WEBVTT 1 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:14.105 Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a 2 00:00:14.105 --> 00:00:16.265 podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike 3 00:00:16.265 --> 00:00:21.225 Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 08/12/2025 at 4 00:00:21.305 --> 00:00:27.545 09:10AM eastern, and we have an harmonious show for you today. 5 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:31.080 Contributing producer Toby Martin takes a deeper look at 6 00:00:31.080 --> 00:00:36.840 why and how his online ads have changed throughout his 7 00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:41.400 transition. Then in our second ever edition of terms and 8 00:00:41.400 --> 00:00:46.495 conditions, I talk in detail about RSS, what it is, how it 9 00:00:46.495 --> 00:00:48.975 works, and why it's having a moment. 10 00:00:49.295 --> 00:00:52.575 For that, I chat with Justin Jackson, cofounder of podcast 11 00:00:52.575 --> 00:00:57.535 host transistor.fm and member of the podcast standards project 12 00:00:57.680 --> 00:01:03.920 about the future of RSS and also Internet instruments. But right 13 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:05.840 now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna listen to 14 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:08.880 some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we return, 15 00:01:08.880 --> 00:01:10.960 we're gonna talk about a few of the things that have happened 16 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:14.735 since the last time you heard from us. Johnny's in the 17 00:01:14.735 --> 00:01:18.255 basement mixing up the five stories for you this week. 18 00:01:19.935 --> 00:01:25.935 Reddit will block the Internet Archive's wayback machine from 19 00:01:25.550 --> 00:01:29.470 scraping a majority of the site. This, the social media platform 20 00:01:29.470 --> 00:01:33.070 states, is because they've caught AI companies scraping the 21 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:37.790 archive to build datasets for training. Speaking to The Verge, 22 00:01:37.790 --> 00:01:40.910 Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt says, until they're 23 00:01:40.910 --> 00:01:45.295 able to defend their site and comply with platform policies, e 24 00:01:45.295 --> 00:01:49.215 g respecting user privacy regarding deleting removed 25 00:01:49.215 --> 00:01:52.895 content, we're limiting some of their access to Reddit data to 26 00:01:52.895 --> 00:01:57.080 protect Redditors, end quote. Notably, in the last year, 27 00:01:57.080 --> 00:02:01.080 Reddit has partnered with both OpenAI and Google. The Google 28 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:04.040 partnership brought in $60,000,000 for Reddit and The 29 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:07.160 Verge reports that it was explicitly to quote, give Google 30 00:02:07.160 --> 00:02:10.135 more efficient ways to train models. 31 00:02:10.295 --> 00:02:13.255 No dollar amount was made public concerning the OpenAI 32 00:02:13.255 --> 00:02:16.615 partnership with both companies touting AI powered features 33 00:02:16.615 --> 00:02:19.735 on-site for Reddit and no explicit mention of training 34 00:02:19.735 --> 00:02:23.000 data was made at the time either. Some speculate that deal 35 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:29.240 brought in $70,000,000 for Reddit. Wikipedia or more 36 00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:33.895 specifically the Wikimedia Foundation has lost its suit in 37 00:02:33.895 --> 00:02:37.255 a UK high court wherein it claimed that the identity 38 00:02:37.255 --> 00:02:39.975 verification required by the UK government would be both 39 00:02:39.975 --> 00:02:43.975 unnecessary and damaging to the site where a large portion of 40 00:02:43.975 --> 00:02:47.175 editors desire anonymity for reasons we discussed with 41 00:02:47.175 --> 00:02:51.940 Stephen Harrison in Neverpost episode 29 fucking around and 42 00:02:51.940 --> 00:02:56.580 finding out. The UK's new online safety act was passed to address 43 00:02:56.580 --> 00:03:00.180 the proliferation of harmful content online, but has faced 44 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:04.315 much criticism for being both harsh and draconian. At question 45 00:03:04.315 --> 00:03:08.315 here is if Wikipedia should be classified as a category one 46 00:03:08.315 --> 00:03:12.475 site, a determination based upon its user base size and features. 47 00:03:12.475 --> 00:03:15.755 Wikimedia foundation says no, but The UK's office of 48 00:03:15.755 --> 00:03:20.870 communication may say yes, now that a judge has ruled Wikipedia 49 00:03:20.870 --> 00:03:27.510 is not de facto exempt. All this while Wikipedia also fights 50 00:03:27.910 --> 00:03:30.710 slop. The Washington Post reports that editors are 51 00:03:30.710 --> 00:03:34.835 battling an on onslaught of AI generated nonsense. Daniel Wu 52 00:03:34.835 --> 00:03:39.155 writes quote, suspicious edits and even entirely new articles 53 00:03:39.155 --> 00:03:42.675 with errors, made up citations and other hallmarks of AI 54 00:03:42.675 --> 00:03:45.710 generated writing keep popping up on the free online 55 00:03:45.710 --> 00:03:48.830 encyclopedia. Deep in Wikipedia's message boards and 56 00:03:48.830 --> 00:03:53.310 edit logs, the site's stewards are toiling for long hours to 57 00:03:53.310 --> 00:03:55.950 find them and stamp them out, end quote. 58 00:03:56.375 --> 00:04:00.855 A study last October, Wu continues, estimates some 5% of 59 00:04:00.855 --> 00:04:09.015 entries contain AI generated text. Illinois becomes the first 60 00:04:09.015 --> 00:04:14.270 state in The US to ban AI therapists. Governor Pritzker 61 00:04:14.270 --> 00:04:17.550 signed the bill into law on August 5, which says that only 62 00:04:17.550 --> 00:04:21.790 licensed therapists can provide counseling and that chatbots are 63 00:04:21.790 --> 00:04:25.550 not to assume the role of mental health professionals in any way. 64 00:04:26.085 --> 00:04:29.765 The eight page law reads in part quote, an individual corporation 65 00:04:29.765 --> 00:04:33.285 or entity may not provide advertise or otherwise offer 66 00:04:33.285 --> 00:04:36.565 therapy or psychotherapy services including through the 67 00:04:36.565 --> 00:04:39.890 use of internet based artificial intelligence to the public in 68 00:04:39.890 --> 00:04:43.490 this state unless the therapy or psychotherapy services are 69 00:04:43.490 --> 00:04:47.410 conducted by an individual who is a licensed professional, end 70 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:51.970 quote. The law also puts limits on a licensed professional's use 71 00:04:51.225 --> 00:04:55.065 of AI as a supplementary tool in treatment. 72 00:04:58.025 --> 00:05:03.305 And finally, this year alone, 22 states have enacted mobile phone 73 00:05:03.305 --> 00:05:08.010 bans in all or part of the k through 12 range of their public 74 00:05:08.010 --> 00:05:11.770 schools. The laws range in severity from suggestions that 75 00:05:11.770 --> 00:05:15.930 schools do something about access to devices to outright 76 00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:19.905 bans in states like New York, Vermont, Texas, and Florida. 77 00:05:19.905 --> 00:05:23.105 Ballotpedia points out there's a variance amongst states 78 00:05:23.105 --> 00:05:26.465 concerning if phones are allowed during medical emergencies, 79 00:05:26.625 --> 00:05:30.145 break periods, and so on. Ballotpedia also reports that 80 00:05:30.145 --> 00:05:34.240 quote, of the 26 total states with laws banning or limiting 81 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:39.600 cell phone use, 17 have republican trifectas, six have 82 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:44.675 divided governments, and three have democratic trifectas. A 83 00:05:44.675 --> 00:05:48.515 trifecta here meaning a party that controls all three branches 84 00:05:48.675 --> 00:05:49.955 of state government. 85 00:05:49.955 --> 00:05:57.715 One, two, three. In show news, I was on episode 51 of the 86 00:05:57.715 --> 00:06:01.860 Tasteland podcast talking about the Internet, making never post 87 00:06:01.860 --> 00:06:05.220 hentai, the attention economy, and the Internet media 88 00:06:05.220 --> 00:06:07.860 environment as I've seen it over the last couple decades and 89 00:06:07.860 --> 00:06:11.300 more. I had a really great time chatting with Francis and Daisy, 90 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:14.375 so please go check that out. Tasteland wherever you get your 91 00:06:14.375 --> 00:06:19.015 podcasts, and we'll also throw a link in the description. And we, 92 00:06:19.015 --> 00:06:23.575 in case you haven't heard, are in the midst of a member drive. 93 00:06:23.575 --> 00:06:27.600 That's right, folks. We are driving members crazy, reminding 94 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:31.120 them that now is the time to support Neverpost to help us get 95 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:34.480 financially sustainable by the start of next year, which is a 96 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.955 little bit away. But you know what's very soon? The member 97 00:06:38.955 --> 00:06:44.555 drive stream week, which is next week, August. If you missed it 98 00:06:44.555 --> 00:06:47.515 in George's newsletter, which lots of updates go in there, so 99 00:06:47.515 --> 00:06:49.115 please make sure you're subscribed. 