Alex: Once again we are back with a new episode of the Open Internet Pod live on X every Thursday, twelve PM UTC, and then on demand every Sunday, twelve PM UTC in your favorite podcast app. How was your day, Richard? How how are you holding up? Richard: Pretty good very busy day. It's also randomly the Australian nationals speedcubing competition So I was up frightfully early to get some competitors to their stations So that's the kind of weird sidebar in my day, but it's been good things It's either moving faster than ever and I think a huge day in the news, which we'll get on so much going on Alex: yeah, there's a there's a lot of things happening and I mean we might as well get on with it. the first thing on our on our docket today will be the news and of course we have the EU watch which is our classic point to start every pod with just how things how bad things are going in in the EU. And we just we just saw now live on X that Richard: Yeah. Alex: the the motion to reject chat control being back on the on the docket in the EU Parliament didn't pass for some reason on the last day of the current session they didn't manage to get enough people to vote against it because most of the people were gone probably on you know early vacations. So I don't know what w what do we make of this? It's like the sixth time they've tried this. They they broke their own rules to get it back. Richard: It's... Yeah. Alex: and push this like emergency vote. What does that tell us? Richard: I mean, the, it's like the, right at the start of his track, his guide to the galaxy where they're like, well, but the plans have been at the nearest planning office on Alpha Centauri for 30 years. it's like a classic yes, minister, bury it on late on Friday afternoon, kind of a tactic. and it really feels like a masks off moment. mean, I'm not European, right? So I'm not aware of. the mechanics of the the year, right? I just don't pay attention specifically to that. And so I've been unsure, like, you know, I've never sort of known, like, where the factions are, I've just presumed they're roughly countries and parties and things. But seeing this, you can see that there's a distinct group, I don't know exactly who they are, but there's definitely a set of people who want to drive these agendas, and who are closer to the driver's seat than others because they're able to pull off this kind of shenanigans, right? So they're able to set agendas. They're able to say when things will happen. They're able to get stuff tabled that technically shouldn't be on the docket, that kind of thing. And so it feels to me like a bit of a, a, a mask off moment where it's clarified for me as an outsider looking in how far gone things are. It's not a big mindless group think. you know, which kind of is, is one impression you might get all the Europeans kind of wandering unthinkingly into these, these kinds of issues. this is pretty amazing. Really. mean, I don't know what it's like being there on the ground, watching happen around you, but from here, it really feels like you can now clearly see, you know, who's pushing for what where and you're starting to see these demarcation lines between the people with the hands on the levers trying to push through what they want and the kind of remnant bits of resistance you know trying to kind of push back against it. Alex: Yeah, yeah, it's it's bit disheartening to n notice that there's so few people that are aware of this. There's nothing in the news about it, there's nothing in the newspapers about it. It's literally people on X and I guess people that care about this, right? I think there are so many issues that are popping up all over the map here in Europe that Richard: Hmm. Alex: you kinda have to like pick your battle, right? We're fighting this battle. And it's a it's a battle that makes a lot of sense to us. It makes a lot of sense from a Sato point of view. And it's just it you know, this is the hill that we started we decided to fight on. But there are many battles happening at the same time in the EU. And I I think people are just like, you know, s we're spread thin a little bit, but hopefully more and more people will will figure out what's happening and come join the good fight. Richard: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's super interesting to me as well, because I mean, I know a little bit more about German politics, you know, mean, there was a point of time than the rest of Europe. Although we do get a hell of a lot of UK politics here in Australia by osmosis. But yeah, it was a guy from the party who, like was pushing back against this the hardest and they're essentially a comedic party, they're a satirical party, they're partially taking the piss out of European politics and politics in general. So for them to be the ones who kind of flying any kind of flag about pushing back on this sort of stuff, and I know that their leader in the parliament was making the points of order and trying to point out that this was being railroaded through. And that's kind of scary when you've got someone who's kind of really not a fringe politician in the sense of like on one of the far ends, but sort of not part of any bigger establishment or movement being one of the few people who's actually kind of saying, what the hell's going on here? And. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because outside of Europe, I don't know what the awareness is like there, but people have no idea what you're talking about if you talk about this. And if you describe it to them, they're floored that such a thing would be on the table even. So it's kind of a really bizarre time, I think, where this sort of thing is, like you said, I there's so many things going on that this kind of thing is just making it this far and hopefully not all the way on mostly on kind of skirting by people. Alex: What I would like people to take away from this i is that even though you're you may not be living in Europe, let's say you're you're in Southeast Asia, or let's say you're in in in America or South America or Richard: Hmm. Alex: This is the place where you can actually in Europe right now, we can actually see these things happening. This doesn't mean it's not happening in your country. It just means that you can't really see them there. Here, because we still have some resemblance of a democratic system, God knows for how long it'll be left the way it is, but we can still see them. And, you know, you have to remember. Richard: Hmm. Hmm. Alex: you know, without going too much off scripts here, but during the Covid period there were a lot of things that were were just not allowed to be said and people were wondering why no alternative opinions were were coming up and then it turns out that Because you know, Meta and Google and everybody was working together with the governments to suppress information that was considered to be