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Transcript

It's Not My Birthday · Stuff Keeps Happening

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Hello. Well, the rain fell down without my help.
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But stuff still happened. So what's up? It must
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be my birthday. It's not my birthday. But it
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might as well be. There's been a lot of tech
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lawsuits over the past couple of weeks. Let's
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talk about them. Lawsuits and general tech oligarchs
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just kind of eating shit. It's been good. It
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hasn't been good. Let me have this. First up,
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we've got a couple of big lawsuits against Google
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and Metta regarding Instagram and YouTube, and
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really just the social networks that these companies
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make in general. Now, there's been a lot of lawsuits
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against social media companies trying to get
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at them for the whole making the world a worse
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place thing, both the whole like disinformation
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and people... posting things they shouldn't be
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posting, and using features of their websites
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to undress children, stuff like that. But a lot
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of these lawsuits that have come after social
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media companies have gotten wrapped up in Section
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230, which is essentially this concept that shields
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social media companies from being responsible
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for what their users post on their website. The
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idea being that, like, oh, it was the user, not
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the company. Like, the company didn't say horrible
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racist things, a user posted that. and just because
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the company hosted that horrible racism doesn't
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mean that they're liable. There's a combination
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of fear and uncertainty and terror and confusion
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around Section 230, and largely tech companies
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should start throwing that around the second
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that they're targeted by a lawsuit because they're
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like, oh, if Section 230 goes away, that's the
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end of social media, which, I mean, on one hand...
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good. On the other hand, not really. That's not
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really what would happen. But on the other other
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other hand, like I'm not saying we should just
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get rid of Section 230. It would be great if
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we could kind of rework it, but that's not what's
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happening here. What's exciting about these lawsuits
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is that they are not Section 230. They are instead
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going after these companies for making bad products.
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Not just like a product that doesn't work, like
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a product that is actively harmful. So one lawsuit
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found that apps like Instagram and YouTube are
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intentionally designed to be addictive. They
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keep you scrolling, they hack your brain, they
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use neuroscience to get you, right? And that's
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true. We've known that for a long time. The infinite
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scrolling feed is specifically so that you don't
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leave the app. You know, if it wasn't an infinitely
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scrolling feed, then you would get to the bottom
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of a page and you would have a button to click
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to go to the next page. And every time that you're
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given the option to go to the next page, you
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are implicitly given the option to stop. But
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if you just keep scrolling, and there's never
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a break, you're not going to be prompted for
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that. Now, infinite scrolling feeds themselves
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are not the problem here. The problem here has
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a whole lot more to do with designing algorithms
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to pull people in and manipulate them so that
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they'll spend more time on the platform so they
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can sell more ads. And so a court found that,
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yes, the design of these apps are intentionally
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done with malice. Like, to fuck with people.
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For money. The other lawsuit is also about meta,
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but it has more to do with decision making within
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meta. intentionally choosing to design their
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products in a dangerous way. It came out in court
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that there's a whole bunch of decision making
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going on behind the scenes at Metta that basically
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can summarize to... Don't put that protection
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in place because we might not make as much money.
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That second lawsuit was brought by the New Mexico
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Department of Justice. Here is a quote from their
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press release after they won the lawsuit. Evidence
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from those witnesses and other industry experts
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also demonstrated that Metta intentionally designs
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its platforms to addict young people, and contrary
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to Metta's public commitments, expose them to
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dangerous content related to eating disorders
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and self -harm. The reason I brought up Section
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230 at the outset here is because these cases
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don't have anything to do with them, and that
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is a pivot from what we've seen so far. A lot
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of these tech companies have just brushed off
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these lawsuits, but now, We've learned that giants
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can bleed. More lawsuits like this can easily
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be lobbed at them. These were civil suits paying
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out to individual plaintiffs. So we are about
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to see a whole lot more of these, and possibly
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a whole lot more lawsuits that are going after
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these companies from other angles. Because after
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years and years of these companies hosting disinformation,
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and worse, having algorithms that cause disinformation
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to get increased engagement artificially, it
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feels like maybe we need to do something. and
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it feels like maybe, if you are a social media
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company, you should be somewhat responsible for
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the impact that you are having on society. But
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let's talk about Elon Musk, who also got a few
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defeats recently. Quick background, Elon Musk
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runs a porn site called Twitter, and Twitter
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is an interesting porn site because it's uniquely
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labeled as not a porn site in the app stores.
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This is despite Elon Musk's porn website having
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an AI on it that can undress people. Including
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children. So there's been that whole thing I've
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talked about that a few times and they've been
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hit by a lot of lawsuits for it because obviously
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But now Amsterdam is coming out swinging as Dutch
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officials have hit Musk with an order saying
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Stop that they're basically saying you can't
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keep having this thing Be a thing while operating
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here and so for every day that you continue hosting
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a robot that can undress children We're gonna
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fine you This comes just as Musk also had one
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of his lawsuits from 2024 thrown out of court.
