Transcript

Alix: [00:00:00] This is Gotcha. A four part series on scams, how they work and how technology is supercharging them. Lana: Every single time there's a change in our communicative technology. There are new forms of illicit commercial activity. Mark: The defining feature of that system is basically a way for wealthy people to control their money with impunity Cory: platforms start to hemorrhage users, and then they panic, although they call it pivoting. Cory: And they do all kinds of really dumb shit. Bridget: And we're taught that it's good because we're all, you know, doing it together. Alix: We've got Mark Hays on cryptocurrencies, Bridget Read on multi-level marketing, Alice Marwick and Lana Swartz on their scam, GPT primer. And finally, Cory Doctorow wrote on his upcoming book in ification, Alice: if you go to X, you're seeing porn, you're seeing crypto ads, you're seeing like supplements. Alice: You're seeing all of these like scam adjacent things. Alice: I Bridget: mean, it is literally. A story about [00:01:00] exploitation and selling that exploitation. Mark: Actually, what you are creating is a global virtual, always on 24 7 offshore financial system accessible to anyone anywhere. Lana: Looking at a history of scams is really looking at a shadow history of the economy and a shadow history of our communication systems. Bridget: All of it is to obfuscate the fundamental relationship of, you know, labor and capital.