Embracing Deplorable Status
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2018
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser discuss why a bunch of the big tech platforms—Facebook, YouTube, Apple—are suddenly banning the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media empire Infowars. They also talk about the latest Wells Fargo foreclosure scandal where a computer glitch led to hundreds of wrongful foreclosures. The hosts are then joined by William Sommer, tech reporter with the Daily Beast who follows QAnon and other right-wing conspiracy theories closely. He’ll help us understand how this fringe thinking tumbled into mainstream attention. The interview with Will Sommer starts at 17:54.
Don’t Close My Tabs:
New York Times: Phone Calls From New York City Jails Will Soon Be Free
New York Times: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change
If Then plugs:
You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com. If Then is presented by Slateand Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to If Then, the show about how technology is changing our lives and our future. |
| 0:11.5 | I'm April Glazer. |
| 0:12.7 | And I'm Will Aramis. |
| 0:31.6 | Hey, everyone. Welcome to If Then. We're coming to you from Slate and Future Tense, a partnership between Slate, Arizona State University, and New America. We're recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 7th. |
| 0:37.8 | On today's show, we'll talk about why a bunch of the big tech platforms, Facebook, YouTube, Apple, are suddenly banning the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media empire Info Wars. |
| 0:43.5 | Then we'll discuss how Wells Fargo admitted in a filing last week that it wrongfully |
| 0:47.5 | foreclosed on hundreds of people's homes, and it's blaming a computer glitch. |
| 0:52.2 | Later, we'll be joined by Will Summer, reporter with The Daily Beast, who has been following |
| 0:56.2 | the Q conspiracy theory closely for months. He'll help us understand how this fringe thinking |
| 1:01.1 | tumbled onto the mainstream from the darkest corners of the internet, what the theory claims, |
| 1:05.2 | and whether or not this is something that could spiral out of control. How did we get from |
| 1:09.0 | PizzaGate to here? I have no idea, but I'm excited to find out. And lastly, we will have Don't Close My Tabs, |
| 1:14.7 | some of the most interesting stories we found online this week. |
| 1:18.0 | Okay, Will, so you have moved. You've changed coasts on me. How's it going? You're in Delaware |
| 1:23.7 | now, right? I'm in Newark, Delaware. I'm at a really cool little startup studio here |
| 1:28.3 | on Main Street in downtown Newark, and I'm excited to be here. Yeah, it looks cool. The |
| 1:33.4 | moves are going okay, as stressful as it could be, I guess. It is very stressful. And how about you, |
| 1:38.5 | are you close enough to those giant wildfires to be feeling the effects in the East Bay? |
| 1:44.7 | I'm not feeling the effects in the east bay but uh it's such a massive fire that if you're in california long |
| 1:51.4 | enough you know the fire somehow touches your life and so i you know i have friends and community |
| 1:55.7 | that are up north that way and have you know helped with people uh finding shelter for their |
| 2:00.4 | animals and |
... |
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