100 00:06:49.115 --> 00:06:52.155 There is a whole schedule waiting for you with a Monday 101 00:06:52.235 --> 00:06:56.770 morning eastern kickoff. I hope you'll join us then and then at 102 00:06:56.770 --> 00:07:00.050 various points throughout the week for chitchats, q and a's, 103 00:07:00.050 --> 00:07:03.410 game streams, a tour of Georgia's closet, special 104 00:07:03.410 --> 00:07:07.045 guests, giveaways, and more. Please check the newsletter or 105 00:07:07.045 --> 00:07:10.565 go to neverpoe.st for the schedule next week. Member drive 106 00:07:10.565 --> 00:07:11.685 stream week. Okay. 107 00:07:12.965 --> 00:07:20.920 Next, Toby on the Internet doing gender at you, then RSS. But 108 00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:24.920 first, in our interstitials this week, three Internet 109 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:28.200 instruments, two of which are entrants in the twenty twenty 110 00:07:28.200 --> 00:07:32.040 five tiny awards, which are amazing and we've put a link to 111 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:34.785 that in the description. Please go check it out. In our 112 00:07:34.785 --> 00:07:38.945 interstitials, we have Maximo Neely Cohen's 10,000 Drum 113 00:07:38.945 --> 00:07:45.585 Machines, Rafael Bastides Nest, and ErrorZero's Three zero three 114 00:07:45.585 --> 00:07:48.945 Gen. Links to all of these in the show notes. 115 00:07:50.060 --> 00:08:01.580 Okay. Here we go. 10kdrummachines.com. 116 00:08:02.375 --> 00:08:11.255 10kdrummachines.com. Oh, list of drum machines. 117 00:08:11.255 --> 00:08:15.015 Here we go. Here we go. What do I want? Let's do Nights Tour 118 00:08:15.015 --> 00:08:17.650 Drum Sequencer. Number nine. 119 00:08:18.770 --> 00:08:22.530 It's a chess board. It's a chess board. Okay. Knight two is 120 00:08:22.530 --> 00:08:25.170 snare. How I play? 121 00:08:27.650 --> 00:08:47.625 It's playing chess. Okay. Let's start with White Album Noise 122 00:08:47.625 --> 00:08:50.880 Machine. Cool. Cool. 123 00:08:50.880 --> 00:08:56.480 Cool. So we got four tracks to let's just click some random 124 00:08:56.480 --> 00:09:01.120 patterns here. Let's do a random sequence, and let's do the bpm 125 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:07.415 at a 190. Just for just a 180. 180 is as high as it goes. 126 00:09:07.415 --> 00:09:19.830 Alright. Here we go. Alright. Let's refresh the sounds. 127 00:09:23.190 --> 00:09:23.510 Alright. 128 00:09:23.510 --> 00:09:27.990 Let's break it down a little bit slower. Let's do let's do it in 129 00:09:27.990 --> 00:09:28.950 half. Let's do 90. 130 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:21.000 Hello, everybody. It's producer 131 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:25.240 Georgia. I'm just jumping in here because I am so stoked 132 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:28.375 about the segment that you are about to listen to. Eagle eared 133 00:10:28.375 --> 00:10:32.135 listeners might remember this pitch from our April mailbag, 134 00:10:32.215 --> 00:10:35.575 where listener of the show Toby Martin sent in a voicemail about 135 00:10:35.575 --> 00:10:40.295 this strange experience he's had online. I'm not giving anything 136 00:10:40.295 --> 00:10:40.535 away. 137 00:10:41.280 --> 00:10:44.800 Since then, Toby and I, along with additional support from 138 00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:49.920 Hans, have been working together to shape that pitch into what 139 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:55.015 you're about to listen to. I am so so excited for you to hear 140 00:10:55.015 --> 00:10:57.255 this. I'll let Toby take it from here. 141 00:11:08.390 --> 00:11:10.950 I wanna paint a picture for you. I'm 22 years 142 00:11:10.950 --> 00:11:13.910 old. It's been three weeks since my top surgery, and all I can 143 00:11:13.910 --> 00:11:17.350 bring myself to do is lay in bed on my laptop. I'm on the 144 00:11:17.350 --> 00:11:20.710 subreddit r slash what is this rock looking at an impressive 145 00:11:20.710 --> 00:11:24.525 sedimentary rock comprised of a bunch of crinoid fossils from 146 00:11:24.525 --> 00:11:28.445 Lake Michigan. When I see this jarring ad in the middle of my 147 00:11:28.445 --> 00:11:29.085 screen. 148 00:11:29.805 --> 00:11:34.605 Most men don't need more testosterone. They need more h g 149 00:11:34.605 --> 00:11:34.925 h. 150 00:11:35.970 --> 00:11:38.530 I am no stranger to ads on the internet, but as a 151 00:11:38.530 --> 00:11:41.570 trans man, it felt weirdly timely to be getting served 152 00:11:41.570 --> 00:11:45.170 alpha male ads on Reddit after my top surgery. This wasn't 153 00:11:45.170 --> 00:11:49.330 gender euphoria. It was more like a type of gender euphoria, 154 00:11:49.715 --> 00:11:54.595 spelled with an e w. This ad represented a type of macho man 155 00:11:54.595 --> 00:11:57.635 that icked me out, the type of guy I would steer clear from at 156 00:11:57.635 --> 00:12:01.875 a bar. I couldn't figure out why I got this ad in the first 157 00:12:01.875 --> 00:12:05.180 place, so I started to obsess over my targeted content to see 158 00:12:05.180 --> 00:12:07.580 if I might be able to get more of the same. 159 00:12:08.140 --> 00:12:12.060 And I did. A majority of my content was geared at cis 160 00:12:12.060 --> 00:12:15.420 straight men. I was being advertised shitty supplements, 161 00:12:15.705 --> 00:12:19.305 hair loss treatments, and my personal favorite, erectile 162 00:12:19.305 --> 00:12:24.585 dysfunction cure alls. These guys were everywhere. When did 163 00:12:24.585 --> 00:12:28.265 my ads become this hyper masculine, and what did I change 164 00:12:28.265 --> 00:12:29.225 to make that happen? 165 00:12:32.770 --> 00:12:35.730 In pursuit to answer these questions and the many more that 166 00:12:35.730 --> 00:12:39.090 would come up along the way, I started talking to my fellow 167 00:12:39.090 --> 00:12:43.250 trans folks. I wrote out a message saying, has anyone 168 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:46.690 noticed a change in their targeted ads or content as they 169 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:50.665 transitioned? I am mainly trying to vibe check if I'm an isolated 170 00:12:50.665 --> 00:12:53.705 experience or not because for me, it's a night and day 171 00:12:53.705 --> 00:12:57.545 difference on some platforms. I pressed send and waited 172 00:12:57.545 --> 00:13:04.540 anxiously for a response. Turns out, yes. 173 00:13:04.860 --> 00:13:08.380 A lot of folks had things to say. I got permission to share 174 00:13:08.380 --> 00:13:11.580 these messages, but to protect everyone's privacy, you'll be 175 00:13:11.580 --> 00:13:14.940 hearing from some fantastic trans writers and artists to 176 00:13:14.940 --> 00:13:16.780 read these messages on their behalf. 177 00:13:19.255 --> 00:13:22.215 Yes. My ads shifted over time. And it was 178 00:13:22.215 --> 00:13:24.855 pretty clear what kind of sites integrate with Facebook because 179 00:13:24.855 --> 00:13:27.655 my ads would change almost immediately after visiting 180 00:13:27.655 --> 00:13:31.655 certain sites, like for clothing or post op care, etcetera. 181 00:13:31.655 --> 00:13:34.900 Facebook also likes to show me transition before and afters, 182 00:13:34.900 --> 00:13:37.940 which are really annoying, and I always hide those to try to get 183 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:41.940 it to stop. And it also likes to show me a lot of lesbian 184 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:42.740 content. 185 00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:47.455 This made total sense to me because, I mean, I 186 00:13:47.455 --> 00:13:51.215 had a very similar experience through my transition. After I 187 00:13:51.215 --> 00:13:54.175 bought some fleece lined sweatpants and a body pillow for 188 00:13:54.175 --> 00:13:58.095 my top surgery recovery, my ads responded very quickly. 189 00:13:58.175 --> 00:14:02.120 Suddenly, I got a ton more ads trying to sell me scar tape or 190 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:06.760 wedge pillows. But stuff like recovery kits and transition 191 00:14:06.760 --> 00:14:10.520 before and after ads wasn't really my focus for the segment. 192 00:14:10.520 --> 00:14:13.640 I was especially interested in how much of my own targeted 193 00:14:13.640 --> 00:14:17.075 content was advertising a certain kind of gender. 194 00:14:17.155 --> 00:14:21.155 More specifically, your prototypical manosphere cis het 195 00:14:21.155 --> 00:14:31.130 man. Where did he come from? And I think I remember. It was my 196 00:14:31.130 --> 00:14:34.970 freshman year of college. At the time, I still presented as a 197 00:14:34.970 --> 00:14:37.290 very femme version of myself. 198 00:14:37.610 --> 00:14:41.690 I sold my hair in wet set curlers. I dressed in skirts and 199 00:14:41.690 --> 00:14:45.975 wore a full face of makeup. A lot of my ads reflected this. I 200 00:14:45.975 --> 00:14:49.735 got ads for Benefit Cosmetics, Unique Vintage, and a lot of 201 00:14:49.735 --> 00:14:54.295 women's skincare brands. These ads were hyper feminine, 202 00:14:54.295 --> 00:14:57.815 presenting me with a version of womanhood that was smooth and 203 00:14:57.450 --> 00:15:00.250 perfectly made up with foundation and eyeshadow. 