going against the main narrative, right? So we have a precursor of this kind of things happening. And and now we're probably heading in that same direction with chat control and all these different things that they they they're trying to implement. Richard: Yeah, think jumping on your point there as well, we've seen with like the social media ban. So there's no talk of chat control here in Australia, but we've seen with the social media ban that it started as a kind of tentative toe in the water and the Australians are like, look at us, how forward thinking we are, look how advanced we are. And then you've seen as it's rolled downhill and more and more jurisdictions have seen that you could just do this. It's gotten more and more added onto it and it's gotten fewer, had fewer and fewer control. in place on things like data collection as it's sort of gone jurisdiction to jurisdiction. So there's a couple of big things for non-Europeans about chat control. One is it's providing the template for doing this politically. The other is... If you're, it's, we're not isolated, right? It's not like Europeans only talk to Europeans and, you know, non Europeans only talk to each other or Venezuelans only talk to Venezuelans for that matter. it means if you're not European, if you're talking to anyone in Europe, you have to understand that their side is being, there's an entire side of the conversation. Probably what you're saying too is being scanned and sent in for review. And it also means that all of the software manufacturers and the hardware manufacturers and so forth have to have this stuff in place. So what it will mean is if you buy a phone in Burkina Faso or in Chile or in Mongolia, it's going to have this capacity in there now that may be turned off, quote unquote, it may or may not actually be turned off, but it's there. The functionality is there to be turned on if the relevant jurisdiction decides they want it or if the phone company decides, we'll just use this for a bit of a customer research. So we'll just anonymize the data, but we'll just see if people complain about our service or whatever. There's a myriad ways that it can go wrong and having a law in Europe, which means it's compulsory to pre-scan and send chat conversations into info review before they're sent across the wires. means that that capacity is there and it's, it's, you know, available to either hackers or, you know, the friendly authorities near you at a moment's notice. And I think this is why it's, it's bothersome. Even if you think, well, those crazy Europeans and they're over regulation, you know, it doesn't affect me. Well, I think it actually really does because it's setting a standard where This is going to be generally available across all the software platforms that do any real traffic and that's universal. Alex: Yeah, and I think that's gonna be in a way the starting gun for all these PW PWA and side loading apps and graphene OS and you know, all that different alternative OS and app and whole all that environment is gonna get a huge boost from this. Richard: What? Yeah, I mean, you have to start wondering like how long before it becomes common to do stuff also like grab old Nokia phones and write new roms and stuff for them that can send messages, whatever, because it's going to have, there's going to be a point where it's like phones after a certain age, just naturally not trustworthy. And I do think we've got to also watch this like you say, there are things like the actual internet. where you're essentially running software that came over the pipes. That's how we deliver CIDR, right? You can just deliver the whole blockchain node to someone's browser and browsers nowadays can do that kind of thing. They can run this, you know, we're doing this call, this recording in a browser, it's going out live. So you've got the capacity, but you know, these are the things when we talk about open internet, this is what we're protecting, right? There may come a point where... it's at least legislated that you're supposed to send everything you want to record. And there's not much difference in track, track control and needing to press a button when we press before we press go live in this studio to say, we're going to send a feed of this to the authorities for verification or whatever. Now we're making this public anyway, so that doesn't, you know, we're not going for, you know, approval, but you know, private conversations, the same thing. And that that's, you know, I think something we kind of. to me this week really brought home is it's sort of hard to believe, like watching a train crash in slow motion. But it's also totally redoubled my sense of we need to make sure we protect these things and we need to keep working on tools that keep these things open for us and the fundamentals of them, things like PWAs, being able to have web deliverable applications vital. Alex: Yeah, I mean the the browser, right, is the last bastion of freedom on the internet. which is why they always try to take you out of the browser and get you into an app. Now the apps will be pre scanned and, you know, all that's malarkey. So i it is it is Richard: Yeah, that's also why they like platforms which get the browser out of the way as much as possible, right? Like it's just a tube to the service provider and they can capture everything there. It's one of those two. And so yeah, it's really vital to remember that the browser and the internet can be yours and you can do with them what you want. And we need to make sure we protect that. Alex: Great. Speaking of platforms, the European Court of Justice has dismissed Google and Alphabet's final appeal against a 4.1 billion antitrust fine, closing out a decade-long enforcement action over the Android operating system and leaving the company with no further route of challenge. It's crazy how these companies can just take a four-ten billion dollar fine on the chin. And you don't even notice a blip on their you know on their like earnings reports. And it just goes to show how much money passes through there and how much money they make, like the overhead, like the cost of the service and how much they put on top of that. It's like literally five percent and then 95% is just profit. And it just begs the question, you know, if you know, are these billion euro fines just the cost of doing business? Richard: Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot to be read into that because yeah, I think they are. I think, so companies just see them as a cost of doing business and they're making the decision. It's like, it's like Melburnians treat the public transport fare system, right? It's like, well, it's so expensive that unless I get caught every 10th trip. it's just cheaper to not pay and pay the fine, right? Until I start getting into some serious trouble. And I think those companies behave the same way. There's enough