike Masnick 29:40

Yeah. Yeah. Now speaking of kids and safety and e-everything, and also Oakland, where you were talking about the changes in the Oakland School District, this week there's a trial going on in Oakland, about kid safety. And so, uh, there there was some reporting on that. Do, do you wanna talk a little bit about the reporting that you saw?

Chris Messina 29:58

Yeah, I mean, this is another one of these, big Meta trials. It's just like, just like we have like, the Jonathan Haidt heard around the world, you know, legislation. I feel like on the other hand, there is a, let's get a pound of flesh, from these big tech companies for their years of, potential neglect, or I don't know, not caring, uh, I guess, uh, about the uses of, of their products. And I guess like I wanna be mindful that I probably sound or at least come across as more of an apologist these platforms and that's not, that's not true. I think that it's, it's, subtle and it's nuanced. And again, I guess my trauma, you know, comes from obviously the relationship with the hashtag and people being upset about like abuses of the

Mike Masnick 30:34

Yes.

Chris Messina 30:35

"Well, I never intended it for it to be used that way." And so, you know, should I be like, "Well, I should have taken it back and then, not giving people the chance to use it?" But then it turns out that people have found communities and friendships and all sorts of things. So like any technology, it is, a blade that cuts both ways and I certainly imagine that there were choices that Meta made that were completely, commercially oriented and as a public company that exists in capitalism, they were doing the thing that was necessary to stay, as a publicly traded, company and business. I think the question is, given that and given the societal harms, you know, that arose from that previous context, who then bears the responsibility and w- what do they need to do about it? And so in this case, you know, you have a researcher, like a social science researcher, you know, and when I, when I was at Google, we had a lot of these folks who were also looking into how people use social media and technology. You know, I worked on Google Plus and you find such interesting broad, like broad spectrum uses. There's so many uses that are so boring and so uninteresting and so basic and like sharing recipes, you know? That stuff is not gonna end up in someone r- someone's report, and yet it might actually be like the 70 percentile like use case. And then you have someone like this who is finding, abuse and negative things, things that humans have done to each other for a long time, perhaps both amplified and now you're able to detect it because it's happening in, in a digital substrate. And, you know, he's trying to say, "Look, you know, Meta knew about these things, should have done more about it, and therefore they're responsible." and so that's kind of I think what this trial is about, as many of the trials have been about. it raises just this, continuing question about, if you know about these things but it's a minority of cases and you also implement, child protections or parental controls, but then the parents don't use those controls or the children are not, guided by the parental figures, is it ultimately the corporation's responsibility to raise those children or to figure out how those, kids can, can or should not be able to access that technology? and I don't... Again, as a society, you know, as a free society, you know, one where civil liberties are important, I don't think we've found, the silver bullet answer yet. so that, that's, that's my read on this. But you, you tell me what am I missing?

Mike Masnick 32:36

Yeah. No. I mean, I'm, I'm sort of in, in agreement on that, and it's like I don't like Meta. I don't trust Mark Zuckerberg. I, I have all sorts of problems with, Meta's platforms, and I don't generally use them. and I have no doubt that he has made many poor choices. But, a lot of the headlines this week were about, Arturo Bejar, I think that's how you pronounce his name, um, who was sort of this whistleblower, who complained... Who said, you know, like, I did this research and I found that, people were using it in unsafe ways, and I sent all these emails to Mark Zuckerberg, and I didn't get any response." and it makes for really great headlines and really great stories, but I always-- I don't like those stories because I don't think that they're telling an, a fully accurate picture of what is going on. Because at any company, you can find, and I'm sure you've experienced this, and I've spoken to lots of people, you can find people who say, "Well, I had the solution. in my mind it was we should have done this, and the bosses didn't, and therefore that proves that they didn't care." And the reality is often somewhat different, which is that they have a bunch of different competing interests, and they have a bunch of different people saying, "Here are the best ways to deal with the safety aspects of it or to deal with these other things or these other competing interests," and they make decisions based on that. And we don't know all of the different competing things, and we can say that we personally disagree with the decisions that Mark Zuckerberg made, and I think there are lots of cases where I did. But, like, to say because this one person suggested one path, we don't know how viable that path was or what the trade-offs were or what the things were or, or, even would that approach have actually helped. So it's very easy to write these headlines, and I'm sure they work well in court, you

