- Social:
Reply All
Co-host of Reply All, a podcast about the Internet; former producer for WNYC's On the Media and co-host of the podcast TLDR
PROFILE
Alex Goldman
Guest
FROM Alex Goldman
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Is the Amazon business getting shadier? There are some Amazon devotees who’ve notice changes at the site. They say it doesn’t feel as friendly as it used to be, some products don’t arrive as promised, and quality can be an issue. The gang that produces the Reply All podcast is in that camp. They tried to find out what -- if anything -- had changed at Amazon.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Are sellers on Amazon getting shadier? Amazon says it sold more than 100 million items during its Prime Day sale. But there are some Amazon devotees who say the site doesn’t feel as friendly as it used to be, some products don’t arrive as promised, and quality can be an issue. The gang that produces the Reply All podcast is in that camp, and they tried to find out what - if anything - had changed at Amazon.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Podcaster trolls his scammer all the way to India We all get voicemails from scammers trying separate us from our money. One podcast producer didn’t hit delete. He called back repeatedly until he had something close to a friendship with the man trying to scam him.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Reply All: Internet Roundup During the coverage of yesterday’s Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo, a lot of news organizations avoided showing the controversial cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Then conservative commentators took issue, saying those same news organizations have no problem publishing photos that are offensive to Christians. So the Associated Press went into their archives and started pulling photos from decades ago. Did they make the right call? That and more in our weekly Internet roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Journalism v. Trolling With “Reply All” The line between journalism and Internet trolling can get blurry at times. The latest example comes in the wake of Rolling Stone magazine’s flawed UVA rape story. The magazine admitted last week that it shouldn’t have published the account of a woman who says she was gang-raped at a fraternity. While many journalists are using this to point out why reporters must always follow well-established standards, others are exploiting the story to get clicks by any means necessary.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Racism Vigilantes and the Man Who Broke the Internet Racism: it’s bad. And there are people on the Internet who want to put an end to it. That’s good, right? Well, it depends how you go about it. We talk about how one site went awry. Also, the inventor of online pop-up ads apologizes...and more, in our weekly Internet roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Ferguson and the Value of Social Media The stories coming out of Ferguson, Missouri, didn’t only dominate headlines this week. They also dominated our Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, replacing cat pictures with images of angry protestors and burning cars. This is no surprise: Any time a controversial story like this blows up, the debate moves online. But is social media creating a healthy national dialogue or exacerbating divisions?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Bill Cosby’s Twitter Fail and Kim Kardashian’s Win The power of the internet is undeniable: A few tweets can turn a random bag boy into an instant celebrity or destroy a politician’s career. And when brand-names and celebrities try to harness that power, they run the risk of an epic backfire. The latest person to learn that painful lesson is none other than Bill Cosby. We hear about that, how Kim Kardashian is raking in tens of billions of dollars with a free app, and other news from the World Wide Web.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Calling Out Catcallers You’re walking down the street, and someone randomly shouts out that you’re hot. If you’re a guy, you might think that sounds pretty great. But for women who field catcalls every day, it can veer into harassment. And there’s a video making the rounds online that tries to prove that point. In our weekly Internet roundup, we discuss what the video shows and other new web news.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Is the Internet Ever Really Anonymous? Sometimes you need to get something off your chest...but where do you turn? You can’t brag about a new job opportunity of Facebook because your current boss might see it. You can’t tweet about your infidelities because your spouse would see it. So you might turn to Whisper, the app that promises anonymity and encourages you to share your deepest, darkest secrets. The only problem: It might not be as anonymous as advertised. Alex Goldman and P.J. Vogt discuss that and other online news in our weekly Internet roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Drought Tattletale Apps Today in our weekly tech news roundup, we look at new apps that let Southern California neighbors secretly turn each other in to the authorities for wasting water. We also look at Facebook’s new embrace of anonymity, and how Hong Kong protesters avoided the Internet while organizing.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
“Yes Means Yes” App California’s new “yes means yes” law for college campuses is an effort to cut down on unwanted sexual aggression by making sure both parties consent to any and all romantic contact. There are disagreements as to how effective the new law may be. But fear not: A new app is here to help. We discuss that and other internet-related news with the guys from the TLDR podcast.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
A Hoax Within a Hoax Internet sleuths are still trying to figure out the latest hoax to hit with web. It appears to be a hoax within a hoax involving Emma Watson, 4CHAN, and a letter to President Obama. We talk about that, and how people are being fooled into cooking their iPhones in their microwaves.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The New iOS and the U2 Backlash Today’s a big day for iPhone users: The new operating system, ios 8, is out ready for installation….unless you have an iphone 4s. Some tech experts are saying the new features will make your phone slow down. The gang from the TLDR podcast joins us to talk about that and why a free U2 album made everyone so mad.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The Internet Takes On Domestic Abuse The reaction to the Ray Rice abuse story took many forms on social media: There was outrage and anger, of course, and calls for the firing of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. It also raised a conversation about abuse victims, and why they often decide to stay with their abusers. We talk about that in our weekly web roundup. We also discuss today’s “internet slowdown” activism.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Reddit, Sexting, and Hacked Celebrity Photos One of the only places on the internet providing access to the hacked celebrity nude photos yesterday was Reddit. But the site’s rules say users aren’t allowed to post “personal info”. Aren’t nude photos “personal info”? We take a look at the culture of Reddit, and we discuss whether an “abstinence only” approach to sexting is realistic.
Recommended
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Gov. Jerry Brown: California and China will fight climate change together President Donald Trump reportedly wants the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, and he’s expected to announce a decision soon. California Governor Jerry Brown heads to China to strengthen climate and clean energy ties.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Terrorism in London: Lessons for the US This weekend’s terrorist attack in London left seven people dead and almost 50 injured. London police fatally shot the attackers, and ISIS claimed responsibility.
The Business
In 'Speechless,' Scott Silveri combines comedy, family & disability Scott Silveri has written and produced sitcoms for more than 20 years. In all that time, he never encountered a TV family that looked anything like the one he grew up in -- with a mom, a dad...and a brother with cerebral palsy. He changed that with his show Speechless on ABC. Silveri tells us about looking to his own past for stories, and why he was determined to make a family comedy and not just a "disability show."
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Accusations of lying fly between James Comey and White House During his testimony Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey accused President Trump and other White House officials of lying when they said the FBI was in disarray and its staff had lost confidence in him. President Trump’s lawyer said Comey was wrong -- that the president never asked for his loyalty, and never asked him to back off the investigation into former NSA director Michael Flynn.