money in whatever they're doing to just keep doing it and pay the fines as they go along. I think the kind of terrible side of it is not so much that, because I don't expect moral behavior from companies. One hopes for it, but you don't expect it. What... really gets me here is that on the state side, using, I see it as they're using these fines and things more like a kind of tariff, right? So they're using them to try and encourage or discourage certain behavior. And also as a kind of just a plain tax, right? It's just a way of getting more out of these companies in a kind of combined way. So they're kind of saying, well, we'll get more out of you unless you do these things this way that we want. rather than actually looking at and you can tell that's happening because they know, know, the regulators know that a $4.1 billion fine barely stings. So they're, they're doing that anyway, whereas they could simply, you know, interject. They could. do various things to actually, you know, take these companies head on, but they're not doing that. They've got no interest in doing that. What they're wanting to do is bolster revenue and maybe steer behavior a little bit. And also, of course, look like they're doing the right thing. Right. And so, you you can see when they've been serious, like take Internet Explorer. out of the default position as the browser you have to have when you use Windows or will stop you selling Windows. That happened. They just stopped doing it. So it's all that you can't sell Windows. Otherwise, if they'd been told it'll be a hundred million dollar fine, they probably just would have paid it. Alex: Yeah, you can see it again in in stuff like how hard they fought to get chat control back into you know, contention and you know how little they fight on on other things, right? It's like you you can really tell like the the amount of effort they put into something is directly proportional with Richard: Yeah. I was like, where's he going with it? No, you're absolutely right. Like, yes, if they put half the effort into like mediating Google's behavior here that they did to like putting up chat control, what is it? Six times now? For review that, you know, they would have just done something about it. So yeah, I think that that kind of, that's a really good point. It puts it in pretty stark relief. Alex: Yeah, no, it's it's it's I mean what I find difficult to to put into words is the fact that we are witnessing less and less shame with each passing year. You know, there used to be a time where if you would get hit with like an antitrust thing, it would be a huge thing, right? And you would lose so much face. And now it's just like it's another day, right? The the news cycle is so fast that it doesn't really matter. I mean, there's things are happening at such a rate that people don't even have the time to process the information anymore, which incentivizes people to do things because obviously, you know, in a week people won't remember that you did some crazy thing last week, right? And it's just you know, where do we go down this road? Where does this road end, you know? Richard: Yeah. Well, I think the big thing there too is I think people are losing faith that organs like the European Parliament we were talking about before are actually serving them in any way when... You know, things that their representatives have voted down four or five, six times get jammed in last thing on the last voting session before the holiday. Um, you know, they start doubting whether this is really a functioning entity. Uh, and so, you know, you just start, um, losing faith. And unfortunately, a lot of what that does is it weakens the institutions or the, you know, the checks and balances further because no one's, well, people are paying even less attention to what's going on. And I think that's, that's a real crisis. at the moment. I think at the same time though, really strangely, I noticed this by-play on the internet where there's a very left-wing singer called Jesse Wells who had a song called Masks Off. And there was this weird thing that happened where it's about the people with their hands on the levers of power being unmasked for who they really are. And a bunch of right-wingers had come along because I thought it was an anti-mask kind of don't tread on me libertarian message. And everyone's chatting in the comments about in the end how the masks are really off. So you've got this weird love in between in the comments section between the two kind of very disparate groups in the U.S. but very young and very disaffected. mean, Jesse Wells is popular, I think, you know, with a... Gen Z and younger set. And it was just super interesting to see this what would traditionally be, you know, not a MAGA crowd, but a libertarian crowd getting on just fine with the Marxists. about what they're seeing when they look at the state and the people in power in their country. And I think that's, that was a kind of nice moment actually to spot that. But at the same time, I think it's exactly what you're saying. People have really not just lost faith, but they're starting to see some really brazen behavior from large corporates and from vested interests in government. And it's impacting, I think. Alex: Yeah, I think I think it this harkens back to a point you made a few episodes ago when you were talking about the enclosure that is being built, right? And we had an ho a whole episode about building building in public, right? And how we are literally just, you know, in the open being hoarded into into some sort of fifteen minute cities, you know, surveillance everywhere. and now there's an entire movement in in the UK against flock cameras. Richard: Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Alex: is there anything you wanna share with us on that part? I I I saw you put it on the dock. Richard: Well, I just, I just noticed, mean, again, I, you know, we, obviously we do some scanning of news and what's, what's trending in the space, et cetera. Yeah. I have some sort of feed watches for things like surveillance and so forth. And, um, yeah, it's just been a really strong thing I've picked up this week. I didn't know what a flock camera was on Monday. Um, Alex: How you do? Richard: By today, there's songs and memes and I mean, the coolest thing is the various versions of the I am Spartacus or the, you know, ways to report. One of the ones I really liked is like ways to report, you know, people you've seen, disabling flock cameras. And it's just a bunch of people walking. You're just walking away, not doing anything. And, you know, it was just kind of really interesting because this stuff, like the speed and the pace at which it seems to come up, become something and then get real awareness has gone up. We haven't yet seen things like, you know, kind of people trying to chant down on your ability to say this stuff. And that's