737: Monetizable Content
Grumpy Old Geeks
Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
4.9 • 6.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week's show we start with FOLLOW UP: The world keeps trying to protect kids online — Indonesia just joined Australia, Spain, and Malaysia in banning social media for under-16s, while COPPA 2.0 sailed through the US Senate unanimously. Meanwhile, Roblox is using AI to clean up its chat, because apparently "Hurry TF up" is the hill they've chosen to die on — even as they're still dealing with the whole "pedophile problem" thing from January. On the AI copyright front, Gracenote is the latest company to sue OpenAI for helping itself to proprietary data, joining a growing queue of plaintiffs who apparently didn't get the memo that everything is training data now.
IN THE NEWS: Anthropic is suing the Pentagon after being labeled a "supply chain risk" — apparently because the CEO said AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, which the Trump administration heard as fighting words. The delicious irony: the Pentagon is still running Claude in active operations while trying to phase it out. Speaking of active operations, investigators now think a missile strike on an Iranian girls' school may have been triggered by bad AI-generated intelligence from that same Claude-based system. So yes, the autocomplete that hallucinates your grocery list is also maybe accidentally bombing schools. Meta's Oversight Board is begging the company to get serious about AI-generated content after a fake war video from a Filipino fake news account racked up 700K views — while separately, Zuckerberg dropped cash on Moltbook, a "social network for AI agents" that turned out to be mostly humans larping as bots and had a security flaw that exposed everyone's API keys. The guy who built it basically vibe-coded the whole thing. Meta's own CTO said he didn't "find it particularly interesting." And yet. Oracle is hemorrhaging jobs and drowning in debt chasing AI dreams, its stock down 50% from peak — a timely reminder that "AI will replace workers" is currently manifesting as "companies set money on fire and lay people off to pay the electric bill." Researchers confirmed AI is homogenizing human thought and creativity — a thing some of us have been screaming since day one. A DOGE engineer allegedly walked out of the Social Security Administration with databases containing personal info on 500 million Americans on a thumb drive. The Ig Nobel Prize is relocating to Switzerland because it's no longer safe to invite international guests to America. Nintendo is suing the US government to get its tariff money back. SETI thinks it may have been accidentally filtering out alien signals due to space weather. And Pokémon Go players unknowingly spent a decade building a centimeter-accurate surveillance map of Earth's cities that's now guiding pizza delivery robots — which, honestly, tracks.
In APPS & DOODADS: The GOG clan in Clash Royale just hit eight years old — respect. OpenAudible is the cross-platform audiobook manager your Audible library deserves, especially if you've got over a thousand books sitting there judging you.
And finally in MEDIA CANDY: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is here, and pretty beige. Live Nation settled its DOJ antitrust case for $200 million, kept Ticketmaster, and avoided a breakup — meanwhile court documents revealed employees joking about "robbing fans blind" and gouging "stupid" customers, which explains basically every concert ticket you've bought in the last decade. YouTube is now officially the world's largest media company at $62 billion in revenue. Bluesky's CEO is stepping down, which is either a bad sign or just the natural order of "person who built the cool thing hands it to the person who scales the cool thing." Dead Set — Charlie Brooker's 2008 zombie-in-the-Big-Brother-house miniseries — is worth a watch if you haven't. And trailers dropped for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 (March 24th), The Boys final season (April 8th), and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (April 1st — yes, really).
