VPNs have topped the charts this week, after major adult websites blocked Australian users. Several of these most popular VPNs are free, but at what cost?

Plus, fake videos of the war in Iran have been circulating online. How do we tell what's real from what's not?

Also, the Macbook Neo. It runs on an iPhone chip, is remarkably cheap, and comes in a variety of colours. Has Apple become fun again?

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Benjamin Law's episode of Compass, Outsourcing Our Souls, will be out on Sunday 15th of March.

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GUESTS:

Michael Cowling — Professor of Educational Technology at RMIT and Director of the Hub for Apple Platform Innovation. AKA Professor Tech, and you can find his YouTube channel here.

Tobias Venus — technology and travel journalist, and video producer at tobygv.tv. His YouTube channel is here.

This episode was produced on the lands of the Burramattagal people.

A US government official has called Anthropic a national security risk, after the company drew ethical lines around its technology being used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. How comfortable would you be with AI firing missiles?

Plus, Facebook's parent company, Meta, sold seven million pairs of AI-enabled Ray-Ban last year. And now they want to add facial recognition. How will that change public spaces?

And, Microsoft tried to ban the word 'microslop'. It didn't go well.

GUESTS:

• Seamus Byrne — tech reporter and PhD research candidate with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Automated Decision Making & Society.
• Hannah Geremia — digital content editor at Whistleout Singapore.

New research about the social media platform X suggests that just a few weeks on what used to be Twitter can shift political attitudes AND the effects can last long after we log off. So is it really possible to use these sites at all without being affected by the system?

Plus, Australia's planned AI advisory body has been scrapped after 15 months of preparation. It's been replaced by the Australian AI Safety Institute. What does this mean for AI regulation?

And, scientists have found a way to make 3D printed guns traceable.

GUESTS:

• Seamus Byrne, tech reporter and PhD research candidate.
• Erica Mealy, senior lecturer of computer science at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

This episode was produced on the lands of the Burramattagal people.

AI is sliding into game development pipelines, but the rules around telling players what is machine-made and what is made by people are patchy at best. So, how much transparency do players deserve, and does it even matter?

Also on the program, how the RAM shortage is impacting the price of game consoles. And, why VR is better suited to the medical and training fields than replacing the open-plan office.

GUESTS: 

• Chloe Appleby, games curator at the Powerhouse Museum. 
• Alex Kidman, freelance technology journalist at Alex Reviews Tech.

This episode was produced on the lands of the Burramattagal people.

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If you liked this episode, you might like to check out our previous episode about whether a dating app for games could be the solution for that indecision of what to start next. You can find the link here.

The Winter Olympics is using drones, AI and cloud-based broadcasting to track curling stones, freeze mid-air jumps, even talk to an official Winter Olympics chatbot. It’s turning sports spectatorship into something more high tech than ever before. Is it likely to be used in other sports?

Plus, a battle is being waged in court between a 20-year-old and Meta/YouTube. The argument is over whether Meta and YouTube's social media sites are engineered to be intentionally addictive. What precedent will this set if the case is successful?

GUESTS:

• Chris Berg, professor of economics at RMIT. 
• David Braue, technology journalist at Information Age. 

If you want to get in touch, you can contact us at [email protected]

This episode was produced on Dharug and Burramattagal land.

Having an AI agent act as your personal executive assistant may seem like a sweet deal, but security experts have a few concerns.

Also on the program, Moltbook is a new social media platform specfically designed for AI agents to chat. So far, they’ve started a religion, made their own scripture and called for humanity’s downfall. What happens when we anthropomorphise binary code? 

And, the dead internet theory used to be a fringe conspiracy theory. But AI is getting us closer and closer to it being a reality. So, how much of the internet is still occupied by humans?

GUESTS:

• Kai Riemer, professor of information technology at University of Sydney, and and director of Sydney Executive Plus.
• Tegan Jones, deputy editor at SmartCompany and co-host of Weird Tech.

TikTok has finally struck a deal to avoid being banned in the United States. Their privacy policy also got a controversial update. So, who owns US TikTok now? And what difference will it make to users?

Also on the program, there’s a new social media site going viral – Upscrolled. What is this Australian-owned site, exactly? 

And finally, OpenAI is trialling ads on ChatGPT. The company’s CEO Sam Altman once said including ads would be a last resort. So does this mean the company is financially unstable? And what kind of data would they share with advertisers?

Gianfranco references this The Information article about OpenAI burning through $115 billion through 2029.

GUESTS:

• Meg Coffey, digital strategist and founder of State of Social.  
• Gianfranco Di Giovanni, ABC Radio Perth content director and an arts, gaming and tech reporter.

This episode was produced on Gadigal land.

Plus! Social media site Digg is back. For those who remember, it may feel like returning to what was good about the internet. Is this the sign of a new era for social media? And how long can it hold out being monetised?

Also, why gaming in a group, even publicly... outside, is becoming more popular.

GUESTS:

• Phoebe Toups Dougas, associate professor of human-centred computing in the Exertion Games Lab at Monash University.
• Fergus Halliday, journalist at Whistleout and reviews.org Australia.

This episode of Download This Show was produced on Gadigal land.

After weeks of trying to audit, delete, and lock down her digital life, Rae hits the big, uncomfortable question: what if you can’t opt out of the internet, even if you really want to?

In the final episode of Opt Out, Rae speaks with Jathan Sadowski, senior lecturer at Monash University and proud Luddite, about how surveillance creeps into everyday life — from smart cars to smart locks — and why 'just logging off' is a privilege most people don’t actually have. Then she sits down with Carly Kind, Australia’s Privacy Commissioner, to ask what protections exist here, where the gaps are, and what power individuals really have to push back.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.

Every time you click 'accept' online, you’re legally agreeing to something. The problem is… you probably have no idea what that something is.

In episode four of Opt Out, Rae tackles the fine print: the privacy policies and terms and conditions we all scroll past because life is short and the language is cooked. She speaks with Dr Katharine Kemp, privacy law expert and associate professor at UNSW, about how digital 'consent' works in Australia, and why companies can legally do things with your data you’d probably never agree to if it was written in plain English.

Then Rae talks to Dr Sky Croeser from Curtin University about what happens when people do try to opt out, and why the internet is designed to make that as hard as possible. Surprisingly, it’s not all bleak: there are corners of the web doing things differently, and they’re worth knowing about.

Opt Out is Download This Show's five-part series following Rae as she attempts to take back control of her online life — auditing, deleting, and locking down her own digital life, one step at a time, so you can too.

Technical production by Riley Mellis.