Political advertising on social media, privacy and encryption legislation, broadband access in rural communities, and other tech policy in 2020

Verge policy reporter Makena Kelly chats with Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel about important points in US tech policy recently as we go into the 2020 presidential election. Nilay and Makena get into the policy topics that The Verge will be covering heavily this year — including political advertising on social media, amendments to Section 230, encryption and privacy legislation, and broadband access in rural areas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Real innovation is powered by real people. This is AMEX Corporate. Trusted experts, smarter technology, 24/7 dedicated support from day one to answer questions, help set up policies and approvals, and consult on spend capacity as your business needs evolve. Plus, on-demand resources help level up operations at every stage. That's the trusted service you've come to expect. Built to simplify, designed to scale. This is AMEX Corporate.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing and wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  Hey, everybody. It's Ian from The Vergecast. On this week's interview episode, Verge Policy Reporter Makena Kelly joins me to talk about everything that's happening in tech policy as we go into the 2020 election. This episode's coming out on Super Tuesday. It's a big day in the Democratic primary. What better day to launch The Verge's election coverage for the year, which we did on the website? McKenna and I go through all of the big policy areas that we're covering, from political advertising on social networks, my Bloomberg is kind of breaking the whole system and revealing the fault lines. We talk about what is going on with Section 230, and then really what I think is one of the main things, McKenna's favorite, my favorite, broadband access in rural areas, which is a huge issue that is going undercover. All stuff we're going to cover, a lot this year. Check it out. It's Makena Kelly on The Vergecast.

• 1:44Nilay Patel?

  Makena Kelly, Policy Reporter for Verge, welcome.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Hey, good to be back.

• 1:48Nilay Patel?

  How are you doing?

• 1:49Speaker 03

  I'm doing good. It's just kind of like a lot all of the time.

• 1:52Nilay Patel?

  It is a lot all of the time. So this episode is going to come out on Tuesday, which is Super Tuesday.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Super.

• 1:59Nilay Patel?

  We're launching a lot of our election and policy coverage that same day. And I want to talk to you about the big issues that are already in the election, both in sort of the Democratic primary and then obviously what we're going to see in the general election and what we're going to track. And so right now, it seems like you are spending a lot of time asking big platforms what memes are allowed, because Bloomberg is spending an enormous amount of money and he's like pushing the boundaries of political advertising on the platforms. How's that going?

• 2:28Speaker 03

  Right. So it's split the platforms and how they enforce it firstly. But I think it's good to start off on like how this happened. So Bloomberg is a billionaire.

• 2:38Nilay Patel?

  Mike Bloomberg.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Mike Bloomberg. He likes to go by Mike and not Michael this time.

• 2:42Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  Um, but Mike Bloomberg is a billionaire.

• 2:44Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Billions of dollars, um, about 60 billion net worth. And he is injecting basically all of that money into social platforms and cable television ads.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  Mike Bloomberg started as a middle-class kid who had to work his way through college. Mike Bloomberg knows the value of quality healthcare.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  If we get it done, Mike would get it done. It's pretty, it's a pretty simple strategy when you have a lot of money.

• 3:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  So Bloomberg bought millions of ads. He buys millions of dollars of ads on Facebook and Google every day. But it's only so much money that you can throw into ads, right? So he's trying to find new ways to get his name out there. So The New York Times reported that the Michael Bloomberg campaign was working with Fuck Jerry, the Fire Festival people. It was basically sponsoring posts on popular meme pages. So once that was discovered, it basically started this whole new conversation about political advertising because social media has been filled with branded content for so long.

• 3:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So it's just, I just want to unpack everything you said.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  Right, yeah. It's a lot.

• 3:50Nilay Patel?

  It's a lot. So first, there is the difference between buying an ad on Facebook and then getting some popular meme account to post something on their behalf.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:59Nilay Patel?

  And sponsored content, that's what we branded content, is like, it's just a big business on platforms.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Right. Every weight loss shake on Instagram is a branded content post.

• 4:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So influencers post hashtag ad. It's a big business for media companies. So BuzzFeed runs Tasty. It's a big foods, like, vertical. They post a lot of food videos everywhere. Heinz can be like, the best ketchup recipes. And they're like, buy it. And it's not an ad that you bought from Facebook. It's an ad that you bought from a media company. That then organically travels. So Bloomberg is doing both.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Right, simultaneously.

