Attention Control with Kevin Newman

Big Tech is a bi-weekly podcast that explores how emerging technologies are reshaping the world as we know it. Co-hosts David Skok and Taylor Owen, an AC regular, sit down with leading scholars, policy makers and entrepreneurs, to discuss technology's impact on society - for better or worse. 

Season 2 is available now.

 

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In our series wrap, we trace the history of fake news. We start in 15th century Europe and end in the here and now. We talk to Dr. Jacob Soll who says that the cure to misinformation is more journalism. Society needs what it lost years ago: a strong fourth estate with a local presence. 

 

Sources: Quartz, CNN, Fox News

This episode, we talk to Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith about platforms and privacy - about whether his government will stand-up to big tech. We also talk to friend-of-the-pod, Taylor Owen about the rise of the so-called “splinternet”, a world wide web that looks different depending upon your zip code.

Forty days later and the ballots are in: Canada will be helmed by a Liberal minority. In this episode, we look back at those forty days and ask -- how did we do in this age of disinformation? Did our institutions weather the storms? McGill’s Taylor Owen gives us his take of the election campaign. We then speak to Farhaan Ladhani of Digital Public Square who has an idea of where engaged citizens need to go next.

This episode, we break down the rising “intangible economy”, what our guest Jim Balsillie says is our shared future. We learn what it is, what it values and who it rewards. We also visit StatsCanada and discover why the race to regulate is so fierce. We do what’s never been done before and put a price on Canadian data... The number is big.

We’ve all heard about the impact Facebook had on the 2016 US election — but how much do we really know about what was going on? In this episode we talk to people at the centre of the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal and ask if psychological profiling really works. And if voters in Canada are being targeted. We also look at the darker side of online targeting —the thousands of abusive tweets hurled at women and candidates of colour and how it impacts our democracy.

The internet can be a toxic place. Rumours spread like wildfire and put-downs are common parlance. In this episode, we dive into the chaos and ask, who shares false posts and why? Who enjoys a good Twitter spat? We talk to prominent behavioural scientists who say that public discourse and social equality are linked. People f*** shit up online because they feel hard-done-by. They repost fake news stories because the internet enables lazy thinking. Tune in to learn how we can tackle both problems.

Since 2014, the number of fact checking outlets worldwide has quadrupled. In this past year alone, we saw a 26% increase in fact checking activity. In this episode, we put the issue to Taylor Owen and meet one of Facebook’s few fact checkers allowed to speak about his work: that’s Will Moy, CEO of Full Fact UK. 

 

Clip sources: CTV, CBC, CNN

Canadian intelligence agencies are warning that China is among the foreign countries that may try to interfere Canada's election. As protests against the regime spike during the 70th anniversary of China's Communist revolution this week, we speak with Vancouver pro-democracy activist Fenella Sung and a former Canadian diplomat about how the Chinese state may be using Mandarin-language social media to mount hidden campaigns in Canada.

Kevin sits down with a former political insider who had enough with the way Canadian political parties used our data to manipulate our votes. And Francesca Fionda, AC’s investigative correspondent picks up the phone and finds out what our parties really do know about us.