Gadgetory

welcome to another 359 I'm Ben Fox bourbon I'm Alpha ring Facebook wants you to know it's doing a lot to clean up its massive social network the company on Tuesday for the first time were revealed hard figures for its enforcement efforts saying it took down 837 million pieces of spam in just the first quarter of 2018 and disabled five hundred eighty three million fake accounts most most of which were disabled within minutes of registration should we feel good about these numbers those are those are big numbers I mean it's it's you know important for Facebook to reveal these basically saying like look at how much that we get rid of every day I mean it for a long time I feel like most tech platforms have been going by the creed of you know if you're doing everything right like people aren't really gonna notice an issue but like people have started noticing issues so they're saying okay yeah you notice these issues that like leak out but like look at all the other stuff that we've gotten rid of these millions of post and then like why are you pointing out these like one post that like that that is available which which is still an issue it's not like just because they delete all of these that means that like things don't get through so in that post in that report that they put out today they said that even though they've deleted five hundred and eighty three million fake accounts which is about a quarter of you know Facebook's actual like users they said that so the 2.2 billion users that they have now about three to four percent of that is still exists that our fake bot account and you know three or four percent doesn't sound like it's that much but you know if you break it down by numbers that's about like 66 like million accounts and that's where a lot of us coming from yeah so it's it's not like it's not like they've gotten rid of all of them and it's not like Facebook of saying we're getting rid of all of them but it is it even even at a low percentage it is a pretty big number do you think that coming out with these numbers helps their reputation at all I mean it helps them build a case at the very least it's true I also wanted to check with you about this what about houses artificial intelligence playing a part in this they mentioned that AI was really used and taking down a lot of graphic violence yeah so as far as the account goes that's how they're able to delete it within like moments of registration it's not like they check every single account like the moment that they sign up because that's about you know like six accounts six million accounts a day like there there wouldn't be enough time to look through all that so a lot of this is AI based and the 857 million post that you mentioned it's like just spam post that's also AI they said they deleted those before they were even reported so there's a lot of basically like our algorithms that are searching based on image or like things that don't really fit in with like what a normal account would look like or anything like that yeah nice to see that they're making Facebook less of a cesspool but still got problems next congressional Democrats last-ditch effort to save net neutrality is coming Wednesday that's tomorrow that's when a vote on a bill to turn back the FCC's repeal on net neutrality will take place the bill has a chance to pass the Senate but is unlikely to go further than that it also needs the president's signature and president Trump is unlikely to actually go through with this because he's the guy that that brought the FCC Chairman and GPI that push back net neutrality in the first place so I don't really see this going anywhere yeah it's unfortunate there's so much skepticism with this but I mean I think it's it's not really it's I think it's more of a statement about how like our politics really work yeah they'd like views on net neutrality or anything like that but yeah and it's a way for Democrats to get attention to the issue it's important to mention to the FCC has scheduled the rules to officially come off the books June 11th so if you haven't seen any major changes related to this that's why because it hasn't actually taken place last target is stepping up its work with next day deliveries bringing its restock program nationwide the company also cut delivery fees to $3 from $5 making its new service potentially stronger competitor against Amazon Alfred do you think this would get you to stop using Prime I don't think it's gonna get me to stop using anything if anything I would just use both of them that's that's weird to drop a service completely just because there's another option available that's true if you want to read more about these toys check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Afra dang thanks for listening and thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast you can subscribe to that later will tell you all about it until then I'm gonna jump into the chat pull out some questions and comments anything you got with today's topics for one I will go ahead and jump back to your question to Alpher it about Target I'm in the same boat I think I'd be willing and welcome to use both but it's not probably not going to take me off what I'm already subscribing to because this target is not the target shipping is not going to take away that prime also gets me video it gets me music and a lot of other perks it's a it's a really fuller package covering the e-commerce speed to me it's at least gratifying to see that folks like Target and Walmart are trying to step up their game a little bit more and at least be a little bit more competitive against Amazon and this is a next day delivery service Amazon's already been doing a lot of same-day delivery into our delivery for Prime members so I feel like the big box guys the the traditional retailers still have a long way to go to actually directly compete against Amos I mean they they might have an advantage