Gadgetory

it's Tuesday November 15 and you won't believe what happens next it's the 359 podcast episode 141 with Roger Cheng and Ben Fox Rubin good morning everybody hello Oh theoretically if you know our viewers to headline suggestion we don't we won't have anything we don't have anybody watch don't ones here's hoping everybody out get out everybody leave this isn't real so we're gonna go negative today so it's a whole- podcast get angry angry people already pretty angry so let's make tech great again seriously oh that was bad that was kind of good you know what I got mad about that I'm gonna get mad about Madame s always be all right up let me just go ahead there we go there we go so we've got a busy podcast for you what are we talking about following along with yesterday's podcast wouldn't be talking about you know fake stories on the internet not just facebook but Google now also caught in this little controversy and it makes you wonder like can you believe anything on the internet and I know that's kind of stupid sentence to say because we're on the internet right but no no but did general like no you shouldn't believe anything on the internet unless it's supposedly honest it's new stories are presented pagina as legitimate as legitimate content you know there's there's there's reason question even seemingly legitimate stories right absolutely I think that well we'll talk about that no about that guys next up we'll talk about Twitter um basically cracking down on giving you tool to crack down on trying to yeah very very limited on the troll problem on Twitter and then lastly will be we talking about counterfeit goods on Amazon yeah really just all negative yeah really it this is what we're talking about a little bit about how companies are pumping the sawls in his problems but you know still negative topics with your problems the cake is a lie oh I don't even know if that means I like it though all right really you haven't played portal no not yet dear will you ask sorry guys this is a very long freezes be that like that's really good let's get it go did a young thing or is it just like a gamer thing or just being lame thing I guess I don't have wow that's what you wanted we're all I you're always stated today all right why don't why don't we get started as always if you have any questions any of these topics Brian will leave in the comment section Brian will will pick out the best and we will try we'll try answer yeah try and welcome yeah charless all you want because this particular this particular podcast you control it impersonate the other podcast it's Joe Strout patrol away even in for even more so troll away troll away and dispute our reputations later yes where you cannot click on the podcast of the load that we're going to record in three two welcome to the 359 when we talk about the top Tecna of the day you know the crap we want to throw in I'm Roger King I'm Ben Fox ribbon facebook has been all over the news for the promotion of hoax stories but now Google is in the same boat its new section highlighted story about Donald Trump winning the popular vote which you'd find if you googled election results in whom news flash Donald Trump did not win the popular vote Hillary Clinton did by 200,000 votes right um but it still brings the mind or brings a question like it can you believe anything you see on the internet and I know that's a dumb thing to say but that's a valid question if you are going to a new site or if you're going to a site that's supposed to present you with legitimate stories right yeah um to me what's interesting about this also is that Google has this very secretive very secret secret sauce that they provide their algorithm to say this is we're providing the very best stories out there and this is a pretty clear example of that not working at all according to rich and you have a story that we published today they have about something like 200 different metrics that they utilize to try to surface the best possible stories and it just goes to show you that even with Google which has been doing search for 20 years hey they they can screw up just like everybody else right and problem is there's no really easy answer you know giving these guys editorial control to stamp out fake stories you know one media critic Jeff Jarvis said that's that's a mistake that's giving these companies too much editorial power that's just an to actually determine what's real or what's not right neither these companies really want to be in that position no they don't but I think that it's kind of a ridiculous position for them to take that's my personal opinion to suggest that they're not media companies where they're making advertising off of presenting people content how is that not a media company so yeah next up Twitter will now let its users mute certain words phrases or conversations as part of its effort to curb hate speech and trolling on its social site it also made it easier to report hate speech do you think this is going to change much though no I think I I might agree when the troll power is just too strong on Twitter I mean it for me it just feel like a little too little too late and a little too not an affection a little yeah yeah and a little late yeah the interesting thing about this for me is that anonymity will probably continue to exist on Twitter for a very very long time and that is really what feeds trolling more than anything and I think that's the one of the crux of Twitter's prom growth problem is like regular users can go on because they feel intimidated by this this Twitter or this troll culture that's developed on Twitter and it's strong basically you say anything about anything and someone will come back to say either disagree with you or just say something completely you know inflammatory yeah I and Twitter obviously knows that the situation is rather toxic they tried to sell the company this is rumors has tried to sell the company and nobody wanted to buy them partly because of all the Vittra on the site so they know that they need to clean