• 4:28Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I just don't think most people understand that like branded content ecosystem is huge.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:33Nilay Patel?

  And there are entire companies like, they've actually rebranded, they're Jerry Media now, they're family friendly.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 4:39Nilay Patel?

  But I still think of them as fuck Jerry. But like there are companies that are big, like Jerry Media, that do nothing but branded influencer marketing of this kind. That's just the baseline.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 4:49Nilay Patel?

  So then Bloomberg is like hacking democracy with his money with both ways, right?

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Right. So Facebook didn't have any rules about this because Facebook was operating like any other social platform. The money from branded content does not go to Facebook. I mean, you're talking about all these companies that take the money and it goes to influencers. So Facebook didn't really have to have new rules for political content because this wasn't really done before, or at least that we know of. Mike Bloomberg's campaign was pretty excited about this and was very happy to talk about it.

• 5:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they invented something.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Right, they're like, look at us. So them being so vocal about this forced Facebook to kind of reckon with it.

• 5:25Nilay Patel?

  The influencer marketing.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:27Nilay Patel?

  And it's not like influencers have not had political stances before.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, one of the influencers who I think of when it comes to like, they've endorsed candidates before. I mean, Joe Rogan just endorsed Bernie Sanders. Casey Neistat put out his video in support of Hillary Clinton and that a couple of years ago got a lot of flashbacks. So it's not like influencers have been apolitical.

• 5:46Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's the idea that political advertising has come to the influencer marketing.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. So Facebook decided, hey, yeah, we're going to allow this as long as influencers use their branded content tool, just like they would for weight loss shakes or things like that, and make sure that users know that it's an ad. So hashtag ad, hashtag sponsored by Mike Bloomberg. So they're letting it happen, which is really interesting and new.

• 6:11Nilay Patel?

  But they don't have to make sure it's true. That's like, this is the heart of the debate.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, so that's the same thing with Facebook's political ads rules in the first place. Facebook doesn't care what a politician says is true or not. That's just the way it's been since they had these rules.

• 6:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And so there's a controversy on the you're just buying regular Facebook ad side, or fact checking political advertising. And I think Elizabeth Warren has like made a lot of hay about this, like. You should have to. Facebook says, no, we shouldn't have to. Like, people can figure it out for themselves. And now that same policy is extended to influencer marketing.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:44Nilay Patel?

  Which seems a little bit more problematic to me, but I think Facebook's position is like, it's all just advertising.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  Exactly. Right. These influencer posts could be fact-checked, but only if, and this is where the enforcement gets really fuzzy, is if Facebook determines that the ad is in the influencer's voice and not the voice of the candidate. So, the policy is unenforceable.

• 7:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Like, I like to say with a lot of policies. It is tremendously difficult to enforce a lot of these.

• 7:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  So, it's like, are they meaningful at all? I mean, it raises these questions.

• 7:18Nilay Patel?

  And so then you might as well not have a policy.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:20Nilay Patel?

  Which is like, I think Facebook often comes up with policies that are so unenforceable that they fundamentally don't have a policy.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Facebook, every social media platform, I mean.

• 7:28Nilay Patel?

  Well, so, but Twitter is taking like, a different approach, right?

• 7:31Speaker 03

  Right. So, I mean, we have to like, kind of go back and look at this video that Mike Bloomberg posted on Twitter.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  I'm the only one here that I think has ever started a business. Is that fair? Okay.

• 7:45Nilay Patel?

  It was after the Nevada debate, right?

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Right, yes. So, it was directly after, and Bloomberg, like, I like to say that he is starting to create content in the same way that the Trump campaign has. So, his video, if you're familiar with Carpe Donktum, but he is the Trump memer who-

• 8:03Nilay Patel?

  You're so in it, Meketa. You're like, if you're familiar with-

• 8:05Speaker 03

  If you're familiar with the famous memer, Carpe Donktum, but he's making content very similar to how Trump has in the past. And that's, I think that's really important to note. But, the video itself is cut in a way that some people could say is deceptive, but it is a meme video, and it is a joke, and it's satire.

• 8:23Nilay Patel?

