Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner, quick announcement before today's episode.

We've just added a new podcast to the Freakonomics Radio Network.

It's called Sudier Breaks the Internet.

The host is Sudier Venkatesh, a sociologist at Columbia University, who spent the first

couple decades of his career embedding himself with drug gangs and gun runners, sex workers.

You may remember Sudier from the first Freakonomics book, if you ever read it.

Sudier wrote an amazing book himself called Gang Leader for a Day.

That book called the Attention of a Guy named Mark Zuckerberg, who was running a company

called Facebook.

And that is how Sudier Venkatesh, Ivy League sociologist, chronicler of the criminal underworld,

suddenly found himself in Silicon Valley, working at Facebook.

He spent three years there, and then another two at Twitter.

Both companies wanted him to apply the tools of sociology to better understand their

virtual communities, but especially to address things like hate speech, bullying, and

any plots that might lead to, say, an insurrection at the US Capitol.

Sudier Breaks the Internet is a new show about the people who create and run our digital

universe.

The massive promise and the massive problems that often ensue.

You can get it now on any podcast app that's Sudier, SUDHIR, Breaks the Internet.

For a sneak peek, stick around at the end of this episode, and let us know what you think.

We are at radioatfreakonomics.com.

Thanks.

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