that's the interesting thing, I think, is is when and if we see that kind of kind of control on those things. yeah, it's been, it's been, you know, another, um, I mean, for that, also noticed in the bi-play on that reading about them, that the U S actually has the same deployed volume of surveillance equipment, uh, per person is China. It's just a big difference between the two places is, is which one is public and which one is private. So in the U S surveillance of public spaces is primarily privately done. and in China it's primarily centrally done, but it's not like one or the other actually is particularly noteworthy different. And I think it's something that people think happens over there, but it's actually not the case at all. Alex: I was I just had an intrusive thought and I'm gonna share that with you and it was basically one of my best trades that I've ever made. It wasn't a lot of money, but percentage-wise it was a very good trade, was on private prisons in America. so yeah, it's it just it's it's one of those countries where once you understand how it works and Richard: you Alex: how they use the prison system. It's from a moral standpoint, it just breaks your heart. but then at the same time you can you can see when they're undervalued. I'm sorry, it's just a like an intrusive thought, but but but it's just but yeah, because I mean it's it's literally they they the people that get you get sent to prison and then you have to work in prison. But you get paid like less than a dollar an hour. Richard: What are you telling me Alex? Hmm. Yeah. Alex: So there are all these companies that hire, for example, customer support. They hire they have a contract with the prison system, and in the prison system they force you to work and you get paid a dollar an hour. But you know, the the arbitrage on that trade ends up in the in the pocket of the of the prison corporation that you happen to be incarcerated with. So it's a very, you know, borderline slavery racket. And this is completely legal in America. Richard: Yeah. Yeah, I this stuff, mean, this is going in a different political direction in terms of the areas of politics we talk about, not that we're not political. But yes, I mean, these things being private is... very concerning if it's something like a prison. If it's something that is profiteering off people's lack of liberty, there's something wrong there if for no other reason that they have then an obviously a vested interest to continue that lack of liberty, whether it's justified or not. There's a reason to keep these people. Nobody wants their best customer service workers to get out on parole. So yeah, I didn't know that. Alex: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. no. Let's let's change topic. I'm sorry I even brought that up. This is why I'm talking like intrusive thoughts, but you know, getting back on the idea of cameras, cause you know, why not? Why not put a camera in your car, Richard? Don't you feel like you need someone to watch over you even when you're driving? Well, you're in luck, cause starting on the 7th of July. Richard: Hahaha! Yeah. Yeah. Alex: All new cars say that are being sold in Europe have to have a whole new wave of safety features. And you know, the one that raises eyebrows is the driver distraction system, which uses infrared cameras pointed at the driver to analyze behavior, cracking eye movement, blinking, so that they can tell if you're looking away or yawning and sure that you don't lose attention. I mean what can be more pleasant than having this is an addition to lane assist, which is the most horrible thing. Like you rent a car and let's say you you just end up on a road where you can actually drive down the middle. So you you end up like crossing the the the the dotted line it just continues beeping on and on and on. So yeah now now you have cameras as well. Richard: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I mean, the point you make just there is the one that is the most concerning to me. mean, writing software for a living and knowing how many unintended consequences one algorithm can have within the operating system. Just the idea, I mean, I totally, the... The car I have now, the one thing that irritates the hell out of me about it is the lane assist, right? And it, there's times, particularly in Australia, there's times when the appropriate safe thing to do is to drive down the middle of the road until there's someone anywhere near you, which you can see, but the road is quite narrow and there are possibly wildlife for various reasons. Like it's the right thing to do. car basically won't let you and it's it's overriding a decision you're making as a competent driver hopefully to do something for your own safety and the safety of the people in the car so to me that I mean that's the the biggest issue with this is I'm just waiting for there to be an inverse case of you know someone is sneezing because they're going to the early stages of a you know, very severe allergic reaction and the car stops because it seems that they're not competent to drive. There may be an overall benefit. Like it may be that that happens and that the negative, the negative consequences of those kinds of errors are less than the people who being helped in some cases. But I don't think we have evidence for that. I don't think it's been, you know, doesn't been thought through. And I don't think you know, people are kind of thinking about this in the long term, right? It's, you know, the kind of thing that seems like, we should have all the safety features, but... you know, where do they go? Where do we end up with them? You know, they won't just sit there. They'll be adopted, improved. And on top of all of that, they're now another attack vector for people to get personal data through various means, because if a car is connected to the internet and it's connected to a bunch of cameras that are watching what you're doing, it's available there to someone who's smart enough to get it. That's, I think, the side of things that people aren't necessarily thinking about with this stuff. Alex: Yeah, a hundred percent. I totally agree. And it's also the infantilization of the population, right? where you you kinda started this assumption that everybody's completely stupid and they cannot manage their own life. So you have to keep on down the lane and you have to put a camera to watch them drive and you know, you need to have digital ID to protect the children. The parents can protect the children. You catch all the predators, you know, you go do your work. that you're actually are supposed to do and stop making up all this other crap because some lobbying company one Richard: Yeah. Well, I think that's, I mean, that's the, that like, there's a really good argument in there as well, which I hadn't, hadn't been focusing on, but yes, if you, always said that like, when I