  Right. So, in, this is a video where Bloomberg says, if any of you started a business before, and there's like, literally, he's added the sound of Crickets.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:30Nilay Patel?

  I like to imagine that Bloomberg himself opened iMovie, and like, downloaded, like, crickets dot MP3.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Well, that's the thing. Those, our videos are so easy to make, and we talk about deep fakes all the time, but those videos, I mean, the Nancy Pelosi video that we talked about last year.

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, where they slow her down.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  She's slowed down, and it sounds like she's slurring.

• 8:49Speaker 06

  Long took no longer on the floor custody custody of the border. But the border.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  That wasn't AI.

• 8:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Like, that was iMovie or that was Premiere Pro or like something, same thing with the Joe Biden video from a couple of weeks ago where people were mad that it was cut in a way to make him sound racist, like he was making white nationalist remarks, but he was actually playing the role of a racist. And then it was like, cut out. So the platforms have created their own policies to kind of tackle deep fakes, but it leaves all this room for this very easily accessible in media that people create to kind of just skate away. So Twitter has a policy that comes out in March. And basically, they're giving themselves a lot of room, like any platform does, to determine if something should be taken down, or if it's a deep fake, or what constitutes the type of media. But Twitter told me that this Bloomberg video would receive a new label.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  So the label would basically just have something on the post saying that this is manipulated media, which it is. It is manipulated.

• 9:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  And Facebook, I reached out to Facebook, they have a deep fakes policy too, but they also leave themselves a lot of room for satire and parody videos. Facebook said it wouldn't take it down, and it wouldn't label it as misinformation either. So they're kind of split on the video part of this.

• 10:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, so that Twitter label, to me, like, everything is edited, everything is manipulated media, like, no candidate is putting out ads that are just like 24-hour live streams of them shaking hands or giving speeches. But what's the line there?

• 10:19Speaker 03

  So the line here with Facebook and with Twitter, it seems like it's not just they'll label manipulated media, but when it comes to taking things down, it has to be very deceptive or threaten serious harm to candidates or other people. So, I don't know, if we want to branch out of politics right now, I'm thinking of the only, like, thing that's like really dangerous, but like misinformation around the coronavirus, for example, and things like that. So if there's a manipulated media post there saying coronavirus is cool, catch it. They would probably take that down, you know?

• 10:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  So, I mean, that's kind of where it stands, is like, there is some stuff that can really disrupt the political conversation that we're having. And the Bloomberg thing kind of stopped some of, you know, our colleagues to really discuss whether or not this should be taken down, or whether it's manipulated media and should receive a label. But it really comes down to whether or not it can cause groups of people, communities, harm.

• 11:13Nilay Patel?

  I'm just thinking about, I don't know, reality shows.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:16Nilay Patel?

  Like, reality shows are famous for editing a narrative into a show that maybe wasn't there.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:23Nilay Patel?

  And it feels like, that Bloomberg ad in particular, like, a Top Chef clip highlight, supercut of a season, is the same exact thing.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:32Nilay Patel?

  Right? Does that fall under the rules? Like, how are you, is it just political ads that fall under these rules? Is it all of that kind of stuff that exists? Is it when we make funny jokes about Samsung events, does that fall into, like, that gets wider and wider and wider over time? And it feels like those kinds of videos in particular, where it's like a joke in a video, have been with us for so long, I don't know if people are that confused.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, with politics now, and even with the 2016 election, lawmakers have been pushing for rules from Facebook and Twitter on this stuff. And I don't know if it's just because it's mostly coming from Democrats because of Trump and their disdain for Trump, and how he uses social media, but it is interesting because meme videos and these kind of jokes and recut kind of clips and stuff is such an integral part of the internet and the entertainment ecosystem now. Look back, Stephen Colbert, like, go back to television, they do this all the time on television, too.

• 12:26Nilay Patel?

  The Daily Show, like, the Jon Stewart Daily Show in particular was, like, famous for this, right?

• 12:30Speaker 03

  Exactly. So, I mean, it's hard. But after 2016, I think there's this heightened sense amongst lawmakers and amongst politicians that a lot of this can get out of hand. So if you have the Nancy Pelosi video or something like that, maybe your average person wouldn't be deceived, but you could have bots that are blasting this video all across social media and all this. And it just causes problems, and maybe some problems that we haven't even really realized are problems yet.