Chris Messina 34:27

Угу

Mike Masnick 34:28

But I find them problematic in terms of, like, using that to define the narrative, which is the same thing with, like, the Frances Haugen documents that came out originally.

Chris Messina 34:37

you know, I... The thing that I find so challenging about, these stories is, like, if Meta weren't as successful and as, like, broadly used as it is, would anybody care? And the reason why I ask that is because, you know, you look at a platform like Mastodon or Blue Sky, you know, which we've both been involved with, and maybe they didn't make, you know, similar choices that Meta made, and yet fewer people use it. And so there's this question, if you do the right thing, in quotes, and you don't do the things that optimize for growth, and you don't grow, and you don't survive, then have you succeeded in addressing the harms that, is being brought up in this trial? And so there's a question about, like, whether, you know, this research, had it been im- implemented and adopted, would've actually led to addressing those harms or whether it would've actually caused the business not to, to continue to grow, in which case, then it wouldn't have mattered anyways. Some other nefarious entity that chose to do the, other thing would've continued to grow.

Mike Masnick 35:32

all the people, right? And you can argue that it's, like more people went to TikTok because Facebook was focused on all of these, like, safety

Chris Messina 35:40

That's right.

Mike Masnick 35:40

you can say TikTok was less safe,

Chris Messina 35:42

I mean, look at like, not that I'm, I'm like... I guess I'm just using my own experience 'cause it's grounded in reality, but like with Google Plus, we gave people a lot of tools based on the things that they were saying that Facebook was doing that they didn't like. You know? So you could have what we called circles, and you could put all of your contacts into circles, and you could share specifically with just the people that you wanted to share with. And you know what? it was too hard. People didn't get it. And it turned out that they didn't wanna actually take advantage of the control. So maybe I'm, I'm somewhat cynical because the products that I've worked on where we gave people what they claimed to want in terms of control over their social and digital experiences ended up being too hard, too much work, and ultimately those things didn't survive the test of time because they didn't get adopted. And so when people complain about Meta, it's like you're complaining about humans and their choices, and yet you want the company to be responsible for just giving people what they want. And so I find that, that balance, in a capitalist context to be very challenging to sort of make sense of. You know, maybe that's why the, the, the Democratic socialists are, you know, on the rise 'cause they, they wanna try a completely different structure and okay, like

Mike Masnick 36:49

Yeah.

Chris Messina 36:50

like that would be the way to

Mike Masnick 36:51

Yeah. I mean, it is funny how, how few of these conversations take into account, like, how Wall Street would have reacted. Like, you can read the stories of, like, the downfall of Twitter, before Elon took over, where it was like... Wall Street came in and effectively threatened Jack Dorsey if he didn't implement a bunch of things that were focused on growth as opposed to actually making the platform healthier. there are all sorts of things where, like, we should have part of that be part of this discussion, not just like, oh...

Chris Messina 37:17

Yeah, 'cause I mean, their, their whole thing was healthy conversations,

Mike Masnick 37:20

Yes. Yeah.

Chris Messina 37:22

And now, now look at the platform. Now l- like, you know, it's like be careful what you wish for, right? It's like it was bought out by the guy who's the richest man in the world to turn it into something that is more like what, you know,

Mike Masnick 37:32

Yeah.

