Techtonic

The Israel-Hamas war has proven to be a particularly fraught conflict on social media. Finding out what’s happening on the ground has been complicated by a number of issues: the divisiveness of the debate on both sides, and how entrenched each viewpoint is; the ease with which alternative narratives are broadcast; and the immediate emotional responses that content can trigger.  In this, the last e...

The world grows ever more dominated by artificial intelligence. We’re promised huge productivity gains and streamlining benefits to make our lives easier, but there are significant drawbacks.  The data underpinning AI is biased, the technology can amplify inequalities, and it's unclear who will set crucial standards for the sector and how they will be imposed. In this episode, host Chris Stokel-Wa...

When Eric Meyer answered the door to the home he shared with his mother on August 11, 2023, he couldn’t have expected what was waiting on the other side. The editor and proprietor of a small Kansas newspaper was being raided by police, who were looking for evidence of supposed illegal data access by one of his reporters. Not used to seeing the police intervene so overtly and unabashedly in the wor...

Generative AI is overhauling the way we work and live - and giving superpowers to ordinary individuals to create smart copy and stunning images in fractions of a second, but at whose expense?  In this week's episode, host Chris Stokel-Walker speaks to Karla Ortiz, an artist from Puerto Rico who has drawn for Marvel, HBO, ILM, Universal and more. She has also launched a lawsuit against three large...

Generative AI can do a lot of useful things: summarise text, spark inspiration and analyse patterns and data. But it can also makes things up, including entire articles from The Guardian. In this episode, host Chris Stokel-Walker speaks to The Guardian's Head of Editorial Innovation, Chris Moran, about the day he was made aware of an article which never actually existed, though Chat GPT swore othe...

Our mobiles are a gateway to the world, holding news and entertainment, personal details and banking account information, friendships - even romances start there. Phones are a treasure trove of information, which is why governments in countries like the Philippines want to access them. In this episode of 'Techtonic', host Chris Stokel-Walker speaks to Mong Palatino, former Filipino congressman, no...

Who, if anyone, controls Big Tech?  In this episode, Chris Stokel-Walker talks to David Auerbach, a former Microsoft and Google software engineer credited for bringing the first emoji to the world.   His new book, Meganets, warns us about the loose grip Big Tech companies have on the powerful technologies and algorithms they have created, and explores how these systems have driven us further and f...

It's a journalist's worst nightmare: your phone has been tracked by rogue employees from a major Chinese tech company, tapping into your sources. That's what happened to Financial Times tech reporter Christina Criddle, who one day received a call from a TikTok representative detailing how some of their staff had tracked her using the app.  In this episode, Christina tells host Chris Stokel-Walker...

Internet shutdowns are now the first page of the dictator's playbook. Control the lines of communication, and you can control the populace. In this episode, Doug Madory of internet infrastructure analysts Kentik talks to host Chris Stokel-Walker about how leaders around the world crack down on freedom of expression online; what happens when these tools of control are utilised during major world ev...

In this episode of Techtonic, host Chris Stokel-Walker talks to disinformation researcher and former US Department of Homeland Security staffer Nina Jankowicz. Nina describes the targeted campaign against her and the moment she discovered that deepfake pornographic images of her had been generated and were being widely shared. She tells Chris about the lead-up to the images, with a slow spread of...

In this episode, Chris Stokel-Walker talks to Eddie Perez, former Head of Election Integrity at Twitter, about the impact generative AI is likely to have on the 2024 US elections; how deepfakes, fabricated, synthesised audio and social media may be hijacked by bad actors; and what undecided and swing state voters should be looking out for. Find out more about ARTICLE 19's work and follow us on: Tw...

Techtonic is a new podcast from human rights organisation Article 19, hosted by tech reporter Chris Stokel-Walker and produced by Christopher Hooton and Nicola Kelly. The new series looks at freedom of expression online with a focus on the human impact of Big Tech and social media. We speak to experts around the world, including the former Head of Elections at Twitter, digital rights activists and...

In this week's episode, we look at the language biases inherent in AI technologies with guests Aliya Bhatia and Gabriel Nicholas from the Center for Democracy and Technology. Chris, Aliya and Gabriel discuss how large language models work, the underrepresentation of non English-language nations in training data and the effects of an AI trained largely in English. They look at how this might affect...