worked between Japan and China and There was such a stark difference in the late aughts between the two places. If there's any road work going on in Japan, they would have three layers of warning signs and they'd put soft cushioning on the edge of anything sticking out from a building side, et cetera. And in China at the time, it has changed. There would likely just be a hole in the ground. The end result was that Chinese people watched where the hell they were walking and Japanese people often didn't. And so you'd have this thing where people would walk into doors or oncoming traffic because they were just assuming that every safety measure had been taken and it actually undermined. some people's ability to walk safely around the streets and to pay attention to where they were going because you know everything was padded there's always someone there to warn you etc etc whereas you know in fact the people who were dealing with the fact that there were sometimes potholes in the sidewalk were then actually paying attention to where they put their feet and i do wonder wonder with that this stuff as well of like is there a point at which you've gone from things like seat belts, which just are better to wear than not, to things where people are gonna assume, you know, if the car lets me drive, I must be awake enough. Rather than thinking to themselves, have I had enough sleep? Is it safe to go on a long family drive on two hours sleep? They're just gonna assume, well, the car hasn't stopped me yet. So. you know, so I must be fine or people will start trying to subvert these things on the grounds that, oh well, you it doesn't, and that'll become what they're worried about, whether they can get away with it rather than actually sitting down and saying, wait, should I be behind the wheel right now? Alex: Yeah, basically what what you're what you're saying is is the same argument that I think like Trassibulus or or Herodot used against Pericles in ancient Greece because you know the argument was that Pericles made the life of the Athenians much better. much easier. But did he make the Athenians better people? And the answer was no, because they just had a an easier life. And like I guess that's the more the Chinese way of of doing things of hardening the the people by not taking too many precautions, right? Richard: Right. Yeah. Well, I think that's, mean, it's interesting because that's sort of changing. The things like safety standards and stuff have gone up dramatically and with good cause, you know, like the number of people with visible workplace injuries and like broken arms and fingers and burns and stuff is going down. younger generation aren't, you know, are better off that way. But I think there is a thing to like removing people's responsibility. for their own safety. And I think that that is where this becomes the question. And so I think it's an interesting question, like with things like seat belts and stuff. I don't think that's taking away people's need to think and be responsible for themselves. But I do think that there's a point at which you've got like every single safety device to the point that you're taking over people's need to think through what they're doing. And that's when you start having that effect. Yeah. Alex: Exactly. And that is the risk. That is the risk, exactly. Cause 'cause you you you kinda like you get people to relax to to an extent that maybe they shouldn't. And then at the same time you kinda softly program people into letting go and letting more and more of their own responsibilities onto the state. and then before you know it, you end up with the state deciding everything that you should be should do, everything that you should consume, what you should eat, what you should think and so on and so forth, which is obviously not the sort of outcome that we would like to have. Richard: What? And I think you see the same thing with a lot of things like, I don't know, tax regulation or whatever. So if I'm within the regulations, I'm doing the right thing. Are you? Like, no, you're compliant, but are you actually behaving like you should? That's a very different question. But it's very easy to start focusing on whether you're just following all the rules. And I think that that's where we get into sort of trouble with this kind of thing. Alex: Yeah, and you know, speaking of of letting the state decide what you should consume, media consumption is also part of that diet, right? And today's topic of discussion will concentrate around the state mandated algorithm changes to YouTube in the United Kingdom, where the state is aiming to get the BBC shoved into people's feeds, basically saying if you don't want our propaganda, we'll just shove it into our algorithm. Richard: you Alex: Which angle should we start with here, Richard? I I'll let you choose. Which where do you wanna hit them from? From the top, from the bottom, straight in the face? Where do you wanna start? Richard: Well, it's, I mean, it's, it's again, I mean, I'll just repeat myself for the time on this. Like why have the algorithm? Like that's the, that's the, that's the intriguing thing here is it's, you know, it is, is an interesting question. If you've got kids and you know how addictive a streaming video channel can be to you as a grownup who knows better. then you do worry about your kids being sat in front of it. And you do wonder how that should be dealt with. You wonder like, how do we keep a kid from just becoming a complete dopamine fiend at the risk of losing all these other things? The answer is not to make use of the feed by putting things that the regulator wants more of in the feed. This is not solving any problems here. I'm not sure what, if any research has gone into how you could define or how you could identify the fingerprints of all of the work that has been done by the product teams at the companies that produce this stuff and that engineer them. the algorithms to be what they are. But I don't think there's anything I've heard of that's vaguely successful or that like anyone even trying to take that angle and say, look, we know how to identify a feed that is. behaving in these malicious ways and this is how and we can do this analysis and therefore we should say feed should not have these properties, right? If that was what was going on, I might listen and say, well, okay, is that valid and how well does it work? And can we really tell? Are there ways of just getting around it because the rules say no more than three of these in a row. So you put new spaces in or something. I'm not seeing any of that. This is not the argument that's being made at all. It's simply, we think it would be fair if you put this in as well, because we want it in and it's not there. And so we're going to tell you that it should be. and that's not really changing anything except putting what you, you should be in the feed in the