Coda Currents

Surveillance can often be tough to spot amidst the benefits of technology. For a decade or so, companies have been using voice recognition software to help direct customer service calls. But they’ve also been selling it to us under the guise of convenience. Think Siri in your car, Alexa in your kitchen. But what are they doing with all that voice data they collect? We spoke with Joseph Turow, the author of The Voice Catchers, about how companies want to know us better than we know ourselves.

QAnon has not disappeared since Donald Trump left office. It’s simply adapted, in part to avoid crackdowns on mainstream social media platforms. But the catchphrases that we typically associate with QAnon are becoming less common online.

Many people who get caught up in anti-vaccine theories don't pull themselves out. But there are a few exceptions. These people do something that doesn’t come easy to many of us. They change their minds. Coda Story’s Isobel Cockerell speaks with one woman about leaving the anti-vaccine community. Plus, there are billions of dollars to be made off of pseudoscience and anti-vaccine propaganda. So who’s making it?.

Between Covid-19 and election conspiracy theories, it feels like the golden age of disinformation. A massive disinfo network might have ties to Steve Bannon’s close associate and teaches us that disinfo online is a lot more coordinated than you might think. Plus fringe anti-censorship platforms are cropping up in Latvia, Poland and Hungary and Covid skeptics and far-right voices are quick to join.

Reining in surveillance is an uphill battle, no matter where you go in the world. Europe has a plan for regulating AI and biometric mass surveillance, but it’s full of holes and exemptions. North Carolina gave police real time access to people’s cell phone location data without a warrant. So how do you put guardrails surveillance tech that are actually effective? Host Caitlin Thompson talked with Albert Fox Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. He has some ideas.

India’s healthcare system is struggling to stay afloat as Covid-19 cases continue to rise. So young people are using social media to help total strangers find oxygen and hospital beds. We talk to them about what’s on their minds as the government tries to erase criticism of its Covid response from Twitter. Plus, Mexico wants to build a massive government database of cell phone users’ biometric data.

“Radiophobia” - a fear of radiation - has been around for a century. From mobile phones and microwaves to 5G, people have long harbored fears of risks they can’t see. And we look at why anti-Jewish prejudice is merging with pseudoscience.

Cracking down on corruption and kleptocracy helps combat global inequality, tackle a major national security concern and raise the bar for transparency worldwide. We talk with journalist Oliver Bullough about the Biden administration’s push for corporate transparency. Plus, powerful people and corrupt heads of state use awards and honors to launder their reputations.

Nearly 2,000 taxpayer-funded agencies in the US from Customs and Border Protection to police departments, and even two high schools, have used or tested a controversial facial recognition tool called Clearview AI, according to a recent Buzzfeed investigation. And in a lot of cases, the public and even higher-ups didn’t know about it. We talk to one of the Buzzfeed reporters who broke the story.

Tensions are high between Russia and Ukraine right now, and people are worried about an outright invasion. And Russian state media is fanning the flames. But what triggered this? It’s a bit of a weird story. Meanwhile, in Scotland, a bizarre number of political candidates have connections to Russian state-affiliated TV shows, like RT.