204 00:15:00.650 --> 00:15:04.890 I was used to seeing ads like this, of the hyperfem variety. 205 00:15:05.130 --> 00:15:09.290 But one day in my engineering class, I got fed something very, 206 00:15:09.450 --> 00:15:15.115 very different. I remember I was working on this three d model 207 00:15:15.115 --> 00:15:18.395 with some YouTube videos playing in the background. I wasn't 208 00:15:18.395 --> 00:15:22.315 really paying much attention to the video until this ad for the 209 00:15:22.315 --> 00:15:26.395 US army started playing. I'd never been delivered a military 210 00:15:26.395 --> 00:15:27.410 ad before. 211 00:15:27.570 --> 00:15:31.890 It was the exact opposite of what I was used to seeing. No 212 00:15:31.890 --> 00:15:36.850 more soft focus. No more makeup. Instead, I saw a buff soldier 213 00:15:36.850 --> 00:15:38.530 piloting a drone with the caption 214 00:15:39.010 --> 00:15:41.885 Join the team that makes a difference. 215 00:15:42.205 --> 00:15:47.005 I felt conflicted. I didn't care about the US 216 00:15:47.005 --> 00:15:50.765 military or drones, but it made me feel like something had 217 00:15:50.765 --> 00:15:55.485 shifted. Remember, I saw this ad when I was in my engineering 218 00:15:55.485 --> 00:15:59.140 class where I was one of two girls in the 23 person class. 219 00:15:59.300 --> 00:16:03.540 And something about being in this very masked place changed 220 00:16:03.540 --> 00:16:27.560 the way my ads saw me. I wanted to talk to someone who could 221 00:16:27.560 --> 00:16:28.920 help me understand this. 222 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.480 Hi. My name is Adam Aleksek. I'm a linguist and 223 00:16:31.480 --> 00:16:34.120 content creator posting videos as the etymology nerd to an 224 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:36.440 audience of over 3,000,000, and I just finished writing the 225 00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:39.160 book, How Social Media is Transforming the Future of 226 00:16:39.160 --> 00:16:41.935 Language, which is now available for order. 227 00:16:41.935 --> 00:16:44.895 I wanted Adam's help in making sense of how 228 00:16:44.895 --> 00:16:48.735 algorithms target content to users, specifically when it 229 00:16:48.735 --> 00:16:52.575 comes to gender. He explained to me that in order to better 230 00:16:52.575 --> 00:16:56.260 understand the algorithms, we have to understand how we use 231 00:16:56.260 --> 00:16:59.460 them and how it makes a profile of us. 232 00:16:59.780 --> 00:17:03.060 It comes out of everything you've ever liked, 233 00:17:03.060 --> 00:17:05.700 commented on, everything you've ever posted, the way your thumb 234 00:17:05.700 --> 00:17:09.745 rests on your screen, your basic demographic information, the the 235 00:17:09.745 --> 00:17:12.705 activity you have on other apps that they can track, whether 236 00:17:12.705 --> 00:17:15.265 your phone's on the same WiFi network as another phone that's 237 00:17:15.265 --> 00:17:17.745 recently engaged in the kind of content. So even if you're not 238 00:17:17.745 --> 00:17:20.300 you haven't looked up Coquette video in your life and you just 239 00:17:20.300 --> 00:17:22.140 had a conversation with the Kochette person, your phone's 240 00:17:22.140 --> 00:17:24.300 not actually listening to you, but they they might know that 241 00:17:24.300 --> 00:17:26.540 you were in the same room as this person because you're on 242 00:17:26.540 --> 00:17:29.340 the same WiFi network. So they they build through a lot of 243 00:17:29.340 --> 00:17:32.380 these things. Oftentimes, they yeah. Through cross app 244 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:35.085 tracking, they can tell from your search history and all 245 00:17:35.085 --> 00:17:37.965 that's built into your user profile and ends up influencing 246 00:17:37.965 --> 00:17:39.805 what videos get recommended to you. 247 00:17:39.965 --> 00:17:42.925 The idea that my real life interactions affect my 248 00:17:42.925 --> 00:17:47.725 targeted content can feel nice. When my friend sends me a TikTok 249 00:17:47.725 --> 00:17:51.280 I've already seen or sends me a post about a TV show I talked 250 00:17:51.280 --> 00:17:56.240 about, I feel more connected to them. Our algorithms overlap, 251 00:17:56.320 --> 00:18:00.320 which makes it feel like we have a mutual common language. When I 252 00:18:00.320 --> 00:18:03.520 started learning to play piano, my algorithm started sending me 253 00:18:03.520 --> 00:18:07.095 ads for sheet music. Soon, I was getting recommended videos about 254 00:18:07.095 --> 00:18:10.695 music theory or banner ads for free teaching apps and top 10 255 00:18:10.695 --> 00:18:12.695 best keyboards for beginners. 256 00:18:12.855 --> 00:18:16.215 Piano was just a hobby for me, but my algorithm was acting like 257 00:18:16.215 --> 00:18:20.720 piano was the only thing I cared about. For a month, all I saw 258 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:26.880 was piano content. So sure, I didn't click on every keyboard 259 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:30.560 ad I saw, but it did feel nice that my feed was reflecting 260 00:18:30.560 --> 00:18:33.695 something about me that was true, even if it was a little 261 00:18:33.695 --> 00:18:46.390 exaggerated. Getting that hyper masculine military ad wasn't 262 00:18:46.390 --> 00:18:50.470 exactly the kind of masculinity I identified with, but it also 263 00:18:50.470 --> 00:18:54.790 felt kind of affirming. I wasn't going to click on the ad. 264 00:18:54.790 --> 00:18:58.470 I didn't want to join the army, but it did kind of make me feel 265 00:18:58.470 --> 00:19:02.865 like I was one of the guys. So all my data and my search 266 00:19:02.865 --> 00:19:06.065 history and what I buy gets compiled together, and then I've 267 00:19:06.065 --> 00:19:17.780 got my gender assigned at algorithm. But it's definitely 268 00:19:17.780 --> 00:19:19.300 not perfect. 269 00:19:19.300 --> 00:19:22.820 I started getting targeted binder ads after I got 270 00:19:22.820 --> 00:19:27.700 top surgery. I get a lot of ads for like alternative women's 271 00:19:27.700 --> 00:19:31.595 underwear companies that target mostly gender nonconfirming 272 00:19:31.595 --> 00:19:36.555 queer women. I think the algo thinks I'm a tomboy. I'm a trans 273 00:19:36.555 --> 00:19:37.115 man. 274 00:19:37.275 --> 00:19:39.595 The algorithm doesn't seem to be good at 275 00:19:39.595 --> 00:19:42.970 nuance when it comes to gender. Getting top surgery means you 276 00:19:42.970 --> 00:19:46.730 don't need binders anymore. And being a trans man could get 277 00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:50.170 garbled up by the algorithm and turned into some vague idea of 278 00:19:50.170 --> 00:19:54.090 being a tomboy. It feels less like my gender is what defines 279 00:19:54.090 --> 00:19:58.225 my algorithm and more like what I'm buying. Like, okay. 280 00:19:58.225 --> 00:20:01.905 Fantastic. So I bought a suit, looked up hockey stats, and 281 00:20:01.905 --> 00:20:07.265 calculated my macros. Now the algorithm sees me as a man TM. 282 00:20:07.425 --> 00:20:11.425 But once I got stamped with the you're a dude label by my feed, 283 00:20:11.425 --> 00:20:15.510 I noticed that the algorithmic understanding of manhood was 284 00:20:15.510 --> 00:20:22.230 really specific. Maybe I'd start with getting ads for cargo 285 00:20:22.230 --> 00:20:25.270 shorts and boxer briefs, but it wouldn't take long before I'd 286 00:20:25.270 --> 00:20:29.095 start seeing sports betting ads, then an ad for Drew Peterson's 287 00:20:29.095 --> 00:20:33.335 new book, and suddenly I'm in a different world, down the rabbit 288 00:20:33.335 --> 00:20:35.655 hole of Red Pills and Mig Tau bros. 289 00:20:36.775 --> 00:20:38.775 And I'm not alone in this experience. 290 00:20:39.800 --> 00:20:42.360 I've been openly trans for six years now, and 291 00:20:42.360 --> 00:20:45.000 these are the main ads that get pushed to me now with me being 292 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.960 more openly manly. Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA, Super Sexy 293 00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:53.400 Gacha Games, Gambling, the occasional penis enlargement 294 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:56.985 product. I cannot stress the uptick in right wing slash MAGA 295 00:20:56.985 --> 00:21:00.025 content that keeps being pushed regardless of me blocking or 296 00:21:00.025 --> 00:21:02.265 saying I don't want these specific ads. 297 00:21:02.665 --> 00:21:06.025 The algorithm is optimizing for this one type of 298 00:21:06.025 --> 00:21:10.050 guy. A guy who would see military ads and think, that 299 00:21:10.050 --> 00:21:13.890 could be me. I could make a difference. But that wasn't me, 300 00:21:13.890 --> 00:21:17.490 and it's never going to be me. But for some reason, I couldn't 301 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:20.850 escape this super bro who's haunting my ads. 302 00:21:21.410 --> 00:21:25.305 I asked Adam about this, and he explained that a part of this 303 00:21:25.305 --> 00:21:28.745 has to do with the way that algorithms feed certain kinds of 304 00:21:28.745 --> 00:21:31.065 content out to different groups of people. 