feed, which is what the company is doing in the first place. I believe. So yeah, mean, it's sort of, it's a bizarre turn up on so many accounts, but my biggest takeaway is this is, you know, I don't know what a good analogy is like trying to put medicine in people's milkshakes or, you know, monster drinks or whatever. don't know. It's like, just not the, in any way, the appropriate way to deal with these things. It's not advancing the cause at all. Alex: It is a reactionary movement, right? I mean it's it's not it's not something it's not an action, it's a reaction to losing a lot of viewership. It's a reaction to narratives not tracking with the audience anymore, right? It's it's a reaction to things like X, things like Reddit, things like YouTube and you know, Red Square and and and stuff like that, right? Richard: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's... Well, right. mean, going, uh, kind of looking at it analytically. Yes, absolutely. So what's, what's happened is that, I don't know in the old school, I don't know how many it was where you were growing up, but you know, in Australia, there were five channels and I was very young in South Africa. The one that only came on at 6 PM. So, um, And so in this case, the regulator, the state has looked at the situation and said, well, at least previously we used to get, and in the UK it was fairly high, two thirds or three fifths or whatever the number was of time because we're broadcasting, we're one of N broadcasters. And so by default, we're getting that percentage of the total bandwidth, right? And then not being able to accept that when... presented with complete choice, they're getting 0 % of the attention or near 0 % particularly in certain groups. And rather than doing what you might be forced to do in a corporate situation, whatever and saying, okay, why is no one checking? Like, why is no one looking at this? What do we do about that? Or... okay, maybe we shouldn't have this kind of medium, maybe we should go back to broadcast or whatever. They're not doing that. They're just saying, well, you must put this in. And that doesn't seem like sort of any effort going into thinking about like, why is this resonating so poorly with anybody that we're getting next to no traction in these. spheres and like mandating inclusion doesn't seem like the way to make that any better you're just going to have people who are annoyed with the content that they didn't want to see Alex: Exactly. So like I'm I'm thinking that you you kinda like stumble onto a very interesting question there, which is who does it serve, right? Like who does it serve to control the algorithm and why is there such a big fight over it? Because you know, parts of parts of this you know the the separation of the EU from the US in terms of digital services Richard: Yeah. Alex: Is a fight over the feed. the fact that we have something like a red square on top of Sado is also part of this fight, but in a different angle. It's because you know you can you can scroll in your infinite you know infinite doom scroll, right? And those videos, even if you don't take them seriously, they they kind of like transfer an emotion onto you. Richard: Mm-hmm. Alex: And that can usually that's fear. Because fear is the most, you know, it it sells the most, it has the most spread, right? You always write the bad review, never write the good review. And I think that this question of, you know, how was life before the feeds? Who does it serve and what would be a better version of a feed? These are the questions that we should be asking. The fact that the BBC wants to get in, of course they're gonna take like the easy way out. You know, it's corporate. That they always find like the easiest way. There was it was never our fault. We couldn't have prevented this. We could had no idea this was gonna happen. Right? And they always take the easy way out and they try to fix it post fact. But these are the questions, you know, who does it serve? What is the feed? Richard: Mm-hmm. Alex: How does the feed have to be or does it need to be in order for for for for people to regain their freedom? Like, you know, I want I want to control my own feed. Like when I go on Red Square, it's so simple to control my feed. When I'm on Instagram, I try to control my feed. I have to go into like 20 menus. I have to write by hand like hashtags for things I don't want to see. There's like a gazillion steps. Richard: Yep. Mm-hmm. Alex: And guess what? After a while, they still bring it back. They still bring it back to what they want to show you. It's just a temporary, you know, break that you can press. But it's never, it's never the whole thing. and by the way, I just want to thank everybody for watching. We're on 38 viewers. Richard: Well. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, it's. Alex: And that brings us up in the in the top live on X. So very, very thankful for that. And if you can share this with your friends, your family, anyone that's interested, it would help us a lot. Thank you so much. And please, Richard, go ahead. Richard: Yep. Yeah, I mean, I think, yes, we've all seen that. mean, X had this, right? So they had the war over the what's in the base feed and then for you and various versions. And they kept just pulling it back. And the reason is that the sponsored content is what's buttering the bread. And that's what they're going to keep bringing back and keep looking for ways to do that. it's a bit like the... you know, the rules for the lottery changing just a little bit before you could do enough statistical analysis to start working out, you know, even if it's just other people are betting, right? You know, like you just a way to keep it secure. You just change the rules every now and then you have to start your analysis over again. They'll just change how the feed is comprised so that the rules that you put in place to block things or change things are now not as valid as they were and stuff start sneaking through, right? So nothing, yeah, nothing got broken. Nothing. Alex: they get reset. Yeah. Richard: you know, changed significantly. They didn't press the give you a load of crap again button. just, you know, they just let things drift. and of course they do, right? This is, this is what they're getting, you know, paid by advertisers, by supporters to do. So they're going to do it. I think you've got to go back to, you know, the question, you're like, how is life before feeds? and it's, it's a really interesting thing because I think about this because, know, there are times that the YouTube music algorithm, whatever suggests something to me and I'm like, that's actually really good. that. it's not like an algorithm can't do something useful in terms of a suggestion algorithm and early on years ago, I built a suggestion algorithm, a very, very sophisticated one for the time, nothing like a modern LLM, but designed to suggest scientific journals for scientists to direct their papers to. