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Slate
Technology writer for Slate Magazine.
PROFILE
April Glaser
Guest
FROM April Glaser
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Mark Zuckerberg testifies on Capitol Hill Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees today. He answered hard questions on user privacy and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which swept up data from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission. There was also the issue of fake news spreading on Facebook during the 2016 election. Dozens of cardboard cutouts of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are seen during an Avaaz.org protest outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., April 10, 2018. (REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein)
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
As more Facebook revelations emerge, will users stop sharing? We learned this week that 87 million users might have had their data compromised in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The original estimate was 50 million. Facebook also secretly deleted Mark Zuckerberg's chats on Messenger, and it requested patient data from hospitals. What does all this mean for our lives on social media?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
FTC takes a closer look at Facebook Facebook stock is down again today, as concerns about the company’s handling of user data keep growing. There’s the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where user information was improperly used to help the Trump campaign. Now there’s word that Facebook has been logging and tracking some Android users’ phone calls and messages. The Federal Trade Commission and European regulators are looking into Facebook’s actions.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and the Trump campaign Fifty million people on Facebook had their identities harvested for political purposes. We find out how a professor in Britain was able to convince Facebook to let him run an experiment on its users without their knowledge, and how that information winded up at a company called Cambridge Analytica -- run by Steve Bannon and funded by conservative Robert Mercer.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Trump meets with video game makers amid concern about school violence President Trump hosted a meeting today about the link between video games and violence. Two people from the gaming industry had seats at the table, including an executive from the company behind Grand Theft Auto. The rest of the group was made up of people who link gaming to aggression and violence, including members of parental watch groups and politicians. This conversation seems to pop up every time there’s a school shooting. But researchers haven’t found conclusive links between video games and acts of violence in real life.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
With $1 billion buy of smart doorbell 'Ring,' Amazon expands its empire Amazon yesterday bought the Santa Monica-based company Ring for $1 billion. Ring makes high tech doorbells. When someone comes to your home, you can see who it is on your smartphone or computer. Ring’s founder Jamie Siminoff pitched the idea on Shark Tank five years ago, but judges rejected it. What does this purchase mean for Amazon’s empire, and consumer privacy?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Facebook changes news feed to stop the spread of fake news Facebook appears to be doing some soul searching amid increasing pressure to address the spread of fake news on its platform. This month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg rolled out changes to the newsfeed algorithm that he thinks might help fix this problem. But will it actually work?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Can the head of Expedia turn Uber around? After more than two months, Uber has picked a new CEO to replace its ousted founder. The new man is current Expedia chief Dara Khosrowshahi. He’ll replace Travis Kalanick, who was forced to resign amid a slew of lawsuits, allegations of intellectual property theft, and lots of talk of a sexist workplace culture. Expedia, on the other hand, was named one of the best places to work in tech by Fortune magazine.
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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.
Bookworm
Morgan Parker: There Are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé Morgan Parker says that the poems in her book There Are Things More Beautiful than Beyoncé take a stand against the clichés of the dominant culture.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Why did Jared Kushner want a back channel with Russians? News broke Friday that President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, tried setting up a back channel between the Trump transition team and the Russian government. What are the consequences for Kushner, President Trump, and the investigation into Russian meddling?
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."