305 00:21:31.385 --> 00:21:34.025 In the traditional model of communication and 306 00:21:34.025 --> 00:21:37.785 linguistics, I talk to you, I'm the encoder, you get my message, 307 00:21:37.785 --> 00:21:41.660 you decode it. Now if I'm talking to you as a social media 308 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:45.420 influencer, I am encoding a message. The algorithm decodes 309 00:21:45.420 --> 00:21:48.940 the message, encodes a new message, and then sends it out, 310 00:21:48.940 --> 00:21:51.420 and then you decode it. So there's an extra layer there. 311 00:21:51.420 --> 00:21:54.025 And when I say the algorithm, like, encodes a new message, it 312 00:21:54.025 --> 00:21:56.105 may send it to an unintended audience. 313 00:21:56.185 --> 00:21:59.545 I may want my video to reach a certain demographic of people, 314 00:21:59.545 --> 00:22:01.145 and the algorithm might reassign it. 315 00:22:01.225 --> 00:22:03.625 So maybe someone like Jordan Peterson gets the 316 00:22:03.625 --> 00:22:07.305 attention of a certain kind of guy, like a huge community full 317 00:22:07.305 --> 00:22:11.080 of that one kind of dude. That content goes to the top of the 318 00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:14.760 list to advertise to men online just because it's really popular 319 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:17.560 among men. But it's still a traditional version of 320 00:22:17.560 --> 00:22:21.880 masculinity, one I certainly don't ascribe to. And isn't my 321 00:22:21.880 --> 00:22:25.615 algorithm supposed to get to know me specifically? Why does 322 00:22:25.615 --> 00:22:30.015 it insist on pushing out this one version of hypermasculinity? 323 00:22:30.015 --> 00:22:32.575 We can't avoid talking about algorithmic bias 324 00:22:32.575 --> 00:22:36.255 here, which naturally amplifies social bias. Algorithms tend to 325 00:22:36.255 --> 00:22:39.855 compound and amplify what natural human social behaviors 326 00:22:39.855 --> 00:22:44.310 are. Unfortunately, humans tend to trust more or want to view 327 00:22:44.310 --> 00:22:48.550 more videos from people who are in the gender binary, like, kind 328 00:22:48.550 --> 00:22:52.070 of stereotype, like, presentation. So algorithms 329 00:22:52.070 --> 00:22:56.155 reflexively are going to reinforce that, and more 330 00:22:56.155 --> 00:22:58.635 heteronormative kind of perspectives are gonna be pushed 331 00:22:58.635 --> 00:23:00.475 because that's what's going viral. 332 00:23:03.675 --> 00:23:06.955 The manosphere just has a huge online presence. 333 00:23:07.275 --> 00:23:09.755 There's a lot of money to be made there. So from an 334 00:23:09.755 --> 00:23:13.090 algorithmic perspective, it's a no brainer. If you're a dude on 335 00:23:13.090 --> 00:23:15.890 the Internet, you're gonna get these kinds of ads. Look up 336 00:23:15.890 --> 00:23:19.090 cargo shorts one time and bam, here comes Jordan Peterson. 337 00:23:19.090 --> 00:23:23.730 There is a really interesting sort of algorithmic 338 00:23:22.875 --> 00:23:26.395 performativity as well, where an influencer isn't just performing 339 00:23:26.395 --> 00:23:28.315 for their audience, they're performing for what they think 340 00:23:28.315 --> 00:23:29.515 is gonna go viral. 341 00:23:31.755 --> 00:23:33.755 So in this case, ends up happening is this 342 00:23:33.755 --> 00:23:36.635 compounding situation where certain kinds of content go 343 00:23:36.635 --> 00:23:40.430 viral, get a lot of algorithmic attention, and then the people 344 00:23:40.430 --> 00:23:43.790 making that content see how popular their stuff is, and they 345 00:23:43.790 --> 00:23:47.070 make more of it. The cycle keeps going and going, and that 346 00:23:47.070 --> 00:23:50.430 hypermasculine content keeps getting pushed out to more and 347 00:23:50.430 --> 00:23:54.945 more people, even people like me who are very much not the 348 00:23:54.945 --> 00:24:00.625 intended audience for it. This version of manhood isn't 349 00:24:00.625 --> 00:24:03.665 something I want for myself. It feels like hearing a dissonant 350 00:24:03.665 --> 00:24:06.705 chord, an interpretation of gender that feels totally off 351 00:24:06.705 --> 00:24:10.800 the mark to what I actually feel about myself. But those super 352 00:24:10.800 --> 00:24:13.760 masculine ads also came to me at a time where I was in the middle 353 00:24:13.760 --> 00:24:17.120 of figuring myself out, where my own understanding of how I felt 354 00:24:17.120 --> 00:24:18.640 about manhood was developing. 355 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:22.605 And like I said before, at first, it felt kind of nice to 356 00:24:22.605 --> 00:24:26.365 be treated like a guy by the algorithm, even if it wasn't the 357 00:24:26.365 --> 00:24:34.100 right kind of guy. When I first got that macho military ad, I 358 00:24:34.100 --> 00:24:36.820 was still presenting as a woman in the real world. And as I 359 00:24:36.820 --> 00:24:40.020 began coming out to my friends and exploring my trans identity 360 00:24:40.020 --> 00:24:44.340 through online channels, that wasn't always true IRL. I was 361 00:24:44.340 --> 00:24:47.725 constantly bargaining with my own identity. Maybe I could chop 362 00:24:47.725 --> 00:24:50.685 my hair off into a more androgynous cut or wear more 363 00:24:50.685 --> 00:24:53.485 pants, less dresses, but it was a process. 364 00:24:53.965 --> 00:24:57.485 And in a way, my ads reflected this period where I was changing 365 00:24:57.485 --> 00:25:03.240 myself constantly for myself and others. Online, I spent a lot of 366 00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:06.840 time trying to figure out what being a man looked like for me. 367 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:10.760 Maybe I'm a cargo shorts guy or an Overwatch guy, and its 368 00:25:10.760 --> 00:25:14.440 imperfect way, my algorithm served as another way to try 369 00:25:14.440 --> 00:25:18.415 stuff on. It was like it was asking me, do you want to become 370 00:25:18.415 --> 00:25:20.175 a Manosphere guy? Do you 371 00:25:20.175 --> 00:25:21.615 wanna listen to Joe Rogan? 372 00:25:22.495 --> 00:25:25.615 When I first got those kind of gendered ads, they 373 00:25:25.615 --> 00:25:29.295 really freaked me out because, no, I don't wanna be that kind 374 00:25:29.295 --> 00:25:33.630 of guy. I never have been that kind of guy. But in the process 375 00:25:33.630 --> 00:25:36.590 of working on this segment, I've started to look at it another 376 00:25:36.590 --> 00:25:40.270 way. The algorithm was performing with me as I started 377 00:25:40.270 --> 00:25:42.030 to unravel who I was. 378 00:25:44.190 --> 00:25:47.325 Well, I mean, all identity is performance. Right? 379 00:25:47.325 --> 00:25:50.845 That's historically always been true. It depending on our 380 00:25:50.845 --> 00:25:54.365 audience, we are constantly embodying a role or an idea of, 381 00:25:54.365 --> 00:25:56.765 like, who we are supposed to be. And that's the thing. 382 00:25:56.765 --> 00:25:59.720 Even without the algorithms even without the algorithms, if a 383 00:25:59.720 --> 00:26:02.520 label is out there, it'll always affect our identity because now 384 00:26:02.520 --> 00:26:05.080 we know once we know it's there, we're either going to perform 385 00:26:05.080 --> 00:26:06.000 toward it or we're gonna perform against it. 386 00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:13.315 As I continue living as a man and learning 387 00:26:13.315 --> 00:26:16.595 what that looks like for me, the grip the ads have on me has 388 00:26:16.595 --> 00:26:20.515 loosened. I'm not performing for my ad profile. I don't need it 389 00:26:20.515 --> 00:26:23.875 anymore. The gendered algorithm is simple and uncomplicated. It 390 00:26:23.875 --> 00:26:27.020 has no depth, and it doesn't even know what a man is. 391 00:26:27.500 --> 00:26:30.700 It only knows that a lot of guys click on ads for male growth 392 00:26:30.700 --> 00:26:35.340 hormone. I'm breaking up with my gender assigned algorithm 393 00:26:35.340 --> 00:26:39.505 because being transgender, or for God's sakes, human, can't be 394 00:26:39.505 --> 00:26:44.225 easily partitioned away. I'm a man, and I get to decide what 395 00:26:44.225 --> 00:26:48.785 that means for me. To me, manhood looks like wearing green 396 00:26:48.785 --> 00:26:52.580 cargo shorts and watching hockey. It looks like a lot of 397 00:26:52.580 --> 00:26:55.300 things, but I get to choose. 