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Show notes at https://gog.show/737
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DgSYnFF6twE
FOLLOW UP
Indonesia announces a social media ban for anyone under 16
Metadata company Gracenote is the latest to sue OpenAI for copyright infringement
Roblox introduces real-time AI-powered chat rephraser for inappropriate language
IN THE NEWS
COPPA 2.0 passes the Senate again, unanimously this time
AI Error Likely Led to Iran Girl's School Bombing
The Oversight Board says Meta needs new rules for AI-generated content
Mark Zuckerberg Decides Meta Needs More Slop, Buys the Social Network for AI Agents
Oracle Axing Huge Number of Jobs as AI Crisis Intensifies
You can (sort of) block Grok from editing your uploaded photos
Researchers Say AI Is Homogenizing Human Expression and Thought
Social Security watchdog investigating claims that DOGE engineer copied its databases
Nintendo is suing the US government over Trump's tariffs
SETI Thinks It Might Have Missed a Few Alien Calls. Here's Why
Ig Nobel Ceremony Relocates to Europe Amid Safety Concerns in Trump’s America
APPS & DOODADS
Bluesky's CEO is stepping down after nearly 5 years
How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world
Robot Escorted Away By Cops After Terrorizing Old Woman
MEDIA CANDY
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2
Live Nation settlement avoids breakup with Ticketmaster
Court documents reveal Live Nation employees joking about robbing, gouging "stupid" fans
YouTube Is the World’s Largest Media Company, MoffettNathanson Says
DAREDEVIL: Born Again Season 2 Official Teaser Trailer 2 (2026)
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie | Final Trailer
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show where we discussed the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schoemeister. I almost left in after you said, welcome to grumpy old gigs because I'm still not used to the new intro. Ah, me too, me too. It takes a bit to get used to. Sorry, Bob, we just didn't have time for it. I just want to interject really quick. We have made note, |
| 0:24.6 | Jay. too. It takes a bit to get used to. Sorry, Bob, we just didn't have time for you. |
| 0:27.5 | I just want to interject really quick. We have made note, Jason, of your sobriety milestones, |
| 0:34.3 | rightfully so. There's something to be very, very proud of, and we should all applaud. I myself have had a milestone, Jason. I had my cancer, yearly cancer checkups now. I've gone yearly instead of like more than a couple times a year. And everything came back clean. That is four years cancer free. I am one year, one year out from being considered, I guess they just say cancer free. But, you know, okay. Not terribly exciting,, but a big deal for me. It is a big deal. It's a very big deal. How many 12-step programs did you go to get that cancer out? No, I had a surgery, though. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, okay. Didn't do meetings, you know. I'm happy. I'm happy for you. I'm very happy for you. So, yeah, it's good yeah okay didn't do meetings I'm happy I'm happy for you I'm very happy for you |
| 1:12.9 | so yeah it's good to be here well now |
| 1:15.3 | it's not good to be here but you know |
| 1:17.4 | or actually now that I think about it looking at the news |
| 1:20.6 | where you're at it's probably fine |
| 1:22.9 | yeah she well I'm in California |
| 1:26.9 | you know you got drone attacks coming I'm sorry California. You know what they say. You got drone attacks coming. I'm sorry, false flag. What? Yeah, seriously. Come on. Come on. I saw a really funny map that it was like, hey, hey, I ran. If you don't know what California looks like, it looks like this. And it's a map of Florida with California written across it. Yeah. Yeah, my roommate told me that with this morning. It's like, yeah, yeah. She's like, oh, they're going to be small drones coming. I'm like, have you seen the size of the drones? They're like big and they're coming from ships and it's like, slow news day. Slow news day. No, they're not. And even if they are, do you know how big Los Angeles is? It's big. California. They just said California. Oh, California. Well, then fucking. California is like 15 times the size of Iran. Yeah, exactly. Come on. And you. Yeah, it's even bigger than Israel. So, hey, come on. Let's get to stuff that is actually not above our pay grade. |
| 2:18.3 | Thank you. |
| 2:21.6 | To be fair, also above Kegstans' head grade. |
| 2:24.5 | So let's be honest. |
| 2:26.5 | It's a Fox News fucking correspondent. |
| 2:28.5 | We're about as qualified as he fucking is. |
| 2:31.1 | I think we're actually probably more qualified. |
| 2:32.2 | So, yeah. |
| 2:33.9 | We actually put two and two together. |
| 2:51.2 | And I can ride a skateboard without hitting myself in the nuts. Thank you very much. Also, you don't drink anymore. That's true. That's true. Oh, fuck me. Moving on. What do we got? Please save me. Moving on. We have more news about countries banning social media bans. it looks like just about everybody's hopping on board, |
| 2:54.5 | except for, of course, the United States, because why would we? |
| 3:00.4 | Following in the steps of Australia and many other countries, Indonesia will be the latest country to limit social media usage for children under 16. India's communication and |
| 3:05.3 | digital affairs minister announced a new government regulation will require high-risk platforms to delete any accounts from Indonesia that are under 16 starting on March 28th. |
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