• 12:58Nilay Patel?

  So Twitter did take down some bots that seemed to be affiliated with the Bloomberg campaign.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Right. So Twitter, Los Angeles Times reported a couple of days ago that through this, like, Outvote app... That the Bloomberg campaign uses, there was a lot of, they called it spam. They were basically acting as spam accounts, spamming positive remarks from Barbra Streisand about Mike Bloomberg.

• 13:20Nilay Patel?

  That's, I mean, that's like the most Bloomberg. Like, I'm a billionaire, what am I spending it on? Fake Barbra Streisand quotes.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, just to target the boomers. They'll love it. So, no, it's really interesting. So they removed about 70 of them. And it's really interesting, too, because when it comes to the Bloomberg stuff on Facebook, Facebook doesn't consider that these influencer posts or things coming from the Bloomberg campaign as coordinated inauthentic behavior. And it seems like, and when we talk about that, we think about Russians, Iranian foreign interference campaigns, when we think about inauthentic behavior. But it seems like Twitter is like, no, this is inauthentic behavior, too. So they took down those 70 accounts, and I'm sure there are a lot of these that are still out there.

• 14:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it just seems like a missed business opportunity. Like, I'm like, I should start a network of Twitter accounts, let people buy it.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Right, I should just-

• 14:10Nilay Patel?

  I'm American, for God's sake.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  I should make a network of accounts that are just like, McKenna's the best.

• 14:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like, what am I doing? Make it, that'd be 50 bucks?

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:16Nilay Patel?

  Let's do it.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  McKenna's the best.

• 14:19Nilay Patel?

  Well, it just seems like an obvious, sort of like, business opportunity. Like, there's an entire ecosystem of influencers and bots and, like, social reach companies that will do this stuff for you.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:31Nilay Patel?

  And if you're Bloomberg and you're just, like, firehosing money into the ecosystem, it seems obvious that that will happen.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  Right, I mean, people hate it when influencers buy followers or, like, buy posts. But, I mean, it's not something that's, like, new.

• 14:43Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  People are like, yeah, this is just part of the internet. But now, once we get politics involved with it, it, like, explodes into this mess of, like, anger and outrage over a system that's existed for years now.

• 14:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and so it seems like, we keep talking about Twitter and Facebook, they're finding different lines, they're making different rules, they're taking different approaches. That's because there's no overall law or regulation they have as a guide. They're just making it up as they go.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Right, I mean, imagine asking lawmakers right now to regulate memes. It's hilarious.

• 15:15Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I'm imagining it. I would like to see it happen.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:18Nilay Patel?

  Like, just to see what that conversation would be like, just to see them explain memes to each other on the floor of the United States Congress. It'd be great. Yeah, that doesn't seem appropriate.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  No, at least not in the next 10 years.

• 15:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, until like we become the members of Congress.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 15:33Nilay Patel?

  Uh, that's my goal, is to run on a meme-only platform. It's gonna be great. So there's no overall regulation, so they're doing stuff on their own.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:41Nilay Patel?

  Does one of them seem to be getting it more right than the other, Twitter and Facebook?

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Twitter, okay, this is really interesting. So Facebook comes out, it makes like its deep fixed policy, comes out with it earlier this year, and they get like a ton of criticism for it. Twitter announces its own, and it's like more of a good guy stance on like the deep fixed policy. It's really interesting. It seems like Twitter, now I don't know, I don't know what my opinion is, but it seems like Twitter is positioning itself as like the good guy platform for the election right now. They banned political ads entirely last year. It seems like they're really thinking about how to moderate the platform for political ads and campaigns and posts and stuff into the future. Facebook is still, and it's like very much like hands-off approach.

• 16:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Which still, you can trace back to Mark Zuckerberg's speeches over the past couple of years about free speech, and last thing we wanna, um, regulate on our platform is speech.

• 16:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I guess like both companies have said the political advertising is an inconsequential amount of money for the bigger businesses, which is in many ways like depressing.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:46Nilay Patel?