398 00:27:06.995 --> 00:27:10.115 Thank you to Adam Alexic for sitting down to chat with me. 399 00:27:10.115 --> 00:27:13.475 Check out his book AlgoSpeak wherever you buy books. And 400 00:27:13.475 --> 00:27:15.635 thank you to my friends for offering their voices to read 401 00:27:15.635 --> 00:27:18.275 the quotes folks sent in, and everyone who submitted their 402 00:27:18.275 --> 00:27:20.515 experiences with the algorithm and gendered ads. 403 00:29:43.150 --> 00:29:46.350 In this, our second ever terms and conditions 404 00:29:46.350 --> 00:29:50.110 segment, where we explain things that you, our dear listeners, 405 00:29:50.110 --> 00:29:54.270 maybe never got around to understanding and are now too 406 00:29:54.270 --> 00:29:58.350 afraid to ask or too busy to learn on your own, I'm gonna 407 00:29:58.350 --> 00:30:06.005 tackle your most requested topic by far, RSS. That's right. The 408 00:30:06.005 --> 00:30:11.605 very technology that you used to get this and probably every 409 00:30:11.605 --> 00:30:15.480 other podcast that you listen to. The technology that allowed 410 00:30:15.480 --> 00:30:20.040 the once mighty Google reader to thrive. The technology that 411 00:30:20.040 --> 00:30:24.920 launched and arguably sustained countless blogs in the early two 412 00:30:24.920 --> 00:30:28.245 thousands in which in the era of the platform internet is 413 00:30:28.245 --> 00:30:30.805 currently having a bit of a resurgence. 414 00:30:31.125 --> 00:30:36.045 You have maybe read about RSS recently. For instance, in April 415 00:30:36.045 --> 00:30:40.450 2024, Alex Sujon Laughlin published, if you love podcasts, 416 00:30:40.770 --> 00:30:44.610 dump Spotify on Defector, in which she pits the walled in 417 00:30:44.610 --> 00:30:49.410 audio platform giant against the open RSS standard. This 418 00:30:49.410 --> 00:30:53.775 February, it's FOSS News published, why I still love and 419 00:30:53.775 --> 00:30:59.615 use RSS feeds in 2025. Just last month, Molly White published a 420 00:30:59.615 --> 00:31:03.855 citation needed newsletter titled curate your own newspaper 421 00:31:03.935 --> 00:31:08.890 with RSS And the subtitle, escape newsletter inbox chaos 422 00:31:08.890 --> 00:31:12.170 and algorithmic surveillance by building your own and 423 00:31:12.170 --> 00:31:16.570 shitification proof newspaper from writers you already read. 424 00:31:16.970 --> 00:31:20.825 In January, Jason Snell at long running Apple news blog 425 00:31:20.825 --> 00:31:25.785 6colors.com published the post reading newsletters via RSS 426 00:31:25.785 --> 00:31:27.625 reader is still great. 427 00:31:27.705 --> 00:31:32.025 And in April 2024, Scott Gilbertson at Wired published 428 00:31:31.780 --> 00:31:35.300 the best RSS feed readers for streamlining the internet with 429 00:31:35.300 --> 00:31:39.700 the subtitle, the internet is a mess. Ignore the algorithm and 430 00:31:39.700 --> 00:31:43.540 distill the web down to the things you already care about. 431 00:31:44.340 --> 00:31:50.345 Reddit, blue sky, x are all awash with love posts to RSS, so 432 00:31:50.585 --> 00:31:54.745 we're gonna talk about it. What RSS is in hopefully not too 433 00:31:54.745 --> 00:31:58.185 excruciating technological detail, but some technological 434 00:31:58.185 --> 00:32:01.560 detail. How the conditions of its development made it what it 435 00:32:01.560 --> 00:32:05.240 is, a standard which has not really changed in twenty plus 436 00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:08.840 years, and will chart the aforementioned down and then 437 00:32:08.840 --> 00:32:12.875 upswing in interest, which would seem at first glance to be the 438 00:32:12.875 --> 00:32:16.715 inverse of an up and then downswing in public sentiment 439 00:32:16.715 --> 00:32:19.515 regarding the social internet. 440 00:32:21.275 --> 00:32:35.010 Probably just a coincidence. So what is RSS? RSS is a 441 00:32:35.010 --> 00:32:41.715 standardized open format web feed based on XML. We're gonna 442 00:32:41.715 --> 00:32:45.235 go through each of those things. A web feed isn't normally 443 00:32:45.235 --> 00:32:47.155 something you interact with directly. 444 00:32:47.315 --> 00:32:51.955 It's a document made by one service, say, a podcast host, 445 00:32:52.035 --> 00:32:56.720 and decoded by another service, say, your pod catcher. One 446 00:32:56.720 --> 00:32:59.680 service makes and maintains the feed based on the things that 447 00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:03.120 you publish, and then the other pulls information from it in 448 00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:06.800 order to serve it in a useful format, like, say, sound files 449 00:33:06.800 --> 00:33:10.465 to listen to and information about those sound files. This 450 00:33:10.465 --> 00:33:16.145 means that RSS is what is called machine readable, not human 451 00:33:16.145 --> 00:33:19.905 readable. I mean, you could read it, but no one would expect you 452 00:33:19.905 --> 00:33:22.945 to. And by simply reading it, you don't benefit from its 453 00:33:22.945 --> 00:33:27.570 existence because your brain can't download audio files or 454 00:33:27.570 --> 00:33:28.450 metadata. 455 00:33:28.770 --> 00:33:33.570 And if it can, please call the show. Now there are a bunch of 456 00:33:33.570 --> 00:33:38.445 web feed formats. JSON feed, Atom, and RSS are the most 457 00:33:38.445 --> 00:33:44.445 common. Both RSS and Atom, which is, like, sort of based on RSS, 458 00:33:44.445 --> 00:33:50.170 kind of, are written in what's called XML. XML is a markup 459 00:33:50.170 --> 00:33:53.930 language, sort of similar to HTML, which is used to make web 460 00:33:53.930 --> 00:33:58.330 pages, but XML can make, kind of whatever you want. 461 00:33:58.330 --> 00:34:02.970 It has many many uses. In fact, it stands for extensible markup 462 00:34:02.970 --> 00:34:06.105 language. So what is a markup language? A markup language 463 00:34:06.185 --> 00:34:12.905 generally, envelops or enrobes. It goes around other pieces of 464 00:34:12.905 --> 00:34:13.625 information. 465 00:34:13.785 --> 00:34:18.690 Usually, though not always, plain text and media or links to 466 00:34:18.690 --> 00:34:23.410 media. So images, video, audio. It goes around those things and 467 00:34:23.410 --> 00:34:27.010 it helps to organize and sometimes display them, and that 468 00:34:27.010 --> 00:34:32.035 organization is done within a hierarchy of nodes. So we're 469 00:34:32.035 --> 00:34:34.195 gonna talk about this practically because I think it's 470 00:34:34.195 --> 00:34:36.435 gonna be a bit easier to understand than talking about it 471 00:34:36.435 --> 00:34:42.435 abstractly. So I know I just told you not to do this, but if 472 00:34:42.435 --> 00:34:48.340 you were to download and open and then read the RSS file for 473 00:34:48.340 --> 00:34:52.340 this podcast for Never Post, which you could do, in any, 474 00:34:52.660 --> 00:34:54.100 plain text reader. 475 00:34:54.100 --> 00:34:57.700 So like, you know, notepad should do it, by going to 476 00:34:57.940 --> 00:35:01.925 neverpo.st and then in the middle of the page, you'll see 477 00:35:01.925 --> 00:35:07.045 the orange RSS icon that says listen via RSS. Click on that or 478 00:35:07.045 --> 00:35:10.085 right click on it and just save the file that pops up and then 479 00:35:10.085 --> 00:35:14.245 open it. Scroll down a little bit to see the entry for this 480 00:35:14.245 --> 00:35:19.370 episode. You'd see open angle bracket item, the word item I t 481 00:35:19.370 --> 00:35:23.370 e m, closed angle bracket, which for simplicity I'm just gonna 482 00:35:23.370 --> 00:35:27.130 call those brackets from now on. This marks the beginning of a 483 00:35:27.130 --> 00:35:27.690 node. 484 00:35:27.770 --> 00:35:32.595 The word item is defined by the RSS standard and it means 485 00:35:32.675 --> 00:35:36.195 everything that follows until this node is closed describes 486 00:35:36.195 --> 00:35:40.755 one post in the feed. Then you'll see open bracket, title, 487 00:35:40.995 --> 00:35:44.755 close bracket. Title also defined by the RSS standard 488 00:35:44.755 --> 00:35:49.720 means everything in this node is the title of the post. Then it 489 00:35:49.720 --> 00:35:52.680 will say the title of this episode in plain text. I don't 490 00:35:52.680 --> 00:35:56.600 know what that title is at the time of recording, but let's say 491 00:35:56.600 --> 00:35:59.000 it's a feed me Seymour. 492 00:35:59.240 --> 00:36:04.155 That would go right here followed by open bracket forward 493 00:36:04.155 --> 00:36:09.035 slash title closed bracket. The addition of the slash means that 494 00:36:09.035 --> 00:36:13.450 this is a closing tag. This node is done. Everything before this 495 00:36:13.450 --> 00:36:16.650 was the title. Everything after this is something else. 496 00:36:16.810 --> 00:36:21.770 Next up is open bracket, pub date, close bracket. Everything 497 00:36:21.770 --> 00:36:25.050 in this node is the date and time that this item, this 498 00:36:25.050 --> 00:36:30.145 episode was published. So it's gonna be Wednesday, 08/13/2025 499 00:36:30.145 --> 00:36:35.025 and then whatever time we end up publishing in UTC. Then open 500 00:36:35.025 --> 00:36:39.905 bracket forward slash pub date close bracket. This is a closing 501 00:36:39.905 --> 00:36:43.110 tag which means as we already know, this node is done. 502 00:36:43.190 --> 00:36:46.150 Everything before this closing tag was the pub date. Everything 503 00:36:46.150 --> 00:36:49.910 after this is something else and so on and so forth for 504 00:36:49.910 --> 00:36:54.710 everything useful that you would want in a feed with many node 505 00:36:54.015 --> 00:36:57.695 names defined by the RSS standard. These are things like 506 00:36:57.935 --> 00:37:02.575 description and summary, enclosure which in a podcast RSS 507 00:37:02.575 --> 00:37:06.495 is the link to the actual audio file and more including a bunch 508 00:37:06.495 --> 00:37:10.650 of nodes that begin iTunes, which is maybe gonna seem kind 509 00:37:10.650 --> 00:37:14.010 of strange. This is because Apple as arguably the most 510 00:37:14.010 --> 00:37:18.250 powerful player in the podcast space has helped to establish a 511 00:37:18.250 --> 00:37:22.090 bunch of conventions, but they've added those conventions 512 00:37:22.090 --> 00:37:26.625 on top of the RSS standard using something that's called 513 00:37:26.625 --> 00:37:29.185 namespace. We're gonna talk more about that later. 