TWiT 1071: Image Pickles - Are Social Platforms Addictive or Just Too Good?
This Week in Tech (Audio)
Leo Laporte
3.9 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2026
⏱️ 166 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is social media addictive by design or just irresistible entertainment? The panel tackles the lawsuit that's dragging tech giants onto the witness stand and how surveillance tech is quietly expanding while lawmakers and users scramble to catch up.
- Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial
- Instagram Chief Says Social Media Is Not 'Clinically Addictive' in Landmark Trial
- Section 230 turns 30 as it faces its biggest tests yet
- Meta apparently thinks we're too distracted to care about facial recognition and Ray-Bans
- Amazon Ring's Super Bowl ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance
- Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
- TikTok is tracking you, even if you don't use the app.
- Discord backtracks on controversial age verification rollout...kind of
- Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass
- The DJI Romo robovac had security so poor that this man remotely accessed thousands of them
- HP's laptop subscriptions are a great deal — for HP
- FTC Ratchets Up Microsoft Probe, Queries Rivals on Cloud, AI
- T-Mobile announces its network is now full of AI by rolling out real-time translation
- Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags
- SpaceX Prioritizes Lunar 'Self-Growing City' Over Mars Project, Musk Says
- Elon Musk declares victory with Medicaid data release
- Waymo Is Getting DoorDashers to Close Doors on Self Driving Cars
- Backblaze Drive Stats for 2025
- $1.8 million MST3K Kickstarter brings in (almost) everyone from the old show
- OpenAI Is Nuking Its 4o Model. China's ChatGPT Fans Aren't OK
- Hideki Sato, designer of all Sega's consoles, has died
- Byte magazine artist Robert Tinney, who illustrated the birth of PCs, dies at 78
- Launching The Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
Host: Leo Laporte
Guests: Wesley Faulkner, Stacey Higginbotham, and Thomas Germain
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's time for Twitter this week in tech. Stacey Higginbotham is back. Wesley Faulkner's also here and brand new. |
| 0:06.6 | We welcome from the BBC. Thomas Germain will talk about social media on trial. |
| 0:11.6 | The 30th anniversary of the 26 words that changed the internet. |
| 0:16.6 | Meta is announcing face recognition at a moment when they think no one's paying attention. |
| 0:21.4 | And what about the Discord age verification? |
| 0:26.2 | What's going to happen there? |
| 0:27.4 | That and a whole lot more coming up next on Twit. |
| 0:32.8 | Podcasts you love. |
| 0:34.5 | From people you trust. |
| 0:37.0 | This is Twit this is twit this week in tech episode one thousand |
| 0:48.8 | seventy one recorded sunday february 15th, 2026, Image Pickles. |
| 0:55.9 | It's time for Twit this week in tech. |
| 0:57.6 | The show we cover the Weeks Tech News. |
| 1:01.9 | Stacey Higginbotham is here from Consumer Reports, where she's a policy fellow. |
| 1:06.6 | And more importantly, the host of Stacey's Book Club. |
| 1:10.8 | Woo-hoo! |
| 1:12.2 | Hi, Stacey. |
| 1:13.9 | Hey, everyone. |
| 1:15.2 | Good to see you. |
| 1:16.2 | I get a little extra Stacey this month, which is nice. |
| 1:20.5 | And we will talk about the new book we have picked for the book club in a couple of months. |
| 1:25.1 | Excellent. |
... |
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