Chris Messina 37:33

built because that's what people want

Mike Masnick 37:34

Yeah. last of our eye catching stories before we go on to the Patreon section, we'll make this one quick. this is down in Brazil where Discord has had to ban live streams, down in Brazil. This is based off of a very tragic story, and as often happens in these things, there are tragic stories behind, uh, the stories where a young child, I believe 13 years old,

Chris Messina 37:58

Mm-hmm

Mike Masnick 37:59

a live stream and effectively bullied into taking their own life. And that is horrific in all sorts of ways. There's no possible way to describe that in, in a scenario that is not horrific. the people involved in the bullying to lead to that result have been arrested and, there are cases like this where I see this and you say, "This is a law enforcement issue that law enforcement should be taking care of." However, the wife of the president of Brazil took it upon herself to blame Discord specifically and said that they were not doing enough to keep people safe, and there's been an effort to say that Discord is not... there's a new law in Brazil that requires age verification and safety and all this kind of stuff, and they're arguing that they did not, do enough to protect against this kind of unique case, and therefore Discord's position is to ban all live streams in Brazil. And I understand why they would do that. I don't think that helps. I mean, it's the same conversation that we're having over and over again today in this, in this hour of, it's easy to say that and it's easy to blame the technology for it, but should be

Chris Messina 39:04

people are just going to go to a different platform. And so maybe because Discord was visible, and obviously this is like a tragedy. Like

Mike Masnick 39:10

Yeah.

Chris Messina 39:10

even imagine what it's like to be a parent of a 13-year-old that, decides, to do this or is bullied into doing this. I mean, to me it's a despicable, thing for humans to cause other humans to do, period. You know, whether it's in the real world or whether it's the digital world. The question about whether the platform is liable for this or what they could have done to prevent it, I think is, is exactly like what we've been talking about. and whether or not age verification would have actually prevented this type of situation from occurring, or if it would have happened again elsewhere or maybe in a, you know, darker alley on the internet as opposed to Discord. And so I don't know. You know, my, my heart goes out to like the, the parents involved and, and even, you know, to the perpetrators. Like how horrible must your life and self-esteem be to like treat other people this way through a digital platform? But, to your point, from... What my read of the situation is like Discord was going back and forth between, you know, I think the, the law came down and then Discord was like, "Well, we can't do age verification because of these nuances and subtleties." Then they eventually got there, and even still, you know, it didn't work out.

Mike Masnick 40:07

Yeah

Chris Messina 40:08

I think kids are gonna find a way, to use, you know, live stream. I mean, this happened on Facebook, uh, you know, when, when they started doing live streams. You know, and now they've like, you know, implemented a five-second delay or whatever, and they have AI that's trying to catch these things. But regardless, I mean, who do you call? Like, what's the 911 on the internet when something goes wrong? and that leads to all kinds of, um, what's it called when, um... Oh, swatting, right? So You know, like it can be abused in both directions. I mean, ultimately, why don't we just ban humans from using the internet and then we'll solve the problem?

Mike Masnick 40:37

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Messina 40:38

joking.

Mike Masnick 40:39

Right. There, there are solutions to all these things. You could turn off the internet, but there there might be, there

Chris Messina 40:43

Exactly.

Mike Masnick 40:44

costs. Yes, exactly. God. Well, on that note, uh,

Chris Messina 40:50

sorry. We, we, we warned you guys this was gonna be

Mike Masnick 40:52

this

Chris Messina 40:52

I don't know why I feel so dark

Mike Masnick 40:53

was g- g- gonna, gonna, be a little bit dark. Um, we are gonna move on to the Patreon-only part of the, the podcast. if you are not a Patreon subscriber, this is where we say goodbye. But, now is a good time to subscribe to the Patreon. Uh, you can use the discount code TRUSTCON, all capital letters, and you can hear the next part of the discussion we're-- in which we're going to be talking about, more potentially dark subjects, about AI companions, and mental health, and some of the attempts to regulate AI companions.. But, uh, if you're, not a Patreon subscriber, thanks for listening, and, go subscribe to the Patreon.

Chris Messina 41:32

I did it

Announcer 41:34

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