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Back in 2024, after he took over Twitter, a bunch
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of advertisers pulled out of advertising because,
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again, obviously, he did that whole thing where
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he just changed what check marks are and then
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it was chaos for these companies. So they were
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like, we're not going to do this anymore. To
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which Musk was like, you all are doing an organized
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boycott against me. And that's illegal somehow.
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So he filed a lawsuit against advertisers that
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were not advertising on his platform anymore,
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and it just got thrown out in court. Because,
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say it with me. Obviously. What's nice is that
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also the judge did not mince words. Quote, the
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very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not
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state an antitrust claim, and the court therefore
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has no qualm dismissing with prejudice. I'll
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end by saying that every single founder of Elon
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Musk's AI company has left. Except for him. But
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he calls it a restructuring. Thank you for being
6:26
here. I really like doing what I do, and I try
6:29
to do it without having sponsored content segments.
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So if you like what I do and you want to keep
6:34
a community supported, you can head to isupport
6:36
.dev and you can find links to my Patreon, my
6:39
Ko -Fi, and other ways to support what I'm doing.
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If you want to support me, but you can't do so
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financially, that's no problem. Just commenting,
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liking, subscribing, sharing my work, telling
6:47
people about my stuff. It really, really does
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help. So thank you so much, let's move on. I'm
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gonna do my best antimatter impersonation. I
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went across the room. Much like antimatter went
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across a parking lot. Backing up, scientists
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at CERN have managed to contain antimatter and
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put it on a truck and drive it across a parking
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lot. Not unlike a terrified father taking his
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son to the school parking lot to learn how to
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parallel park. Sorry, Dad. But instead of screaming,
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hit the brake, hit the brake, these scientists
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were putting antimatter onto a truck for shipping.
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Certain boys have been playing around with antimatter
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for a little while now, and antimatter is essentially
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the opposite of matter. So you know matter, like
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the stuff, like all of it. When the Big Bang
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happened, there was a lot of matter, but there
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was also... supposedly an equal amount of antimatter.
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Think of it like the positive and negative ends
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of a magnet, sort of like they cancel each other
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out. That's not how magnets work. Point being,
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it's a mysterious thing that we don't fully understand,
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but it's essentially matter reverse. Like the
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electrical charges are inverted. So where there's
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protons, there are also antiprotons. And scientists
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at CERN have managed to capture antiprotons and
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put them on a truck. Why are they putting them
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on a truck? Because antiprotons also want to
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live that trucker life. The reality is that if
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you want to capture an antiproton, you don't
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just kind of like take a butterfly net and swing
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it around. You need equipment. Like capital E
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equipment, but like 40 capital E's. It's big
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equipment and it causes this like magnetic fluctuation
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that makes it so it's pretty difficult to then
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inspect the actual antiprotons because it's like...
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pretty small, and they need to use really precise
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instruments to do any kind of measurements on
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these antiprotons, and they can't really use
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those instruments in the same place that they
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capture the antiprotons. But if they could put
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them on a truck, wave goodbye, as it goes off
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to another location, they could potentially do
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deeper research. I volunteer my bathroom. I don't
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mind having antiprotons there, and there's not
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a whole lot of magnetic fluctuations. Anyway,
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scientists put a thing in a truck and drove it
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across a parking lot, but in a cool way is what
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I'm getting at. Let's talk about Cash App, which
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is the app that you use to hack the director
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of the FBI. A hacktivist group called Handala
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recently hacked Cash Patel, the head of the FBI
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in the United States. They broke into his personal
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email, like a Gmail account, and so they got
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access to the things you would get access to
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from a Gmail account, which is a lot. They've
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released some of the stuff, some of his personal
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photos, documents. They released his resume with
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his phone number and address on it. I will say
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I have seen posts about how they outed his porn
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account. I have not been able to verify that.
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That seems more like a viral... fake thing than
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reality, but I'm sure there's plenty of embarrassing
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shit. Actually, there is plenty of embarrassing
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shit. He's the director of the FBI and got hacked
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because he wasn't using two -factor authentication
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on his Google account. Now, Handala is not some
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random group of hackers that are in their basement
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just doing this for funsies. They are a state
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-aligned group. They're sort of like a sub -hacker
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group that works with a larger group called Void
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Manticore. that's associated with Iranian military
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intelligence. This is pretty directly the Iranian
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military hacking the head of the FBI, which is
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deeply embarrassing. So yeah, head of the FBI
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had his personal email hacked. In a normal world,
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that would be the end of the entire administration.
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But in this world, we call that Friday. Let's
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talk about gaming and why it's expensive. Nintendo
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and Sony just both made pretty big price adjustment
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announcements, and people aren't really happy
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about either. Actually, people are fucking mad.
