Google’s Secret Censorship Project
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 August 2018
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk about a new Russian hacking report--this time, targeting conservatives. And it’s been a busy news week (as always) for Facebook, with reports on massive changes to its ad targeting and a heretofore secret plan to rate the credibility of its own users.
Then, April is joined by Ryan Gallagher, a U.K. based investigative journalist at the Intercept, where he reports on digital security and state surveillance. Earlier this month Ryan broke a story on Dragonfly, a secretive Google search engine for China that would censor certain websites banned by the Chinese government. The vast majority of Google’s employees, including founder and board member Sergey Brin reportedly was unaware of this project until Gallagher broke the story. Now, many Googlers are livid.
19:25 - Interview with Ryan Gallagher
Don’t Close My Tabs:
RadioLab: “Post No Evil”
Jezebel: How a Woman Disappears from the History Books
Podcast production by Max Jacobs
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 Slate and 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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to If Then, the show about how technology is changing our lives and our future. |
| 0:11.7 | I'm April Glazer. |
| 0:12.9 | And I'm Will Arenas. |
| 0:23.6 | Hey, everyone. Welcome to If Then. We're coming to you from Slate and Future Tense, a partnership between Slate, Arizona State |
| 0:27.9 | University, and New America. We're recording this in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 21st. |
| 0:33.7 | On today's show, we'll talk about a new Russian hacking report, this time targeting conservatives. |
| 0:39.0 | Then we'll run down a busy news week for Facebook, including changes to its ad targeting, and a heretofore secret plan to rate the credibility of its own users. |
| 0:48.0 | A busy news week and it's only Tuesday. Later, I'll be joined by Ryan Gallagher, a UK-based investigative journalist at The Intercept, where he reports on digital security and state surveillance. |
| 0:57.9 | Earlier this month, Ryan broke a story on Dragonfly, a secret of Google project for China that would censor certain websites banned by the Chinese government. |
| 1:06.4 | The vast majority of Google's employees, including one of its founders and board members, Sergey Brin, |
| 1:11.8 | reportedly was unaware of this project until Gallagher broke the story. And many Googlers are now livid. |
| 1:18.4 | So, Will, we're not both in California anymore. You are in New York this week, right? |
| 1:22.5 | That's right. I'm in Slate's cushy podcast studios here in Brooklyn, New York. And our producer, Max Jacobs here with me. So it's, it's nice to be in the same place. I miss Max. Well, I'm glad you guys are both in the same room. I'm usually the only one that has that privilege. And so Russian interference is back in the news. I imagine it's going to be in the news again and again and again. But this time, the attack was not about social media. It was |
| 1:46.2 | something that came from Microsoft. Will, can you fill us in? Yes. And to be clear, the attack |
| 1:50.3 | didn't come from Microsoft, but the reports of the attack did. Right. And we've, yeah, we've all |
| 1:55.1 | been anticipating that Russian attempts to interfere in U.S. elections would not have ended with the |
| 1:59.9 | 2016 election. |
| 2:01.6 | Indeed, last month we heard from Facebook that they have detected signs of a coordinated |
| 2:05.7 | meddling attempt ahead of the U.S. midterms. |
| 2:08.6 | Now, this week, Microsoft reports that it has detected an attempt by the Russian hacking group |
| 2:14.6 | known variously as APT28 or Fancy Bear. |
| 2:18.7 | It has some other clever names or not so clever names. |
... |
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