514 00:37:29.185 --> 00:37:31.345 That's a sort of deep technical detail that you don't really 515 00:37:31.345 --> 00:37:37.000 need to know yet or perhaps ever. All of these nodes are 516 00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:41.400 included inside each item node which is then closed with a open 517 00:37:41.400 --> 00:37:45.800 bracket forward slash item closed bracket tag. Meaning, at 518 00:37:45.800 --> 00:37:49.000 that point, we're done talking about this item, this episode 519 00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:52.175 and we're ready to move on either to the next or the end of 520 00:37:52.175 --> 00:37:56.895 the feed. The whole thing is kinda like a train. The engine 521 00:37:56.895 --> 00:37:59.855 at the front says, here comes an episode. 522 00:37:59.935 --> 00:38:04.880 And then each car is filled with specific information about the 523 00:38:04.880 --> 00:38:09.680 episode loaded by the service that publishes it. So you get 524 00:38:09.680 --> 00:38:15.280 the description car, then you get the runtime car, then the 525 00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:20.285 post body text car. The Internet is the track that moves this 526 00:38:20.285 --> 00:38:24.205 information from publisher to reader or pod catcher where 527 00:38:24.205 --> 00:38:27.885 everything is then unloaded and organized according to that 528 00:38:27.885 --> 00:38:37.520 station's specific operations. Now in order to work right, an 529 00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:40.880 RSS feed, which remember is really just a document listing 530 00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:44.480 things that have been published elsewhere, has to adhere to two 531 00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:49.055 standards. Syntactically, an RSS feed has to contain parsable 532 00:38:49.055 --> 00:38:50.015 XML. 533 00:38:50.095 --> 00:38:52.735 Tags need to be opened and closed correctly, nested 534 00:38:52.735 --> 00:38:55.935 properly, etcetera, etcetera. And it also has to follow the 535 00:38:55.935 --> 00:39:00.495 RSS standard. Use the right node names, contain the required 536 00:39:00.495 --> 00:39:04.500 nodes, and so on. This is what we mean when we say that RSS is 537 00:39:04.500 --> 00:39:10.820 standardized, but confusingly, there are a couple different RSS 538 00:39:10.820 --> 00:39:15.300 standards. The most common requires only three pieces of 539 00:39:15.300 --> 00:39:15.620 info. 540 00:39:16.015 --> 00:39:20.655 A title for the feed, so for example, never post, a home page 541 00:39:20.655 --> 00:39:26.335 URL, so neverpoe.st, and a description, a podcast for and 542 00:39:26.335 --> 00:39:30.220 about the Internet hosted by Mike Rugnetta. That's it. An RSS 543 00:39:30.220 --> 00:39:34.940 feed doesn't need items to be valid. It can be empty. This is 544 00:39:34.940 --> 00:39:38.300 how you can subscribe to a newsletter, say, or a blog 545 00:39:38.300 --> 00:39:39.980 before it has any posts. 546 00:39:40.140 --> 00:39:42.380 Podcasts work a little differently, but that's a 547 00:39:42.380 --> 00:39:46.935 convention, not a requirement. And all of this is incidentally 548 00:39:46.935 --> 00:39:51.735 what makes RSS open. You can just go to where the standard is 549 00:39:51.735 --> 00:39:56.650 kept and see in plain text, human readable, what's required. 550 00:39:56.890 --> 00:39:59.450 And then you can go and implement that yourself. You 551 00:39:59.450 --> 00:40:00.650 don't need to pay a fee. 552 00:40:00.650 --> 00:40:03.370 You don't need to ask anyone permission, not the folks who 553 00:40:03.370 --> 00:40:07.130 publish the standard nor the folks who made it. But okay. 554 00:40:07.130 --> 00:40:11.255 Wait. This may make you wonder, who are those people? Who 555 00:40:11.255 --> 00:40:13.095 decided that this works this way? 556 00:40:13.095 --> 00:40:18.135 Who standardized this standard? Well, that's something of a long 557 00:40:18.135 --> 00:40:21.400 story, but we're gonna cover the broad strokes of it because 558 00:40:21.400 --> 00:40:25.880 understanding how RSS was made can help us understand why it 559 00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:30.200 feels like something of an antidote to the impersonal 560 00:40:30.280 --> 00:40:37.865 algorithms heavy social internet. In the introduction of 561 00:40:37.865 --> 00:40:41.865 the 1995 O'Reilly book Developing Feeds with RSS and 562 00:40:41.865 --> 00:40:45.865 Adam, Ben Hammersley begins like this. It's an extended quote, 563 00:40:45.865 --> 00:40:48.600 but it's good, so I'm gonna read the whole thing. In the 564 00:40:48.600 --> 00:40:53.320 developers bars of the world, those dark sordid places filled 565 00:40:53.320 --> 00:40:58.040 with grizzled coders and their clans, a special corner is 566 00:40:58.040 --> 00:41:01.240 always reserved for the developers of content 567 00:41:01.240 --> 00:41:02.760 syndication standards. 568 00:41:03.615 --> 00:41:08.495 There, weeping into their beer, you'll find the veterans of a 569 00:41:08.495 --> 00:41:13.135 long and difficult process. The standards you will read about in 570 00:41:13.135 --> 00:41:18.490 this book were not born fresh and innocent of a streamlined 571 00:41:18.490 --> 00:41:24.170 process overseen by the wise and good. Rather, the following 572 00:41:24.170 --> 00:41:28.730 chapters have been dragged into the world and tempered through 573 00:41:28.730 --> 00:41:37.365 brawls, knife fights, and the occasional riot. Incredible. I 574 00:41:37.365 --> 00:41:40.965 mean, obviously tongue in cheek, but all of this melodrama for 575 00:41:40.965 --> 00:41:44.000 making a piece of tech that collects posts in a feed so they 576 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:45.600 can be syndicated elsewhere. 577 00:41:46.160 --> 00:41:51.120 Why? Why so much torment and strife and conflict and pain? 578 00:41:51.600 --> 00:41:56.640 Well, I mean, are nerds that we're talking about, and 579 00:41:55.995 --> 00:42:01.355 development on what would become RSS began in 1995. So these are 580 00:42:01.355 --> 00:42:05.675 early Internet nerds, or I guess early modern Internet nerds. 581 00:42:05.995 --> 00:42:08.795 Maybe there was a lot of ego involved. 582 00:42:08.795 --> 00:42:11.330 I mean, probably there was, but there was also a lot of 583 00:42:11.330 --> 00:42:15.170 principle at work. The developers of RSS were trying 584 00:42:15.410 --> 00:42:19.010 generally, I think, to follow the steps of Tim Berners Lee and 585 00:42:19.010 --> 00:42:21.490 the development of what is arguably the Internet's base 586 00:42:21.490 --> 00:42:26.595 technology, the hyperlink. The development of something so open 587 00:42:26.595 --> 00:42:31.395 and yet at the same time so narrow isn't easy, especially 588 00:42:31.395 --> 00:42:35.955 when you don't know exactly how it will be used yet. So that 589 00:42:35.955 --> 00:42:41.060 quote is pointing us even further back to Apple earlier in 590 00:42:41.060 --> 00:42:46.020 the mid nineties and a product called hot sauce developed by 591 00:42:46.020 --> 00:42:49.940 Ramanathan g Guha that was intended to allow users to 592 00:42:49.940 --> 00:42:56.155 browse documents like websites, for instance, in three d space. 593 00:42:57.035 --> 00:42:57.755 Yes. 594 00:42:57.835 --> 00:43:02.555 Really. Steve Jobs mothballed that project in 1997 when he 595 00:43:02.555 --> 00:43:07.435 returned to Apple, and Guha went to Netscape. And what followed 596 00:43:07.435 --> 00:43:11.800 was a flurry of activity over about two or three years between 597 00:43:11.800 --> 00:43:16.680 Apple, Netscape, Microsoft, and independent developers who saw 598 00:43:16.680 --> 00:43:21.640 the promise of these nascent syndication technologies for 599 00:43:22.280 --> 00:43:25.805 bloggers. This would have been in the depths of the browser 600 00:43:25.805 --> 00:43:28.765 wars, if that's meaningful to anyone. Though if it's 601 00:43:28.765 --> 00:43:31.005 meaningful to you, you probably already know this history. 602 00:43:31.245 --> 00:43:34.925 Dan Libby of Netscape authored what would become the first RSS 603 00:43:34.925 --> 00:43:38.605 standard based upon a string of technology leading all the way 604 00:43:38.605 --> 00:43:42.260 back to hot sauce. But even though this was a momentous 605 00:43:42.260 --> 00:43:45.940 occasion, some folks were frustrated, and they saw this 606 00:43:45.940 --> 00:43:50.820 implementation as lacking. It could syndicate headlines, a 607 00:43:50.820 --> 00:43:56.935 list of links, basically, but not site content. So Dan Weiner 608 00:43:56.935 --> 00:44:00.615 of the software development company Userland and later and 609 00:44:00.615 --> 00:44:05.255 currently scripting.com would follow this first implementation 610 00:44:05.255 --> 00:44:12.210 of RSS with an update to his own scripting news feed format. Dan 611 00:44:12.210 --> 00:44:14.770 Weiner took a bunch of the stuff that was implemented in this 612 00:44:14.770 --> 00:44:19.970 first RSS standard, and he added the ability to syndicate whole 613 00:44:19.970 --> 00:44:21.330 paragraphs of content. 