Paris Marx is joined by Spencer Ackerman to discuss the past year of Israel's actions in Palestine and the innovations in war technology being used to carry out what the ICJ has deemed a "plausible" genocide in Gaza.

Spencer Ackerman is a Pulitzer-prize winning author of Reign of Terror. He’s a contributor at Zeteo and publishes the Forever Wars newsletter. He’s also writing a new series of Iron Man comics that come out very soon.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Spencer wrote a piece marking a year since October 7 for Zeteo. He’s also written about the Lebanon pager attack and Israel’s innovation with quadcopters.
• Yuval Abraham has written about the use of AI in Gaza and how Israel is relying on US cloud companies for military purposes.
• Roberto González wrote a paper about the links between Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.

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Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the dominant players in the cloud market. Around the world, they’re building massive hyperscale data centers that they claim are necessary to power the future of our digital existence. But they also increase their power over other companies and come with massive resource demands communities are getting fed up with. Is their future really the one we want? This is episode 1 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Won’t Save Us.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Senior cloud consultant Dwayne Monroe and Associate Professor in Economics Cecilia Rikap were interviewed for this episode.
• Interviews with Jeff Bezos and The Oregonian journalist Mike Rogoway were cited.

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Paris Marx is joined by Karl Bode to discuss how Mark Zuckerberg's makeover and the PR campaign that’s accompanied it shouldn’t distract from the ongoing harms of his company.

Karl Bode is a freelance tech journalist and consumer rights reporter.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Paris wrote about the problem with the “Zuckessance” for Disconnect.
• The New York Times published an article about the political evolution of Mark Zuckerberg.
• Facebook’s Free Basics was widely called out for being a form of digital colonialism.
• Joel Kaplan was a key figure within Facebook defending right-wing content from effective moderation.
• Neil Postman wrote the book Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985.

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Paris Marx is joined by Tamara Kneese to discuss the difficult question of what happens to our digital presence after we die and why some tech billionaires are so desperate to make themselves into chatbots.

Tamara Kneese is a researcher, organizer, and author of Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Tamara wrote some pieces on AI and death for Wired and The Baffler.

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Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss the recent ruling that Google is a monopolist, what consequences it might face, and what lessons we can learn from the Microsoft antitrust case in the early 2000s.

Rob Larson is the author of Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More and Professor of Economics at Tacoma Community College.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Rob has written about the Google antitrust case and its likely outcomes.
• Paris also wrote about why it won’t solve the problems with the internet.
• Watch a highlight reel of Bill Gates' deposition on YouTube.
• Google has been deemed to have an illegal monopoly in online search.
• A second trial over Google’s monopolistic position in the online ads market is ongoing.
• The Obama administration let Google off the hook a decade ago.
• Some tech billionaire donors are pushing Kamala Harris to remove Lina Khan as head of the Federal Trade Commission if she becomes president.

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Paris Marx is joined by Matt Pearce to discuss how Google sidestepped two California bills aimed at funding journalism and how major tech companies are transforming the web to make hyperlinks less relevant.

Matt Pearce is the President of Media Guild of the West and a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Matt wrote about the disingenuous arguments against the California Journalism Preservation Act and the changing nature of hyperlinks online.
• Google sidestepped the two California bills to carve out a separate deal that includes funding for an AI initiative.
• When you compare per capita public broadcast funding across wealthy nations, Canada is near the bottom, but the United States is barely on the chart.
• Google will distribute $100 million to news publishers in Canada after a bargaining process there.
• Digital media companies have been doing layoffs and shutting down in droves.
• The New York Times used AI to assist in identifying the deadly weapons Israel is using against the people of Gaza.
• The Media Ecosystem Observatory looked at the effects of Meta's news ban on its platforms in Canada.

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Paris Marx is joined by Taylor Welling and Kathryn Friesen to discuss how they formed wall-to-wall unions in the video game industry and their thoughts on broader challenges like layoffs and corporate consolidation.

Taylor Welling is a producer and union member at OneBGS and Kathryn Friesen is quest designer and member of the World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• OneBGS and the World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild each won their union votes in July 2024.
• More video game workers have already been laid off in 2024 than did in all of 2023.
• Microsoft and the Communication Workers of America signed a labor neutrality agreement in 2022, to take effect 60 days after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard closed. In May, that agreement was extended to ZeniMax Studios.
• Microsoft laid off 1,900 gaming workers in January and closed four internal studios in May.
• Blizzard provides swords, shields, and helmets to employees celebrating 5, 10, and 20 years at the company.
• The ZeniMax Workers Union struck an agreement with their employer on the use of AI.
• Nicole Carpenter at Polygon put together a list of video game unions and an explainer on the rise of video game unions.
• Communication Workers of America has more information on unionizing as part of their CODE-CWA campaign.

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Paris Marx is joined by Mohammad Khatami and Gabi Schubiner to discuss the complicity of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and how tech workers are organizing to stop it.

Mohammad Khatami and Gabi Schubiner are former Google software engineers and organizers with No Tech for Apartheid.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Find out more about No Tech for Apartheid from their website. Microsoft workers have also launched No Azure for Apartheid.
• Yuval Abraham reported on the Israeli military’s use of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft’s cloud services and AI in Gaza.
• Mohammad wrote about being fired by Google in The New Arab.
• Gabi refers to JWCC, with is a reference to the Department of Defense Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle.
• Google fired 50 workers earlier this year for organizing over its ties to Israel.
• The Information reported on how many Arab Americans in tech are scared to speak out in support of Palestinians for fear of retaliation.
• In 1970, Polaroid workers under the banner of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement began the first anti-apartheid boycott of a US company by organizing against their employer’s complicity in South African apartheid.
• The IBM Black Workers Alliance was central to the anti-apartheid campaign at that company.

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Paris Marx is joined by Molly White to discuss why the crypto industry is spending millions on this election cycle and Coinbase’s potential breach of election finance law.

Molly White writes the Citation Needed newsletter. She is the creator of Web3 Is Going Just Great and Follow the Crypto.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Molly wrote about the Coinbase campaign finance violation and Donald Trump’s Bitcoin conference speech in her newsletter.
• Paris wrote about some of the concerns about Kamala Harris’ stance on tech.
• Fairshake spent $10 million on attacks ads against Katie Porter in California. It spent millions more targeting Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.
• The crypto industry hates SEC head Gary Gensler, who is leading the regulatory effort against cryptocurrency.

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Paris Marx is joined by Hussein Kesvani to discuss the far-right attacks that happened after the Southport stabbing in the UK and how larger structural issues in media, politics, and tech laid the groundwork for violence against visible minorities.

Hussein Kesvani is a co-host of Trashfuture and Ten Thousand Posts.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• The stabbing in Southport resulted in the deaths of three children and injuries to eight children and two adults.
• After days of far-right attacks, there were large anti-fascist and anti-racist demonstrations across the UK.
• Some fascists attacked hotels housing asylum seekers, but in places like Bristol, locals started defending the hotels.
• In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell delivered the “rivers of blood” speech.
• Elon Musk has been sharing a series of incendiary posts and false information that have helped fuel these attacks.
• The billionaire’s changes to Twitter have helped fuel right-wing misinformation.

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