Debugger podcast Archives — bobsullivan.net

Debugger podcast: Should the FTC stop Facebook from acquiring VR firm? And make it ‘give back’ Instagram and WhatsApp?

September 5, 2022 Bob Sullivan 4

There’s a new front that’s opened in the years-long battle between the FTC and Facebook. Federal regulators have sued to stop the social media giant’s proposed acquisition of a company named Within which makes a popular virtual reality fitness app called Supernatural. In this episode of Debugger in 10, we [Keep reading]

Episode 1: Too Big to Sue

April 22, 2022 Bob Sullivan 2

INTRODUCTION The dot-com bubble. It’s hard to put into words how crazy, outlandish, extravagant, and optimistic the dot com bubble was. When I landed in the middle of it as a Microsoft intern in the mid-90s, the first company party I went to — Microsoft rented out a mountain. [Keep reading]

Episode 2: What hasn’t worked

April 22, 2022 Bob Sullivan 0

Even Big Tech companies understand they wield too much power. Facebook’s attempt to create an Oversight Board is a nod to this reality. In practice, it also demonstrates why this problem is so challenging. And how an effort to bring sense to the 2020 presidential election ended up as a [Keep reading]

Episode 3: Begged and Borrowed

April 22, 2022 Bob Sullivan 0

This isn’t the first time the American Way has been threatened by an industry with too much power and influence. What has been done in the past to rebalance the scales? We talk with a field of experts to learn what can be borrowed from the epic struggles of the [Keep reading]

New docu-podcast: Defending Democracy (and US!) from Big Tech

April 8, 2022 Bob Sullivan 0

Big Tech makes big decisions over our lives: What products we see, how we feel about world events, what to censor — to some degree, even what medical decisions we make. Yet who controls Big Tech? The firms are so powerful and rich they really act as judge and jury [Keep reading]

Debugger: The 1,000 companies that track you with every click and swipe

July 13, 2021 Bob Sullivan 0

I like a good challenge as a storyteller. And let me tell you, making “third-party code” sound sexy is a challenge. But that recent Apple ad showing an army of people following a cell phone user around, cataloging his every move — well, that’s real. It’s hard to believe, but [Keep reading]

Before we sit down for dinner, can I ask that you turn off your surveillance gadgets?

June 2, 2021 Bob Sullivan 2

What do you do if you think your friend is bugging you? I don’t mean bothering you. I mean…bugging you…using a device to listen to you, maybe e1ven recording your conversations, when you visit their home. Well, that’s the world most of us live in now. Personal assistants, many modern [Keep reading]

We could have fixed the Web. ‘It wasn’t that hard. We just failed’

April 19, 2021 Bob Sullivan 2

This is the third part of the transcript from part 2 of our podcast, “What is the Original Sin of the Internet.” Tim Sparaponi is a really engaging speaker, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to him more than reading his comments. But if you’d like to skim what he [Keep reading]

‘If it’s legal, it’s ok’ — the Original Sin of the Internet, part 2

April 15, 2021 Bob Sullivan 82

This is the second transcript from part 2 of the “What is the Original Sin of the Internet” podcast launched this week. Here, Ari Schwartz — whose career has spanned the Center for Democracy and Technology and the White House and private industry — explains why it’s so hard to [Keep reading]

We arrived at this situation ‘because there were no rules to stop it’

April 12, 2021 Bob Sullivan 0

This is the beginning of the transcript for part two of our Debugger podcast on “The Original Sin of the Internet.” The technologists who built the Internet were naive, and their failure of imagination led us all down a path to rampant fraud, abuse, and misinformation. In part 2 of [Keep reading]