this up however maybe this isn't really enough we'll see if they keep going yeah last amazon filed its first-ever lawsuits against counterfeit sellers on its site that's part of its bigger push to cut down on bad actors on the world's biggest e-commerce site it also recently sued purveyors of fake reviews this is this is a good thing oh you're actually pursuing the mean of stuff yes what I mean perience on amazon is less than desirable because of that the guys I've complained to you a number of times like going just buying something simple as a stand for my iphone you'll find 50 different problems yeah most of them are knock-offs you know the price is very and then you go into the reviews and like they all have five star reviews how does that how does I'm work hows it happen yeah this was also a long time coming I would argue they've done a lot with anti counterfeiting and they've mostly avoided a lot of the negative attention to counterfeiting that others have gotten however I I would say that they still have some work to do over around this ya know this is definitely good start I'd like to see the fact that they're cracking down counterfeiters because that's definitely you're not entirely sure you're not confident confident with your purchase on amazon yeah fake news fake fake reviews fake everything fake goods there you go fake friends on we wear a fake we're fake friends for sure we're not real I'm gonna start crying after the show all right for more of those stories chikis on cnet I'm Roger Jang I've been fox rubin thanks for listening it is very hard these days to keep track of this kind of stuff um but when really think about my stuff I'm sorry you're saying goods news Everything Everything Everywhere sources sources so that's an important part you know when when you're in school and they teach you how to write an essay you got to cite your sources yeah and that's what major agencies do um perhaps to Michael our buddy he was pointing out that he follows reputable places like cnet Washington Post New York Times verge CNN MSNBC so on I can live with that yeah absolutely yeah and the verge is a primary competitor far as however there they are a reputable yes a little reputable provider of the news and so she's gonna get over vein of sources absolutely that's not the problem right not but for folks who like no to actively go to certain sites that's less of an issue it's it's if you're just googling something and you know the results pull up and it's you know no name web site com that and you don't even look at it but you know that's the problem uses a sorcerer just in paying attention you just click on the headline the danger is is our people giving too much credence to google and in that particular case they did and bad on google for for you surfacing the wrong type of information right well I mean I think the problem is much bigger on facebook because it's it's a bit more intimate because you're getting story recommendations from your friends from family and so there's almost like almost like a built-in credibility factor there even though it could be wrong it's just slant yeah it's as long well no it's just it's yeah it's a story that's a hoax story but it's trending because everyone sharing it if you see your friends sharing the story really oh well maybe it's legit right don't as it's being shared the the level of what is your other idiots well that's a problem what's what's odd about it is is that the amount of sharing or the amount of likes or the amount of retweets actually provides a certain level of credibility yeah whereas that's actually bogus oh yeah that's just BS well how many times I'm guilty of it myself like do you share something without actually looking at the full source or a look at the headline oh that's an interesting one you can share I think we're all guilty yeah and I would that's a problem like but i only share funny things thank you oh if it's a funny story that happens to be fake that's a problem that's fairly harmless right well i guess no i mean you work in the media you shouldn't the onus is on you a little bit more I mean if I'm conspiring about the new Sonic the Hedgehog game is not the same as Oh totally ain't no known as a little different about that listen gotta go fast yeah but it's hard ok so the part is now yeah the UK you people are looking to other sources to try to find their information because their confidence in primary sources has been shaken you look at some of the main offenders from MSNBC to Fox News to Matthew CNN en and we know what the chance where everybody is under fire now there is no one hundred percent good wholesome we can trust this whether you want to agree with it or not and everyone's entitled to their bias now you're making very being human you're making an interesting philosophical argument and I would argue that nobody should be trusted one hundred percent of the time that's true dangerous but then the problem is the only way to get the real story is to read multiple sources and who has time for that oh right exactly that's the issue I'm unfortunately we're offering to our audience the fact that there are no easy answers and that's true yeah you know and like it's the same by readers nothing for you we got nothing for you we warned you not to click on yeah it's the problem with the oversaturation it you know we have so much information aggregated towards us now like how do you filter it should be on shaggy on Twitter yeah but that should be on the next n that's where Google comes in right that's that's why people have a use for google because it is an aggregator right it's supposed to a filtered aggregator and geeky but the algorithm is based on with amazon desire not legitimacy no I think Google Google's is a little bit more based on legitimacy than its ally suppose it's not trending it's still not perfect it's not perfect obviously as those evidence with this story but it's you know i would say i would argue it's probably more effective than facebook which relies more on just people sharing and there's