What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future Slate Magazine

It’s been 22 years since the federal government last brought a meaningful legal challenge to a big tech company. Back then, when the Justice Department sued Microsoft, the outcome changed the direction of the company for years to come. Now, the Department of Justice is coming for Google. Can the search giant resist this challenge to its role as the gatekeeper of the internet?

Guest: Tony Romm, technology reporter at the Washington Post

Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg held up Holocaust denial as an example of the type of speech that would be protected on Facebook. The company wouldn’t take down content simply because it was incorrect. This week, Facebook reversed that stance. Is this decision the first step toward a new way of policing speech on the social network?

Guest: Evelyn Douek, Lecturer at Harvard Law School and affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Over the last decade, born from the chaos of the 2008 financial crisis, automated tenant screening has grown into a billion-dollar industry. Now, nine out of 10 landlords rely on automated tenant-screening reports, scraped from eviction history, criminal background records, and terror watchlists, to decide if they can trust potential renters. The problem? Often, the reports contain major errors, mistaken identities, and criminal records that are supposed to be expunged. Can these reports really be trusted?

Guest: Lauren Kirchner, investigative reporter at The Markup

Original reporting with Matthew Goldstein, reporter at The New York Times 

Host
Celeste Headlee
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, Spanish-speaking voters in Florida have been exposed to a steady uptick in falsities and conspiracy theories. This misinformation is shared in WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups, and YouTube channels, then amplified by enormously popular local radio stations. Now there are signs that the flood of misinformation is having an effect. Groups that voted Democrat in 2016 seem to be leaning to the right.

Will this onslaught of misinformation tilt the Latino vote in Florida? And if so, what does that mean for Florida’s 29 electoral votes?

Guest: Eduardo Gamarra, professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University.
 
Host
Celeste Headlee
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As of Sept. 24, there are 42 vaccines in clinical trials on humans. At least 92 others are being developed but have not yet gone to trial. For months, the world has tracked the progression of these vaccines closely, with the expectation that once one arrives on the market, we can finally start to go back to normal. But, is that true? Does the world really look much different with an effective vaccine?

Guest: Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Host
Celeste Headlee
 
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For pregnant women in the U.S., there are plenty of reasons to mistrust the medical establishment. Mortality rates are high compared to other western countries, and one-third of women in the U.S. give birth by C-section. It’s no wonder that many women turn to the internet for alternatives.
 
This week, the story of one woman who was drawn into a network of private Facebook groups dedicated to the idea of ‘freebirth,’ or unassisted birth. And what happens when the misinformation shared in these private groups has real-life consequences.
 
Guest: Brandy Zadrozny, reporter for NBC News. You can read her reporting on ‘freebirth’ here. 
 
This episode originally aired in March 2020

  
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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