  Right, like Bloomberg can spend all of his money and it's still like a drop in the bucket compared to all the advertising on, on Facebook. Although, we, we should ask them again, because I wonder, I wonder if the Bloomberg money has like changed the balance for them. But they've mostly said, this isn't a lot of money. Twitter's like, it's not a lot of money, it's too much like heartache, we're just gonna turn it off. Like, we don't need the money. Basically, it's like, we don't need the money, but we don't wanna, we don't wanna be involved in that way. We're gonna let it happen, here are some rules. But there's no, because there's no overall guideline, it's like we're watching this experiment play out.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:16Nilay Patel?

  And it's very unclear to me which, which one is better. And that also sits right next to the candidates themselves, members of Congress right now, calling for moderation regulation for the platforms, calling for changes to 230 or whatever. Do you see that interaction happening, or is it just chaos?

• 17:34Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, no, this week, it was really interesting. David Cicilline, who was on the Vergecast. He talked about, it hasn't been introduced yet, but he's talking about a bill that would amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a way that platforms wouldn't receive those really important protections unless they ensured that their platforms weren't running false political ads. So you're seeing these things engage in a really interesting way that we haven't seen before, but was definitely going to come.

• 18:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, 230 is, I mean, that's the next sort of big thing to talk about. There's the campaign and sort of like meme doctrine. I don't know what you would call it. The meme wars that are occurring.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  I can't wait to write that. That's my next piece, the meme doctrine.

• 18:20Nilay Patel?

  It's real. I mean, it's, it is a thing that is happening right. Like platforms are figuring out how to deal with political memes in a way that they did not in 2016, didn't want to, and now they have to.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:31Nilay Patel?

  So they're figuring that out now. Next to it is this other big policy issue that we've just been tracking forever, which is 230 and what protections the big platforms get for what their users publish on those platforms. It seems like everybody wants to like, it's, it's the gun. Like they're going to point the gun at of taking 230 away from you unless you do what they want. And so one of them is take political ads away. But there's a long list of other ones, right?

• 18:55Speaker 03

  I mean, Josh Hawley, the Republicans' major tech.

• 18:59Nilay Patel?

  Our boy.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  Our boy. This was last year and we don't really hear about it much anymore, weirdly enough, but about conservative bias on social media platforms. It was really hot last year.

• 19:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  And at like the height of its hotness, Josh Hawley put out a bill that was like, if you are biased against conservatives, then you lose 230 protections. And we've seen kind of bills jump on this kind of balancing act of 230 versus what I want you to do.

• 19:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Because 230 is like the greatest, you know what I mean? It's the, one of the most foundational parts of the internet. And it's like, if you just take that away, or you threaten to take it away, it's a very major threat when you're trying to get something out of a platform.

• 19:39Nilay Patel?

  If YouTube has to be liable for everything, every person on YouTube.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:43Nilay Patel?

  publishes, like their business goes away.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, YouTube's deleted.

• 19:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, but so is Instagram, so is Reddit, our comments. Like, I'm not going to be responsible for you putting Verge comments. I'm just telling you, it's just not going to happen. So we would just get rid of it. So that's it's this foundational thing. We've talked about it so much, but there are a lot of people trying to make a lot of trades against it. So Holly's one was he was gonna have like a committee of like six people who would weigh if you were neutral. There was five people. It was like.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  But it was they had to come to a consensus. You couldn't have a hung jury.

• 20:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was like a unanimous vote of like Republicans and Democrats that he would just like select.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Which would never happen.

• 20:20Nilay Patel?

  This is crazy town. And then they would decide if Twitter was neutral enough to get its 230 protection. Fine. There is the Sislini bill that you're talking about, which seems like it's gonna come out, which is you have to have a political ads policy that I like. Or I'm taking your 230 away.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Right. Beto O'Rourke, when he was still running for president, he's from El Paso, Texas. And after the El Paso shooting, he put out a presidential campaign proposal, basically saying that there can't be hate speech on platforms. Otherwise you lose your 230 protections. So we've seen it there. In the most dramatic like way, we've heard Joe Biden say, take away 230, totally. I hate it. Revoke it.

• 20:56Nilay Patel?

  That's a very Biden move.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, does he know what 230 is? Who knows?

• 21:00Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's, I mean, if I could get these candidates to show up, I would ask them very directly.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  He knows that he's not supposed to like it 100%. He just wants to get rid of it.

• 21:08Nilay Patel?