though based on where you live considering that there's like a target you know there's like a ton of targets around where I live like where I went to college - there was like several targets I imagine they'd be able to get it to me like much faster than Amazon would from like at their warehouse or whatever like for their mini yeah like they're using their stores as many where yes basically which is a way to kind of use that infrastructure that they already built out and and make it into a benefit instead of something that's just a legacy part of the business yeah hurting them so it'll be interesting to see how that happens and I think a lot of people are waiting to see what else Amazon is gonna do with wholefoods after they purchased Whole Foods last year the expectation is is that they would do more like pickup out of their more grocery delivery iguanas on the menu yeah ever see if Jeff Bezos definitely I wonder what iguana meat does taste like and I hope it does show up I don't know sometime soon and at Whole Foods didn't you email I guess on I value about Whole Foods and Amazon asking if I think they were gonna say blah know on you we definitely get them headlines I really I really want to just start my own beat where it's just asking stupid questions to multibillion like companies you did this once before it I did this is the Super Bowl tab that was pretty funny act it was like so it was around when hq2 was being announced and they picked 20 cities and Philadelphia and Boston were both in the running and they were also both playing the Super Bowl so I mailed Amazon and I just asked them hey does the winner of the Super Bowl get get hq2 or like well that will that be a factor oh they actually said no they basically said like look at our guidelines like there's nothing I mentioned sports in there that's too bad well that was that was nice they were good sports about it to actually respond to you all right question time from the chat Michael Brown Facebook tries to clean up its act as a tool a quick answer no have you seen the number of global Facebook users yeah we've touched on that one before point though that's a good point I mean it's it's important for us as reporters to be you know hard on the company and really point out the critical issues right we've also said before Facebook's not going anywhere and they do have an opportunity to turn it around and we still use it here I know yeah that's that's a company yeah do you don't personally I do Michael Brown goes on to say what is the next big social media it's still Facebook by way of Instagram what are our feelings on that one um we've always asked what's Natalie I don't use it much I think that's a popular I think that's a popular opinion to say that Instagram is going to be like you know where although all the kids are flocking to and things like that I mean some people even like to say like snapchat for me I would make the argument that like I don't think there is going to be a next big social network more so that I think that people are just not really gonna be using social networks that much anymore I kind of think that there's something to be said there that there's a kind of a sour taste left in all of our mouths I know I have just kind of dialed back that's just me that's me but yeah I've kind of just weaned myself off of it it's still there when I need it when I need to reach someone specifically but overall I'm not with things much time there I'm finding other things to waste yeah if anything I feel like more people are just gonna be moved - like messaging apps which you know Facebook has their asses covered there with whatsapp and messenger yes I count messenger as part of Facebook but sure but yeah I mean I you can look at it more so it's like taking a step back where like the the social network you know in the late nineties was like a more what is it like MSN Messenger or something like people people in different areas use different stuff I used a m-- right now there was also like Friendster MySpace yeah no but like those aren't messaging out oh that's true yeah but yeah there's a really great article in New York mag yesterday where it's basically like I'm now bored by the internet like we used to go online all the time just to waste their time you know go on forums talk to people that they'll never see again or anything like that and then and or like play games and like look at stupid memes messaging boards and things like that and then I moved on to like oh everybody has a real name now and then like here's all my real photos and stuff like that that was the new way to waste time but like I don't know I'm not really I like I I read that article and I just like yeah I'm like severely bored by like stuff on the internet it's like very hard to waste time online now mmm nothing is fun Danny Green points out not a long time are not a long ago a lot of people left Facebook for periscope I how often do you hear people talking about periscope right now sorry periscope viewers we have a lot of actually really great periscope users hey you wait who left Facebook for periscope I don't recall that myself that's not even a correlation I don't I don't see how that makes sense well maybe for Twitter it was I think it's a good one-two punch from Twitter to aquire yes yeah to me I would like to see Twitter be a stronger competitor I'd like to see snapchat be a stronger competitor just because I like to see a healthy competition in the marketplace and unfortunately right now it's like so solidly Facebook all the time and that puts the target on their back they have a lot to answer to when something goes wrong they get put in hot water a lot but I think it's better that consumers have more options and unfortunately snapchat and Twitter are so much smaller and they do have their user bases they're also not going anywhere but it's really like a winner-take-all or win or take most kind of world these days they always