President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance who had been convicted for violating anti-money laundering laws, after months of Zhao boosting Trump’s own crypto company. The crypto industry has really nailed the path to Trump’s heart: it was something Joe Biden didn’t like, and it feeds directly to the president’s bottom line. 

Guest: Alex Kirshner, contributing writer at Slate.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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One legacy of the internet is the millions of subcultures that it helps flourish. Another is pornography—and lots of it. At a “gooner meet-up,” the two collide. 

Guest: Daniel Kolitz, author of “The Goon Squad” for Harper’s Magazine.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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For years, conservatives claimed that the Biden administration was pressuring tech companies to censor conservative speech with no solid evidence. 

In Trump 2.0, the administration is explicitly bragging about doing the very same thing they accused democrats of. What gives? 

Guest: Renée DiResta, Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and author of “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality”

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This week’s AWS outage illustrates just how fragile and vulnerable our interconnected world really is—and how far we’ve fallen from the vision of a decentralized internet. 

Guest: Samanth Subramanian, author of “The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables That Connect Our World.”

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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Paying a fraction of a penny per stream and diminishing the value of music were bad enough for Xiu Xiu, but when Spotify owner Daniel Ek announced an investment in a German defense contractor, they decided it was time to take the music back.

Guest: Jamie Stewart, musician in the band Xiu Xiu.

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As Trump throws out journalists and outlets that report anything negative about him, he’s limiting access to a group of right-wing influencers who work to further his agenda.

Guest: Makena Kelly, tech and politics writer for WIRED.

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At this very moment, police departments can gather more data than they have time to actually go through — audio and video from crime scenes, cell phone and search data, vast digital dragnets. This is where artificial intelligence comes in…as well as the civil rights questions.

Guest: Gerrit De Vynck, tech reporter for the Washington Post.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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Though ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied their Freedom of Information Act requests, these journalists aren’t giving up without a fight—not until they get their hands on a document that outlines how much information Medicaid is sharing with ICE.

Guest: Joseph Cox, cofounder of 404 Media. 

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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How one of the largest video game companies was bought for $55 billion by a group that includes Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and Jared Kushner.

Guest: Jason Schreier, Bloomberg reporter

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TikTok exploded to popularity not by giving users what they asked for—but by figuring out what users really were interested in, and serving that. 

What happens to this algorithm if Bytedance cedes control of it to the U.S.? 

Guest: Emily Baker White, senior writer at Forbes and the author of Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over TikTok

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