bets that's not really a great determinant capability if something good comes out of this that people then have it expect more from google facebook amazon that they should act as better gatekeepers for some of these things i think of it that's then that's a positive i think of it is is like again quoting a rich quoted jeff jarvis talking about he made the argument that you shouldn't let rationally nor rely on facebook or google to get in that position of flagging fake stories it should be more on either the media or individuals like white may be empowering folks to have tags that they could tag stories that yeah that also sounded problematic to me like unpopular stories i would say that girl or google shouldn't be surfacing BS stories like they shouldn't replace but that's the thing it these are all algorithm based bait sometimes this stuff happens right and so I mean what they did dude they be added a tag for fat check right recently right during after the after the elections so maybe surfacing stories that are more fact-check type stories but then there's a broader issue of surfacing like fat check stories are inaccurate but that's a whole nother rabbit hole we're gonna go down yeah I've been saying this forever that the human species was a mistake we're gonna ruin everything wow we really are go negative today I'm Betty this is found really cathartic I don't loving it a downer that I'm enjoying thoroughly I love this comment we wonder if it should be more the computer more about people involved with actually aggregating this and filtering things Brandon says I think judge judy should be on Google's filtering team she should be the only one on that Jesus is dry I honestly too there's a piece of me that says more commercially jerks should be trying to filter the news sure speaking of take you only get one story today so what I like it's about puppies hey thanks for i don't i don't disagree with that so how do we think a call out to the chat how do we actually try to decipher what's the difference between news and entertainment how do you were like EG well we're like news and fakes or like news and yeah well you're not going to stop people from making up stories that's i mean that's what our entire society is built on is telling stories but it's how do you say well this is actually what happened this is legitimately what happened which is unfathomable in the time we have a constant stream of media constant stream of consciousness where everything is coming at you and we're just like we we trust what we want to trust we know what we want to know there is no element of like well this is the truth whether I like it or not I people i think that there's little bubbles there's a bright and and in some ways that's a necessity there's so much information that gets thrown at people online these days that it's virtually impossible as we've seen from what we talked about to be able to filter all the crap so if people want to try to filter in their own way then then they can and they will and they have to and maybe I want to believe a hoax story I'm not saying it's a particularly smart thing or a good thing but it's it's well I think that's what we saw the election right there are tons of you know Hillary Clinton FBI FBI agent who committed suicide you're suicidal that was just flat-out wrong I mean that's that's my problem as a journalist like that there's absolutely no connection to reality but a bit sort of my point is it doesn't matter if there's a connection reality like there aren't enough folks out there who want to believe that then it becomes the truth for them that's my job sure just that's an eclipse either are not blowing my mind there are enough people in the industry that that take the its responsibility with the seriousness you know we have it kind of easy we're in the media but we're in not so divisive and damning that we can be held accountable for what's violent protests right now then you know the people that are on these Thrones on high and dealing out opinions not facts and trying to curtail the mass populace into just blowing angry to that follow me at em that's not this story the story isn't folks doling out of paint it's folks reporting stories as if they were legit right they're not that's there's a bit of a distinction right it's not these folks are is there anymore another totally is there not editorializing they're trying to present this as fat as an objective story when it's completely wrong that's I think that's the more worsen thing like I think right editorializing facebook google facebook and google enabling it because there's such huge platforms right they then you know somebody can say that on their stupid blog and it doesn't really go anywhere but if you get traction on Facebook or Twitter then it becomes you know my for that no-name blow pops up on a Google search more frequently than not then yeah that's gonna that's gonna be relevant you know when we get our news from the comedians on comedy central and we'd get our laughs from the I mean I used to give us my headlines from Jon Stewart that's what I mean that's absolutely sure I mean pretty good i was watching john oliver last night it's like man this is a lot easier to watch sometimes yeah well cuz it's entertaining well it isn't he laughing or you know well yes you get angry but you laugh along with the rage mm-hmm and then you come full circle and then the minute you try to actually take a stand on what you do believe in it's just a debate for lack of a more maybe not FCC friendly words yeah the Bates probably way too generous a word but is that even when you you can't we went to last time we really saw a good civil argument online maybe once in a while one of our chats props to our listeners yeah I would say so yeah do we have more questions by the way yeah I would we actually have a lot of great agreement and conversation I don't know distinct questions right now I think we're having a good conversation anyone uh I don't want to punch our faces yeah come on now you're trolling a TV show is at