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About both. We'll start with Sony, who announced
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a price hike for the entirety of the PlayStation
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5 family. There's four sort of - PS5 products,
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the PS5 with and without the disk drive, then
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the PS5 Pro, and then the PlayStation Portal,
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which is like a sort of handheld streaming device.
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In a press release, Sony announced that they
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are making a few strategic adjustments, and here
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are the new prices. The base PS5 is going up
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$100 and will now cost $650 USD. The PlayStation
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5 without the disk drive is also going up $100
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and will now be $600. The PS5 Pro is going up
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$150 and will now cost $900 dues, and the PS
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Portal is going up $50 to $250, which is actually
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less than I thought it cost originally. So I
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hope you didn't want a PlayStation, or if you
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did, you need to get one like now, or if you
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have money, who cares. But yeah, just straight
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up hiking up damn prices, and they did this again
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last year as well, so it's not like this was
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the first price hike since this generation came
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out. But it does appear to be the biggest, at
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least for one given console. Nintendo, on the
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other hand, they actually reduce prices a bit.
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Shouldn't people be happy? They're not happy.
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I'm not particularly happy either, but my goodness,
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people are not happy. When the Nintendo Switch
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2 was announced, the price was shocking for a
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lot of people, like 450 bucks for the base console,
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and then games could be as much as 90 dollars.
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What's more, they announced that the digital
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and physical versions of games would cost the
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same, so even if you weren't getting the physical
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version, which has the cartridge and the box
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and the art and everything, and you could sell
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it back to a store, give it to your friend or
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whatever, it's the same price as the digital
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download, which is just... goes on your console.
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So people are like, okay, what's going on here?
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Like, why is this happening? And why is everything
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so expensive? And why can't I even get a little
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bit of a discount if I get the digital, more
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restrictive version of the games? Rejoice, you
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can now. With a huge asterisk, Nintendo has announced
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in very Nintendo fashion that they will quote,
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have an MSRP that is different from physical
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versions. for digital versions. That Nintendo
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and trying to say anything normally. It's just
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not happening. Ultimately, it looks like for
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Nintendo first -party games that Nintendo is
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publishing, the digital version might be about
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ten bucks less. Usually. Like I said, asterisks.
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While this is all happening, the backdrop is
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that the AI data center boom is sucking up all
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the chips in the room. Even the sour cream and
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onion. Tech companies are buying up like every
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chip in existence, and they're looking for memory
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and storage, like RAM and SSDs. And that is driving
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the price of computers way up. And guess what's
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a computer? Video game consoles. And computers.
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We're seeing the same thing with Valve's Steam
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Machine, which was a thing they announced that
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was going to be a sort of mass -market, entry
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-level PC gaming console kind of thing. Sort
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of like a console version of a Steam Deck. supposed
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to be affordable with capable parts, and now
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it is delayed and the price is unknown again,
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because these parts are just through the roof.
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So it's likely that Sony's changes are because
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of that, and Nintendo's change of driving the
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digital price down a little bit is probably because
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the Switch cartridges are that kind of chip that's
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currently expensive. So if they're reducing the
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digital price a bit, they're probably trying
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to steer people towards the digital version of
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games. They don't have to spend as much money
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to make the manufactured... physical version.
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But people aren't particularly thrilled either
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way. I'm still paying like 80 bucks lightning
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round. In Iran, it sure looks like the US is
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about to send in ground troops as 3 ,500 US military
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service members have arrived in the region. The
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other indicator of imminent boots on the ground
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is that the Trump administration has kept saying
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that they're not going to do that. Over the weekend
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there was another No Kings protest, and at time
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of recording I don't have an actual estimation,
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but it looks as though the participation was
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in the millions. OpenAI's generated AI video
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-only social network Sora has been shut down,
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along with most of their access to video generation
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stuff. Turns out no one gave a shit. Speaking
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of shutting down obviously bad ideas, Meta has
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shut down the Metaverse. They shut down Horizon
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Worlds, which was their premier Metaverse world.
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You know, the thing that they changed their entire
14:51
company's name about? Massive shock! Recently,
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Trump made a post that caused the oil market
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to fluctuate, and right before that post, there
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was a ton of trading in the oil market. Probably
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nothing. And finally for today, a Secret Service
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member who is assigned to detail Jill Biden,
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seems to have accidentally shot himself in the
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leg. As far as I can tell, there was not a security
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threat. Just kind of bored, I guess. I can think
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of better uses of my time than shooting myself
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in the leg, though. But whatever! Thank you so
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much for listening to today's episode of Stuff
15:18
Keeps Happening. Head to SKH .News for sources,
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bonus content, and my rendition of The Metaverse,
15:24
which is a free newsletter with paid subscription
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options, if you would like to support me. My
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name is Endeavorance. We'll talk again soon.
15:32
Take care and be well.