After Joe Rogan was accused of spreading Covid-19 vaccine misinformation on his podcast, Spotify landed in the hot seat. People (including us!) wanted to know what the platform was doing to stop it. In this episode, we look into how tech platforms are fighting misinformation — and find out what actually works. To find out we speak to Professor David Rand, Pr ... Show More
Sep 10
Where Have The Insects Gone?? With Dr. Jessica Ware
Bugs are disappearing at alarming rates, scientists are telling us. Bees, butterflies, beetles: all of them have been dropping like flies. And scientists say there are a bunch of reasons to care about this — for example, fewer bugs means less pollination, which means less pasta i ... Show More
45m 53s
Sep 3
Protein-Maxxing: Is It Actually Bad For Us?
Protein is everywhere — tons of us are trying to cram more of it into our diets, and it's showing up in our lattes, our snack bars, even our popcorn. But just as we’re getting on board with protein-maxxing, a bunch of headlines have started saying the opposite: that eating LESS p ... Show More
31m 11s
Aug 27
Sunscreen: Could It Be Toxic??
Sunscreen is supposed to protect us from dangerous stuff like cancer, but all over social media, people are saying that we’ve been getting it all wrong. We’re being told that our sunscreen is full of toxic chemicals, that wearing it could mess with our vitamin D levels — even tha ... Show More
50m 52s
Feb 2022
What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Spotify’s Joe Rogan Mess
For Spotify, the last month has seen a cascade of controversies around its exclusive podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Is it time for the streaming service to rethink its role as a podcast publisher? And is it even possible to moderate podcast misinformation?Guest: Evelyn Douek, ... Show More
20m 3s
Feb 2022
Spotify’s Joe Rogan problem
The podcast host built a massive audience by speaking to fringe figures in culture, business, and science. During the pandemic, that got him in trouble with Neil Young, among others.
This episode was produced by Will Reid and Amina Al-Sadi, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by ... Show More
32m 25s
Feb 2021
#233 — The Groves of Misinformation
Sam Harris speaks with Zeynep Tufekci about the problem of misinformation and group-think. They discuss the Covid-19 pandemic, the early failures of journalists and public health professionals to make sense of it, the sociology of mask wearing, the problem of correcting instituti ... Show More
50m 55s
Sep 2023
Assessing the Problem of Disinformation
This episode features two segments on the subject of disinformation. In the first, Rebecca Rand speaks with Dr. Shelby Grossman, a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, on recent research that looks at whether AI can write persuasive propaganda. In the second seg ... Show More
33m 3s