  That's Biden. He's just like emotions. They're doing that because they can't propose these regulations directly, it seems. You can't write a law that demands Facebook have a political advertising policy because you would just run, you're the government, you would just run right into the First Amendment.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:22Nilay Patel?

  So the dance here is the trade for do what I want or I'll take 230 because they can mess with 230.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, they created 230.

• 21:29Nilay Patel?

  It is a lot harder to carve out the First Amendment.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:33Nilay Patel?

  So it's, so that's, that seems like the, the underlying 230 action is instead of doing something that might run afoul of the First Amendment. We'll just like hold this gun to your head and say, we'll take away 230 unless you do what I want. That is basically a speech. Regulation. Is that clear? Like, are people making that trade explicitly, or are they just kind of saying it should happen?

• 21:53Speaker 03

  I don't think anyone ever wants to talk about, you don't want to be the lawmaker who's like, "Yeah, I'm thinking about doing something with the First Amendment." Like, that's not a good way to get re-elected, you know?

• 22:02Nilay Patel?

  Fair.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  So, I don't think a lot of people, a lot of lawmakers have brought that up explicitly. But, the idea of like, using 230 to wager what you want, is definitely, it's in the Senate, it's in the House, it's with Republicans, it's with Democrats, people are thinking about it. And I think if we see any changes to 230, it's gonna be with one of these hot-button issues, whether it's ads, or bias, or hate speech, maybe all of them in one, who knows?

• 22:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And so, the one that comes to mind is Bill Barr, who's the Attorney General, Lindsey Graham, they've got a bill that they're working on that actually trades 230 protections for encryption.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:40Nilay Patel?

  Which seems like the other big thing this administration in particular wants is backdoors into encryption for Apple, Google, Facebook, whoever. And the sort of Barr, Graham, Bill, it feels like Bill Barr wrote it and Lindsey Graham put his name on it. That's just my, that's my feeling about it.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  I mean, cannot confirm. But, I mean, no, it's interesting. So, the argument over encryption and whether or not we should demand that Apple allow law enforcement to like, look into your messages if you're suspected of a crime has happened for so long.

• 23:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 03

  Like, so many years. But, I think Bill Barr and a lot of the Republicans have noted this 230 discussion, and saying, "Well, well, there's a lot of people wanting to regulate tech companies over 230, so maybe this is a way in for us." So, I mean, I would think that the two arguments, encryption has been happening for so long, and 230 is like, the perfect out for them to really try to hammer this through into law, finally.

• 23:34Nilay Patel?

  So, they would say, "If you, if you don't give us a backdoor into your encrypted messaging apps, we will take away your 230 protection."

• 23:41Speaker 03

  You're gonna be sued into oblivion.

• 23:43Nilay Patel?

  Tell the people what the bill is called.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I love this. The Earn It Act. You gotta earn it. I mean, it's basically, it's basically the summary of all of these bills. It's like, if you want to have what you need, you gotta earn it.

• 23:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  From me specifically, and what I want.

• 23:58Nilay Patel?

  In my bill, about 230.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:00Nilay Patel?

  But broadly, has encryption come up in the campaign? We've talked about it a lot on the show. It's, obviously, Apple is very strident about not breaking encryption. Facebook says it's going to reorient all of its messaging apps to be encrypted. There's a lot of back and forth about material that's abusive to minors on the platforms that maybe the cops can't see because it's all encrypted. There's a lot of just general conversation about it.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:21Nilay Patel?

  Costs and benefits. Is it part of the campaign yet?

• 24:24Speaker 03

  Not that I've seen. So there's a lot of issues that are like a big deal that haven't really made it into the broad political campaign discussion right now. And encryption hasn't really been one this year.

• 24:37Nilay Patel?

  Does that seem like, because it's just not a winner to say, I support encryption?

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, I can't imagine my like 60-year-old mother being like, I'm not voting for Bernie Sanders because of his encryption stance. You know what I mean? It's like not as hot as like healthcare.

• 24:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, not fair.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  So, I mean, like encryption definitely, I mean, the antitrust plan from Elizabeth Warren came at a really good time, too. But encryption has been around in the fight to get into people's locked phones by the government, has been a fight for a very long time. And it really hasn't had a moment. And I think if we ever had like an encryption moment, the campaigns would be forced to

• 25:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  react to it.

• 25:14Nilay Patel?