614 00:44:22.305 --> 00:44:26.145 This edition was really meaningful, and so then the next 615 00:44:26.145 --> 00:44:32.785 version of RSS 0.91 incorporated those features. This back and 616 00:44:32.785 --> 00:44:37.870 forth exemplifies a lot about what's great and messy about RSS 617 00:44:37.870 --> 00:44:42.350 specifically and open standards generally. We talked about this 618 00:44:42.350 --> 00:44:46.510 and all things RSS with Justin Jackson, cofounder of Transistor 619 00:44:46.510 --> 00:44:50.135 dot FM, the host we use for Never Post's member feed, but 620 00:44:50.135 --> 00:44:54.775 Justin is also a member of the Podcast Standards Project. This 621 00:44:54.775 --> 00:44:57.575 is what he had to say about the trade offs involved when 622 00:44:57.575 --> 00:44:59.255 building something that's open. 623 00:44:59.415 --> 00:45:02.055 The benefit of having a centralized platform is 624 00:45:02.055 --> 00:45:07.390 you can just have a CEO decide, we're gonna do this, and that's 625 00:45:07.390 --> 00:45:10.590 what we're doing. And with anything in the open protocol 626 00:45:10.590 --> 00:45:15.950 world, you have to create alignment. You have to do all of 627 00:45:15.950 --> 00:45:19.310 this groundwork with human beings, all this coordination 628 00:45:19.310 --> 00:45:19.550 work. 629 00:45:19.955 --> 00:45:23.235 A standard like RSS is not a piece of software 630 00:45:23.235 --> 00:45:26.595 that's made and then distributed. It's more just like 631 00:45:26.595 --> 00:45:30.755 a way of doing things that people can adopt or not. The 632 00:45:30.755 --> 00:45:34.660 standard is only really useful if the folks who use it, who 633 00:45:34.660 --> 00:45:38.580 bake it into their software, agree and coordinate with one 634 00:45:38.580 --> 00:45:43.060 another and align on when and where and how everything is 635 00:45:43.060 --> 00:45:47.155 implemented. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but getting 636 00:45:47.155 --> 00:45:51.475 people to agree to work together, especially in tech, is 637 00:45:51.475 --> 00:45:54.435 not easy. So this is where we get into the brawls and the 638 00:45:54.435 --> 00:45:56.275 knife fights and the riots. 639 00:45:56.595 --> 00:46:02.050 After Dan and Dave agree on RSS 0.91, a rift develops over 640 00:46:02.050 --> 00:46:07.170 effectively how extensible RSS should be. Should it do a small 641 00:46:07.170 --> 00:46:12.130 number of very specific things or should it do whatever people 642 00:46:12.130 --> 00:46:15.945 want it to as long as it follows a broad standard? The second 643 00:46:15.945 --> 00:46:20.025 approach relies on something called namespace. Effectively 644 00:46:20.025 --> 00:46:23.065 saying, if you want to add new nodes beyond the standard 645 00:46:23.065 --> 00:46:26.425 assortment that's already there, that's fine, but you have to put 646 00:46:26.425 --> 00:46:29.780 your name in front of it. Like say, iTunes. 647 00:46:29.940 --> 00:46:34.340 Hey, you already know how that works. Nice. One group says no 648 00:46:34.340 --> 00:46:37.140 to namespaces. It's gonna make things too complicated if you 649 00:46:37.140 --> 00:46:40.660 can stack whatever you want on top of the standard. And the 650 00:46:40.660 --> 00:46:42.405 other group says, yes. 651 00:46:42.405 --> 00:46:46.405 It's basically needed to make RSS useful and to give it 652 00:46:46.405 --> 00:46:50.005 longevity so people can expand on it. For those of you that 653 00:46:50.005 --> 00:46:53.205 know portions of this history, this is also around the time 654 00:46:53.205 --> 00:46:58.710 that a 14 year old Aaron Swartz gets involved with RSS. The 655 00:46:58.710 --> 00:47:02.870 solution ends up being, as we've mentioned, two standards which 656 00:47:02.870 --> 00:47:06.230 in recent years really have drifted closer and closer to one 657 00:47:06.230 --> 00:47:09.445 another in their feature set. But RSS two point o, the 658 00:47:09.445 --> 00:47:12.245 copyright for which was assigned to Harvard's Berkman Klein 659 00:47:12.245 --> 00:47:16.245 Center for Internet Law is by far the most implemented with 660 00:47:16.245 --> 00:47:21.525 over 70% of RSS feeds aligning to its standard which allows 661 00:47:22.170 --> 00:47:28.010 namespaces. This standard was finally solidified in 02/2003. 662 00:47:28.250 --> 00:47:35.805 We asked Justin, why hasn't RSS changed since then? Aren't there 663 00:47:35.805 --> 00:47:39.645 technical limitations inherent to a standard as old as this 664 00:47:39.645 --> 00:47:40.125 one? 665 00:47:40.125 --> 00:47:43.325 The original spec is probably not going to be 666 00:47:43.805 --> 00:47:47.850 changed much, because it doesn't really need to. Inside 667 00:47:47.850 --> 00:47:53.530 podcasting, we've continued to innovate on top of it. And that 668 00:47:53.530 --> 00:47:57.130 was one of the beautiful things about it. I would argue there's 669 00:47:57.130 --> 00:48:01.690 actually no technical limitations. I think you could 670 00:48:01.395 --> 00:48:05.235 anything that you want to build on top of RSS, you can. 671 00:48:05.635 --> 00:48:09.075 Even things that people have traditionally said don't work 672 00:48:09.075 --> 00:48:12.995 with RSS. Things like people will say, well, it's a typically 673 00:48:12.995 --> 00:48:18.050 one way. Right? I publish a blog post, or I publish a podcast 674 00:48:18.050 --> 00:48:22.770 episode. You refresh your app, and it, you know, picks up the 675 00:48:22.770 --> 00:48:26.290 new episode, and you pull it down to your RSS feed reader or 676 00:48:26.290 --> 00:48:27.410 your podcast app. 677 00:48:27.725 --> 00:48:31.325 But there's no reason we couldn't add two way 678 00:48:31.325 --> 00:48:36.605 communication to that. One one example of this is Transistor 679 00:48:36.605 --> 00:48:40.445 uses something called the social interact tag, which is this new 680 00:48:40.445 --> 00:48:46.270 podcasting two point o tag. And it allowed us to build on top of 681 00:48:46.270 --> 00:48:51.630 Blue Sky and the AT protocol. It allows people to add comments to 682 00:48:51.630 --> 00:48:56.345 podcast episodes. And these comments can be shared across 683 00:48:56.345 --> 00:48:57.145 networks. 684 00:48:57.145 --> 00:49:00.745 They can work in some ways, they're agnostic. They don't 685 00:49:00.745 --> 00:49:05.225 need a particular social network or platform. And so, you know, 686 00:49:05.225 --> 00:49:09.465 that that was a fairly simple implementation on top of RSS. So 687 00:49:09.465 --> 00:49:10.425 it's all possible. 688 00:49:11.080 --> 00:49:15.160 So then why isn't RSS constantly evolving? Adding 689 00:49:15.160 --> 00:49:19.160 video to podcast episodes or comments directly in the feed? 690 00:49:19.240 --> 00:49:21.880 Based upon what we've said already, you can probably guess 691 00:49:21.880 --> 00:49:22.680 the answer. 692 00:49:22.760 --> 00:49:25.795 I think everything has just come down to 693 00:49:25.795 --> 00:49:29.475 coordination. You have to coordinate between three 694 00:49:29.475 --> 00:49:33.155 different groups, really. You have to coordinate between the 695 00:49:33.155 --> 00:49:38.515 podcast hosting companies, which are largely generating the RSS 696 00:49:38.515 --> 00:49:42.450 feeds and XML. You have to coordinate between the apps, and 697 00:49:42.450 --> 00:49:48.130 not just like independent apps, like Overcast or Podcast Guru, 698 00:49:48.450 --> 00:49:53.585 but bigger apps like Apple Podcasts. And then you have to 699 00:49:53.585 --> 00:49:55.825 coordinate between with creators. 700 00:49:56.545 --> 00:50:01.665 And creating alignment between those three groups is a 701 00:50:01.665 --> 00:50:07.090 challenge. What do creators actually want? There's figuring 702 00:50:07.090 --> 00:50:11.330 out how are we going to coordinate on between all these 703 00:50:11.330 --> 00:50:15.010 groups? How can we create alignment when everyone's 704 00:50:15.010 --> 00:50:16.530 motivated by something different? 705 00:50:16.930 --> 00:50:20.370 Now, as complicated and maybe as 706 00:50:19.675 --> 00:50:24.075 torporous as this process is, I do think it really is the 707 00:50:24.075 --> 00:50:29.195 beating heart of why RSS has persisted for as long as it has 708 00:50:29.195 --> 00:50:33.350 and is having something of a moment right now as we perhaps 709 00:50:33.350 --> 00:50:37.190 crest and then begin to descend the other side of the mountain 710 00:50:37.190 --> 00:50:41.670 that is the era of the social Internet. Ten to twelve years 711 00:50:41.670 --> 00:50:46.015 ago, RSS was considered outdated, if not dead. For Vice, 712 00:50:46.015 --> 00:50:50.095 in 2019, Sinclair Target writes of that era, people never felt 713 00:50:50.095 --> 00:50:54.175 comfortable using RSS. It hadn't really been designed as a 714 00:50:54.175 --> 00:50:57.775 consumer facing technology and involved too many hurdles. 715 00:50:58.015 --> 00:51:01.480 People jumped ship as soon as something better came along. 