say that there's no big competition for facebook but I think there is the I for one am a big fan of fakeblock remember fakeblock you don't recall it they'd all by George Michael sorry I'm rewashing Arrested Development season four as we speak yeah there's new episodes on all right remix episodes Oh what does that mean that means that they edit it more in the traditional style of the original show with minute episodes instead of the extended like anthology episodes I saw yeah I saw I saw like when I was on Netflix the other day I was like oh new episodes of Arrested Danza and I was like I'll watch that later but now that you've told me that I have no plans to watch all right fill us in on fakeblock since I'm a dad and don't get anything it's about security and privacy and you got to get Stan Sitwell to invest wasn't it just like a metronome thing yeah and it's being a woodblock movie Josh Boyd asks is vine too still happening or will it be Glen I really hope as I saw that the other day I said mine is on the ice now I'm so sad that like I really start over sets create that Wall Street Journal or something it was a it's yes the internet reported on what was happening on the internet but either way I really started to enjoy vine and started watching those YouTube compilations for like a half-hour or something after vine it already I will I will say this I am very glad that the like vine dyeing caused the death of like vine compilation' channels no it didn't which I do there's strong vines there's they just keep repurposing them okay but my point was was that like I hate it I I watched like some of those because it was like I don't spend all my time on vine but I hated that they made money off of that because like ya guys are doing leeches you guys are bottom-feeders you don't like make your own content you just take other people's stuff and like oh that they didn't do it we wouldn't be able to revisit them that's not that's not true cuz tomorrow is Wednesday my dude it just derailed Alfred everybody put this down the podcast is now complete today alright let's switch gears right now I have something new to feel bad about just like oh I really appreciate those compilations no they're bad and here's why yeah let's switch gears before we run out of time here and talk about net neutrality which is of course on everybody's not mind a fly cope says net neutrality is gone but I haven't noticed much has it gone in place yet or what we kind of covered that earlier over that June 11th is when it legit goes off the books and there are already all sorts of changes happening on the state level so who's to say whether you're gonna notice any sort of difference whatsoever if anything is just gotten way more complicated right so let's expand on that fly cope wants to know what exactly would happen with net neutrality the government can't really do much it's not in their hands per se it's them handing over more control to the ISPs so what are the things that we can expect to possibly see without fear mongering too much here we've talked back for me personally enough but to me personally I don't think much is gonna change it all for consumers yeah you know especially within the first year or two because I don't I don't expect on June 12th all the ISPs are all of a sudden gonna be like ha ha joke's on you we're all of a sudden gonna like jack up prices and you know force you to pay for fast lanes like I don't anticipate that happening if we're supposed to believe what the FCC's argument about this is though is so apparently on June 12 there's gonna be massive massive innovation from all the telecom companies because they got they got rid of net neutrality so now they've also not gonna have advanced to that the amazing future that this regulation has been preventing for all these years yeah according to the FCC at least that's that's really what the argument is so either it will be a dystopian future where everybody has to pay millions of dollars to for slower internet or tech innovation will take off and will be will be in the in the space age of the internet it's a good point and ultimately I guess we're probably gonna see some sort of middle ground a lot if this has to do with infrastructure and it's gonna take a really long time for any of these changes to happen if they do start changing the ISPs do start changing their pricing tiers people are probably wig out and and that's why I don't anticipate that happening that's my personal opinion I don't anticipate that happening and at least in the short term in the next year or two and let's see if it does it's actually coming pretty soon down the line yeah I mean what they have now is a user base far and wide intermingling between the different ISPs that have become comfortable with the current approach and format and slow changes will always come regardless of net neutrality repeal or not it'd be akin to everybody every cable provider suddenly deciding we're gonna roll back to 720 and nobody'd be happy about that mmm-hmm it'd be a foolish move yeah you actually covered a lot of ground there because we had several people asking about the timeline about some of these rollouts and possible changes to throw this out to the chat ooh I'd love to hear from you guys I I mentioned my own personal opinion about this but what do you what do you folks think is actually gonna happen on June 12th do you expect to have significant changes happen are you anticipating to have to pay more money significantly more money as we said you know things always change prices do tend to go up but they were going up regardless of this or not yeah but like do people expect there to be significant changes I'd love to hear from you yeah yeah I like to say that I have somewhat roll back my my rage on this case I feel like I finally worn you down I don't know about that I'm just trying to keep a level head because maybe if we hearken back a few episodes ago there's