all I mean how do we control these sources though how do we do that I would my best more importantly how do we educate ourselves collectively in this room out of this room to tell people to like maybe take it with a grain of salt my best recommendation to people is to pay attention of the sources of news that you're actually getting like Mike said at the beginning of the show like actually look at what the sources are and if you don't recognize them it's the same thing as going to like some ecommerce site that you've never seen you maybe you're going to end up with something that you don't actually one or maybe you get something that's not actually legit that being said it's really fair to provide a caveat that regular media gets things wrong sometimes and that's why you shouldn't trust them one hundred percent of the time either and I'd be kind of a jerk if I didn't say that because like that's just not true but at the same time we make it to measure much effort yeah is that we make a huge effort to try to get it right and there are obviously bad actors out there that are actually trying to like snow people and deceive people so it is a lot to do with intent i would say here's a really good point verification badges on accounts but what about also verification badges on stories now that's a tricky part now because a very that is that is like you know CNN that's their verification badge the oven around they're not fly by night you might not agree with everything they have to say but you know that they are you know well there are those folks in this country who look at the CNN Brandon not see it as a verification n bad example yeah now I'm like struggling to try to figure out what actually used but you're the new york times i think that save folks who saved the CNN right the same folks that told those Donald Trump was never gonna win yeah but the kid with you know the schmuck in his basement who's got a million subscribers on YouTube gets a verification badge yeah that's true and what does he really have to say well sometimes something that's like totally legit I mean mkbhd has nothing area this verification is like a valid point literally like like it's not YouTube stars but yeah there are it's easier to it's easy to get a validation dodge relatively easy I guess and it doesn't like you can get one through popularity or through clicks not necessarily through your work right I think that's the dilemma validation badges like are they giving away to freely right it's based on numbers yeah bisque because it's based on numbers and not by credibility or accuracy yeah I know who has the authority to dole out those verifications do you trust YouTube as a company do you trust Twitter as a company yeah yeah I mean those are all very good question we need to elect the verifications are no that's a terrible that's the problem are you out of your mind that's like way too much power first the worst possible idea the best thing to do is to really just tell the audience like just like buyer beware like really where you know if it sounds too good to be true if it's if it's fishy you know you should probably trust your instincts what about a scorecard system your systems are a horrible idea these are my numbers out of the chat oh really um lot of viewers I'm interpreting from the chat so instead of I'm sorry I'm sorry to whoever mention that I'm not trying to be mean about it by know instead of verification badge which I'm not trying to take that system away that's not going anywhere but you know you get a verification badge for having numbers but what about a some kind of centralized internet scorecard based on sheer accuracy you can refer to where they get a point system I don't know that's that seems sounds complicated sounds dad that sounds really hard to implement like who would be the arbitrator of what's true what's accurate what's not there's an algorithm there there's a problem there's a problem with all systems all systems can be gamed all systems have like weaknesses and I like theoretically if I was if I was a bad actor or site i can write maybe a thousand really short correct a cured stories and then every once in a while looking like one or two fake you know Trump is actually a god story like I oh god yeah golden gai yeah I don't think we're there let let us say like they're like to your point about gaming the system like there are ways to get around that like okay your car's probably why google keeps his thinking secretive right I don't know that's an I thought that was kind of an interesting thought I think it is encoded it's just really hard to implement it I would fear that it would be very easy to game as well I think this is gonna be a huge issue over the next probably decade oh yeah we try to swim the seems to be gay and if anything it's important to I wouldn't say a decade because I imagine like we'd have moved past social media as a new source and substance can get injected into our brains spa because from now I don't know it could be something what razy different we're emotional tense bad guys been on so far we are somewhat peaking in overall consumption like there is an endless endless endless stream of information coming in and now every we have no choice but to figure out how to organize this no that is I think that's the sort of the one like the becks big next innovations is like the ability to smartly aggregate stuff so that you're only getting what you want what you need I don't even then that's its don't know the personalization personalization yeah yes that's a big absolutely I'm is trying to do a lot um but we're not there yet instead we've just got a ton of crap to deal with and that is the perfect note to go out yeah all right they let everybody feel like putting up with the sob fest if you like that'll you saw or heard here or we're just feeling down from this podcast check us out us today our podcasts also available on iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google music or google play music sorry that's easy you just lied to them same thing you