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about how you build a suggestion algorithm and try and find the appropriate thing for people. And it can be done with the best of intentions, et cetera. The issue is like, why did everything become feed based. And so Facebook didn't start off that way. It started off as friends and family and stuff. And it became free based because it's a centralized platform providing this and they're getting paid for what people see. And so people worked out and there were various quantum leaps, you know, from Facebook to eventually doyin and you know, the Western version TikTok where people just invented more and more addic- give ways to do that feed. That's a natural progression. It's the same as we've talked about the intensification of the internet. Generally, you know, it's not an accident. It's the natural progress of things. If you, you know, fail to regulate the internet in certain ways, or if the internet lacks certain features to strengthen itself against that behavior, you're you're going to get, it's going to happen. I grew up, I was really lucky to grow up in Melbourne where we had this weird quirk in the law that meant that you could have essentially legitimate pirate radio stations. You could get an educational broadcasting license that meant you basically didn't pay much in royalties and you could have radio stations that were just playing what they wanted staffed by DJs who made up their own playlists. And the way you became a DJ was... to work around the station to volunteer and then get someone's holiday shift. And if people liked what you did, you kept doing it. And that was my feed back in the day, right? I would discover these people usually a few years older than you had been to a few more gigs, knew a bit more overseas music than you did and you'd find stuff via them or your friend would and they'd tell you. And we did really well, right? So it's not like you can't do that. Alex: What I'm hearing here, like sorry for interrupting, but what I'm hearing here and I wanna know if if this was what you're trying to say is like what I'm hearing here is that there was a time where our feed were the actions we took each day and the interactions that we had and the people that we met and the trips that we went on, and that was our feed. We would move around the world, talk to people, say hello, do things, go to concerts, go to stores, go to bars, and that was the feed. Richard: Yeah. Yes. So really good. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Alex: Now Richard: Right. Alex: we have become passive. We sit in front of a screen and we do this walking digitally but somebody has come in between. Richard: Yeah. Yeah. You've, you've, you've speed run, you speed run what I was saying. And it kind of links to what we were saying before about it diminishes your, skillset, for judging. I fit to drive the car? Right. We've lost some of that ability to have a feed. You know, I've used the analogy before of, know, like if there's someone, if there's a jerk in the bar, spurting racist bullshit, you either leave the bar or you kick them out. Right. We have these native. tools for building and addressing that organic feed we get through life. You know, you would meet someone at a party who was just the coolest person because they would like, they played some song you'd never heard and then they did it again. And it was a better song. And you talked to them about gigs you'd been to or about whatever it was, football or snowboarding or politics. And they were interesting and you've made a new friend and they were now big, you know, maybe become a big part of your feed, right? They would, they would influence you. You end up going to gigs and you meet other people, you hear the other bands playing whatever we had these organic skills that you learned to navigate that. And some people were very happy with the feed made entirely of books and alone time. And so forth. And other people wanted to go out and hit clubs, right? And you had your feed was all about what club it was good to be at this week. But we had the, we, had and have these organic ways of managing that. And so to me, the way to actually fix this problem rather than ramming the BBC down people's throats. is to create systems that replicate those organic methods that people have. Consuming stuff from your friends gives you the ability to get more of that and you're steering it, right? So you can go to the parties with those people at them or that person out, you can try and find them or you can avoid them for a while. You can use those organic things. Again, if someone just keeps recommending crap or spamming the group, can just either remove them or stop paying attention to them and mute them. But where you have ability to use these organic things we all know as a way of discovering and building stuff. And it might take a little bit more effort. And I think to your earlier point, that's why we end up just becoming passive because it's so easy. to get fed this thing but like i mean is that phrase wall of bland before i think that's the that's the real risk and even if it's not that it's still you're going to get, you know, it's like AI music. You're going to get variations on a theme. You're going to get different flavors of ice cream. No one's going to like give you pate suddenly that you'd never thought of or whatever. It's just going to be, you know, what sells in bulk, what's easy to make, et cetera, et cetera. That's, that's just, it's like entropy. It's a natural state of the universe. Things, things devolve in that way and they kind of condense down. And so, Alex: Foy Gra. Richard: like what we really try and do at Red Square. we had this, I mean, was good the other recently, we had some nastiness on the site, some people posting stuff and we found some glitches in the kind of personal moderation system we have. And it was good to go through and actually look how it works without banning anyone, without shutting anyone up. You can create, you can still create a safe space where people seeing what they want to see, where your feeds are. organically controlled, et cetera. And that's by giving people positive tools to do that for themselves and to have those impact the people around them and to let people form organic groups that are informing each other what they see and letting people experience things through each other. And I think that's the real difference to me. Alex: And if I may piggyback on on to what you just said, it's also the fact that we don't change the rules from week to week and reset everything that you decided beforehand because we don't I mean s Red Square doesn't make money from advertisers, Red Square is paid through the Sato token. So it's it's the user is the customer. There is no advertisers that asks us to Richard: Hmm. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There's several layers for that. Yeah. So the users are paying actually less than they would elsewhere because they're paying way less and their attention would be charged for, but the users are funding this. So yes, there isn't a draw to the advertisers. The other thing is that we're not the only game in town. There's a separation between the information underneath the data flow and the presentation of this. So the example I like to use is You know, if you wanted to, you could spin up your own Red Square instance and moderate it with your friends so that it's safe for your kids. And that's the thing everyone wants. That's a real protected children thing. You have to put in some effort, but you can do that. Conversely, you could make sure it's only about tractors. If that's what you want, if you want a node that's just the information feed about tractors and that's, we want a safe space for people who are super into tractors. You can do that. There's no need to stop anyone from doing anything in that methodology, but you can also just let organically grow what organically grows. So you kind of get the best of a good subreddit without needing to have any kind of central feed involved. And I think... That's why we're so big on Red Square. And I think you can see with other people in the space that there's a will to that, but it can fall down on the edges. So things like mastodon, et cetera, can be very difficult to use at the start because you're not getting a feed jam down your throat immediately, but they're still trying, I think, to fix that by rectifying having a kind of nicer feed. And that's sort of hard to get started rather than by... having a way of doing a you know, a sort of a stronger friend recommendation mechanism, but also then having a way of actually having the content and the front end sort of separated in a different way. I risk getting into the weeds about all of that, so I'll probably leave that there, because I love what they're trying to do. I'm not against, you know, they're allies in a fight. Alex: No Yeah, and I think of course, of course, I mean we we love Mastodon. what I think is very interesting there is to maybe highlight for people the fact that the discovery aspect of a centralized feed is rather difficult to replicate what you're doing a decentralized platform. because you don't have the same pull from from all directions. But it's also the fact that there are different incentives and there's different degrees of control over what you see. As a user, it's it's it's upon you to find things that you wanna Richard: Hmm. Alex: wanna see and obviously if we're just being used to this passive you know it doesn't matter if I have if I follow zero people Instagram will show me a feed and make sure that I doom scroll for hours if that's you know if I'm silly enough to to do that. While on a decentralized platform it's more like real life. You kind of have to go out and make the contacts so that you can call them back and ask what's happening. What's new in the store? What's new with you Richard: Hmm. Yep. And it's also. Yeah, it's also messy, right? In the best possible way. So if we go back to those radio, that kind of like pirate radio station example, it's not that the feed of music you get there is unintentional. It's not that nobody has an agenda, right? You hope that the agenda of everybody there is that they play you music they really love. Right. So there's still an agenda. It's just hopefully one that's more aligned with what you want. And it doesn't mean that you can't have coordination. They might be playing music to each other, but if the country music guy and the reggae guy and the rock guy and the, if they all like, you know, you know, the same thing and you hear it three times in a day, that's because they're all, they all think it's a banger. You know, they're all dancing to it at the various clubs that they go to or whatever. That's. unintentional, it's messy, it won't get you exposure to everything. But it has a quality and a likelihood of getting you some stuff that you'd never thought of that isn't on one person's agenda, right? Like that's broader than that. And I think that's why it starts being a richer experience. And in that context, if the BBC want to, you post their stuff, let them, right? That'd be great. Alex: Yeah. And it also introduces an element of natural friction. You know, an element of, you know, things can end. In there's you listen to all the songs you had here, you you saw all the updates from all the people that you know. Take a break. Go do something else. You're updated. This idea of just yeah. Richard: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, you're bored here. Yeah. You're bored here. Go fly kite. Go listen to another radio station. Start at the beginning. That's reasonable. Rather than, yeah, going to the endless slurry factory and just gobbling it all up. I think there's like a real joy to it. It's not a lesser experience. I think it's a much richer, much better experience. Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Richard: It's just the, you know, it's the fast food versus good home cooking example, you know, it's more effort. and I think more rewarding to cook good food and enjoy it yourself. But obviously we all have, you know, times when it's just the thing you want to go and get some fast food. And we all know that if we were. children with adult budgets, we might just do that all the time. Nothing but ice cream and KFC. And so you need to have some, you know, some, some personal responsibility for that and some, you know, hopefully better options to actually go and enjoy the world. Alex: What I hear you saying here, Richard, is that all good things must come to an end. And so does this episode of the open and so does the open internet pod. But we will be back next week with hopefully just as interesting topic to discuss. So thank you, Richard, so much for for enlighten and you know Richard: You've been the Segway King tonight, sir, I must say. We will. Alex: All the stuff that I've learned today about feeds and how Red Square does it and you know, the idea that maybe some of some of this work has to be on my shoulder. You know, I can't just like point at someone and say, Fix my feed, which is owned by a big corporation. You know, I can fix it myself. Richard: Yeah. Yeah. On the other hand, think about the, at the same time, the wonderful world of discoveries and cool stuff that are out there that may not quite be as profitable to sell you as the stuff you're getting now. And I think you can see a lovely, beautiful rain rainbows and care bears future with wonderful stuff in it. Alex: Sounds lovely. I can't wait. Well, see you next time. See you next time, everybody. Thank you so much, Richard. Richard: Thanks a little, thanks Alex.