maybe more than a few of me so boxing and don't get me wrong I'm still ticked off about this I still think this is a bad move though mad alright still mad but keep my mouth shut for a second Mike Shaw for one was actually saying the Lawson net neutrality opens the door for more innovation it will likely be a net win mmm I love it yeah how do I try to go my someone else's comment no no Mike Shaw keep doing awesome puns yeah he says a fly cope agrees saying competing is what we need fly cope says not much will happen Josh Boyd says if t-mobile and Sprint gift 5g will that put pressure on the cable companies in regards to pry there's a good point I think we've talked about that a lot the potential of 5g adding more competition problem is is that that's not coming in the next like year or two yeah or three probably but yeah we'll see when that happens on the other end of the go ahead sorry I was gonna say like I don't know that argument kind of doesn't really gel with me mostly because like yeah it's not coming for a really long time it's like asking if like do you think flying cars are gonna get rid of the like self-driving car industry like it's not mm-hmm I don't know it's like probably but like this is like a very long time for me yeah I mean MTV's going on 40 years and video has yet to kill the radio star just putting that one out there mmm on the other end of the spectrum Demonte says it was intended to be up and free and it should stay that way in regards to the internet being available to the people governed by the people run by the people that sounds way more political than I intended but yeah his encouragement is that the government and the more importantly the providers should not be the ones calling the shots he wants people to run the internet then I don't I think he wants it to be just be more free and available I don't we know we'll never live in a world where the Internet is completely free I think I think the challenge is is are we really gonna see this really lousy situation where you're gonna have to pay for fast lanes or have to pay for like a social media package or a news package on the Internet instead of just paying one flat fee to access the Internet and you know time will tell if that ends up happening it seems that consumers have said very loudly that they were super not interested in that kind of thing so having ISPs shove that down our throats it's I would call that a really bad move and people would find an alternative I would imagine as quickly as they could but I don't know we'll see a couple of closing comments before we wrap up the show s mcpeet er says I expect my subscription prices to go up first how much those increments will be will remain to be seen I lost my place here sorry everybody go ahead I'm a little skeptical so my price is for my internet people have gone up consistently over the last like four years I feel like it would have gone up regardless of net neutrality so I don't know if it goes up again like later this year if that will also be related to like the net neutrality yeah and how much are people gonna freak out if that happens you feel like Oh your ISP prices went up it's because if not neutrality being rich a cause like my friends have always gone up I don't really I'm not saying that like net neutrality is like good or bad you're in this scenario but I'm just saying that like I don't like I continuously paying more for Internet mm-hmm which is also odd and you will and luckily I cut the cord so I don't have to deal with that anymore and all my money is cause paying for the internet fly coke goes on to say what I've heard is that not safe for work sites might be harder to access which probably won't affect us that much because we're not too dependent on it but there is something to be said there for the censorship and the ISPs power to censor what they can deliver to you there's another possibility that we that's also part of the nightmare scenario that's a good point to bring up that just the ISPs blocking certain sites and making the internet harder to access in different areas so yeah that would not be democratic or you know it would really raise the question about like free speech issues I would think too so I don't know that they would really want to get into that but who knows here's a great question from Hunter Monzon is there any chance in the States for a new ISP to start up with all the Giants already ruling the game I said I look it bring out your economist hat here Ben it's really expensive to do this kind of thing yeah it's it's possible we learned about stary a couple years ago which is just piloting some stuff in Boston and I think they're moving very very slowly I don't even know if they're still working frankly but it's there's there's a reason why the landscape looks the way it is it's super expensive to do this type of work I think if there's anybody in this world who can make that happen and musk We Trust yeah that'll be like the most boring space that'll be the most boring thing he ever did I mean like he's doing like electric cars flamethrowers candy factory and Aniyah cyborg dragon he's we're dragon dragon energy all right oh god I think he could pull it off with the sheer amount of capital him and besos obviously but he could wake a sexy and interesting than sure why not come on must keep the porn alive all right we are out of time thanks everybody fantastic chatter as always we'll be back tomorrow who wants to take us out today tell them all about subscribing to that audio podcast oh yeah oh don't forget to rate us on iTunes or trying to forget I don't doesn't matter to me smash that like button that like button please if you didn't like the 359 podcasts were not available on iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner at Google Play Music the Amazon echo and definitely not cnet.com okay thanks for joining I think or not thanks for no okay change this game see you guys tomorrow