716 00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:06.040 Target's not wrong. It's not easy for people to make RSS 717 00:51:06.040 --> 00:51:09.080 feeds from whatever they happen upon. The hoi polloi benefits 718 00:51:09.080 --> 00:51:12.440 from their existence as long as the folks doing the publishing, 719 00:51:12.440 --> 00:51:15.765 making the podcasts, the blogs, the news stories, the weather 720 00:51:15.765 --> 00:51:19.045 updates, photographs, videos, whatever else might reasonably 721 00:51:19.045 --> 00:51:22.085 be found in a feed, are willing to put the effort into 722 00:51:22.085 --> 00:51:26.325 syndicating those things via an RSS feed, which has its own set 723 00:51:26.325 --> 00:51:29.830 of technological requirements and restrictions. And also 724 00:51:29.830 --> 00:51:33.110 incidentally tends to keep people off of the publishing 725 00:51:33.110 --> 00:51:38.150 site and therefore not looking at ads. Google Reader, the 726 00:51:38.150 --> 00:51:43.545 storied RSS aggregator was shut down on 07/01/2013, citing a 727 00:51:43.545 --> 00:51:46.185 slow and steady dwindling of its user base. 728 00:51:46.185 --> 00:51:49.145 The press release that announced the shuttering read, quote, 729 00:51:49.145 --> 00:51:52.185 while Google reader has a passionate user base, the 730 00:51:52.185 --> 00:51:55.065 product has not seen the growth or engagement that we had hoped 731 00:51:55.065 --> 00:51:58.345 for. We would like to refocus our efforts on more popular 732 00:51:58.345 --> 00:52:06.800 products that our users currently enjoy. The something 733 00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:10.480 better that Target hints at? Social media. Twitter, 734 00:52:10.480 --> 00:52:10.800 specifically. 735 00:52:11.235 --> 00:52:14.435 The cynical amongst us may also think that Google killed Reader 736 00:52:14.435 --> 00:52:18.035 in the hopes of boosting adoption of Google plus. 737 00:52:18.515 --> 00:52:22.675 Remember Google plus? No one else does either. We might 738 00:52:22.675 --> 00:52:28.280 consider 2013 ish the nadir of RSS's history to date, after 739 00:52:28.280 --> 00:52:31.640 which it seems there's been a slow and similarly steady 740 00:52:31.640 --> 00:52:35.480 increase in interest around what the format provides. It's 741 00:52:35.480 --> 00:52:39.265 possible even that we've yet to see the zenith of RSS's 742 00:52:39.265 --> 00:52:39.985 popularity. 743 00:52:39.985 --> 00:52:43.985 If there's gonna be a resurgence of RSS used for 744 00:52:43.985 --> 00:52:50.465 other things, like video, like articles, like social media 745 00:52:50.465 --> 00:52:56.920 posts, I think the problem to solve there is with app 746 00:52:56.920 --> 00:53:06.040 developers. How are we going to harness this fire hose and make 747 00:53:06.040 --> 00:53:11.115 it make it helpful, useful. 748 00:53:11.835 --> 00:53:14.795 RSS is the way that it is and operates the way 749 00:53:14.795 --> 00:53:18.235 that it does and is supported in the ways that it is because 750 00:53:18.235 --> 00:53:23.310 disparate far flung groups of people decided actively that it 751 00:53:23.310 --> 00:53:26.590 should be that way, and that sort of agency is then passed on 752 00:53:26.590 --> 00:53:30.270 to the people who use it for better and worse. RSS isn't an 753 00:53:30.270 --> 00:53:33.475 algorithm. It does no curation. It doesn't collect information 754 00:53:33.475 --> 00:53:36.595 about you nor require a subscription fee. It allows you 755 00:53:36.595 --> 00:53:41.875 simply to know when your stories are on, which means to Justin's 756 00:53:41.875 --> 00:53:45.235 point, if you're not careful or if you want to, you can very 757 00:53:45.235 --> 00:53:47.795 easily overwhelm yourself with RSS. 758 00:53:48.210 --> 00:53:52.930 But if implemented and used in a certain way, it can also be an 759 00:53:52.930 --> 00:53:57.650 antidote to the overwhelm that we experience elsewhere on the 760 00:53:57.650 --> 00:53:58.290 Internet. 761 00:53:58.930 --> 00:54:02.225 I don't think it's mainstream, but there could 762 00:54:02.225 --> 00:54:07.985 be a world where Gen Z and maybe other generations as well just 763 00:54:07.985 --> 00:54:14.320 say, you know what? I'm kind of done with this centralized 764 00:54:14.320 --> 00:54:20.240 commercial ad driven Internet that's just designed to give me 765 00:54:20.240 --> 00:54:28.115 brain rot, and designed to addict me. And I want something 766 00:54:28.115 --> 00:54:33.475 that's more mindful. And I think we already saw this with email. 767 00:54:33.795 --> 00:54:36.515 You know, there's this resurgence of email newsletters. 768 00:54:37.315 --> 00:54:42.220 So much of what made culture great in the sixties and 769 00:54:42.220 --> 00:54:45.500 seventies and eighties and nineties was that you had to 770 00:54:45.500 --> 00:54:54.655 work for it. There was friction. And I think maybe our culture is 771 00:54:54.655 --> 00:54:59.295 starting to wake up to this idea that we need a bit more 772 00:54:59.295 --> 00:55:03.375 friction. We need a little bit more mess. We need not 773 00:55:03.375 --> 00:55:09.270 everything to just be perfect, but, you know, maybe it's worth 774 00:55:09.270 --> 00:55:14.550 working to find a podcast you really like, even though it's 775 00:55:14.550 --> 00:55:15.750 not easy. 776 00:55:15.910 --> 00:55:22.765 Maybe it's worth having an episode of Radiotopia show up in 777 00:55:22.765 --> 00:55:27.005 your feed and you're like, that sounds boring. But then it auto 778 00:55:27.005 --> 00:55:30.525 plays when you're on a long road trip, and you're like, actually, 779 00:55:30.525 --> 00:55:36.540 that was really great. I'm glad I'm glad I didn't just swipe 780 00:55:36.540 --> 00:55:42.140 away from that after listening. You know, I that is my hope is 781 00:55:42.140 --> 00:55:48.685 that if anything, I think we're just gonna go back to some of 782 00:55:48.685 --> 00:55:52.125 the old ways of doing things because we just realize we need 783 00:55:52.125 --> 00:55:52.685 it. 784 00:55:57.965 --> 00:56:00.525 Thank you so much to Justin for chatting with us. 785 00:56:00.525 --> 00:56:04.550 You can find Justin on Blue Sky at Justin Jackson dot c a. And 786 00:56:04.550 --> 00:56:09.190 if you are so inclined, can host your podcast at transistor.fm. 787 00:56:09.190 --> 00:56:12.470 They did not pay us to say that we got Justin on this segment 788 00:56:12.470 --> 00:56:16.310 because he is an expert, but we also just happen to be big fans 789 00:56:16.310 --> 00:56:21.975 of transistor. I hope this terms and conditions was instructive. 790 00:56:22.055 --> 00:56:25.415 Are there things about the Internet that you want us to 791 00:56:25.415 --> 00:56:28.775 explain to you because you're not going to go do the research 792 00:56:28.775 --> 00:56:32.630 yourself? Listen. I get it. Send us an email. Send us a voice 793 00:56:32.630 --> 00:56:34.070 memo or a voice mail. 794 00:56:34.070 --> 00:56:37.750 Let us know what you wanna know about and who knows, maybe it 795 00:56:37.750 --> 00:58:33.050 will be the next terms and conditions segment. That is the 796 00:58:33.050 --> 00:58:34.890 show we have for you this week. We're gonna be back here on the 797 00:58:34.890 --> 00:58:40.085 main feed on Wednesday, August 27, but we will be on Twitch all 798 00:58:40.085 --> 00:58:45.445 next week. Join us at twitch.tv/the never post. Check 799 00:58:45.445 --> 00:58:47.605 the newsletter and the website for a schedule. 800 00:58:48.005 --> 00:58:51.600 I got some notes recently that I should not joke about not 801 00:58:51.600 --> 00:58:54.560 knowing what it is we do on the show and that in addition to 802 00:58:54.560 --> 00:58:57.600 being not true, it's also just kind of an irritating millennial 803 00:58:57.600 --> 00:59:01.040 move to be like, oh, we're just a small bean. I don't know what 804 00:59:01.040 --> 00:59:05.555 we're doing show. So Here's the facts. Never post is a media and 805 00:59:05.555 --> 00:59:08.675 technology criticism in theory podcast which takes the position 806 00:59:08.675 --> 00:59:12.435 that for better and worse, one of the best ways to understand 807 00:59:12.435 --> 00:59:16.190 contemporary western society is through an understanding of the 808 00:59:16.190 --> 00:59:19.390 internet and how our interactions with it shape our 809 00:59:19.390 --> 00:59:23.150 outlooks, our relationships, our sense of what's happening, and 810 00:59:23.150 --> 00:59:27.230 what's possible. My friend George said the show is NPR for 811 00:59:27.230 --> 00:59:28.270 the terminally online. 812 00:59:29.215 --> 00:59:33.375 Does that make Hans or Terry Gross? Does Georgia Arnetta Ulla 813 00:59:33.375 --> 00:59:39.615 be? Oh, no. Am I the Ira Glass become a member? At neverpo.st. 814 00:59:48.210 --> 00:59:51.410 Never posts producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the 815 00:59:51.410 --> 00:59:54.450 mysterious doctor first name last name. Our senior producer 816 00:59:54.450 --> 00:59:58.205 is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer. 817 00:59:58.205 --> 01:00:04.205 The show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. Not verb, but 818 01:00:04.205 --> 01:00:05.245 vertigo. 819 01:00:05.565 --> 01:00:10.365 Does not indicate action. Does not mean go to meet, but rather 820 01:00:09.990 --> 01:00:15.270 to lie there because someone doesn't arrive. To Search by 821 01:00:15.270 --> 01:00:19.030 Alejandra Pizarnik. Never Post is a production of charts and 822 01:00:19.030 --> 01:00:22.390 leisure. It is distributed by Radiotopia.