  And they, the government, various governments, the Obama administration tried, the Trump administration tried to create those moments with terrorists. So there'd be a shooting, and then we got to unlock the shooter's phone. Apple, won't you help us? Apple basically said no. And then, you know, some company shows up and has a way to unlock it, and the debate goes away. I think that's definitely shifted now to child abuse. That is the basis of the Earn It Act, actually, is based on abuse towards children. But that hasn't reached the campaign in any meaningful way either.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Not yet, no.

• 25:45Nilay Patel?

  It's just funny, because when I think of politicians, I always think of just like, think of the children.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:49Nilay Patel?

  Messaging, and it seems like it's aligning, but it hasn't quite happened yet.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:58Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 26:27Speaker 08

  Welcome to Sephora. I'm looking for a perfume that's not too perfumey? I got you.

• 26:33Speaker 09

  Serum moisturizer or moisturizer serum?

• 26:36Speaker 08

  Let's get into layering. My concealer is making me look worse? Sounds like the wrong shade. Let's get you matched.

• 26:45Speaker 10

  There's only one store that really gets what you're going for. Get beauty from people who get beauty. Only at Sephora.

• 26:52Speaker 08

  Hi, I, uh... Let's get you a basket.

• 26:58Nilay Patel?

  This leads, I think, sort of the next one, which is like you've been tracking the progress towards a privacy bill?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:03Nilay Patel?

  That doesn't seem to have come up in this election at all?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Not really, no. Andrew Yang had a big plan. He wanted a data protection agency. He had some stuff, but now our boy's out.

• 27:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Less tech discussion for all of us on the debate stage, unfortunately. But no, it hasn't really made its way into the big political discussion, the same way that privacy wasn't really talked about in Congress until Cambridge Analytica.

• 27:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  So, once again, we're waiting for another moment.

• 27:32Nilay Patel?

  What's the status of the privacy bill in Congress? Because you have been tracking this very closely.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Right. There's a lot of bills. We're waiting for the Senate Commerce Bill. For the Senate Commerce Republicans and Democrats to come together and put out one big bill that is the end-all, be-all, and it's what it's going to be. But... They're still fighting over some details about whether or not California can have its own bill, whether or not they should preempt that, or if we should be able to sue.

• 27:59Nilay Patel?

  Individual consumers, you mean?

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, individual consumers should be able to sue when their privacy rights are violated by Facebook or Google or whatever. So they're still kind of hung up on some of these details.

• 28:09Nilay Patel?

  Wait, walk me through that. Why wouldn't, shouldn't I be able to sue Google if it like does something bad with my data?

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Right. So Democrats agree. They're like, well, most Democrats agree. I hate to say all of them, but most Democrats agree that you should be able to sue if your rights with your data are violated, whatever those rights are in the privacy bill that we get. Because right now, we don't really have very many rights.

• 28:28Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Republicans, I mean, this happened with TCPA. So the law that allowed you to sue robocallers and like scammers and stuff, phone scammers, Republicans just don't like the idea of frivolous lawsuits. And they're afraid that if you allow consumers to sue Facebook or Google for these things, it would lead to like a firestorm of litigious people with no real claims that would like siphon these big companies with tons of money out of all of their money.

• 28:58Nilay Patel?

  It's like, on the one hand, they're like, we'll take 230 away from you and create an existential threat to your business. But on the other hand, we don't want frivolous lawsuits to do that.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Right. Exactly. No, it's weird.

• 29:09Nilay Patel?

  Totally makes sense.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  We're not going to see a federal privacy bill in the next two to three years. I was optimistic, and now I am fully pessimistic.

• 29:17Nilay Patel?

  Oh, no.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  About this. So it's not going to be in the next two to three years. It's probably going to be under a different administration. But we are seeing a lot of action from the states. New York is crafting its own privacy bill, California, the CCPA, Washington. There's a lot of momentum from the states to get some rules.

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And that creates like a fragmented marketplace for every company. So it feels like they're going to be annoyed with that enough to lobby their way into a federal bill.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is already writing op-eds like, we need a federal law.

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And his law is like, all the stuff I'm doing would be great.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Yep. Don't change anything I'm doing. Don't hurt me.

• 29:56Nilay Patel?

  It just seems crazy that privacy, data privacy, again, right, there's healthcare, there's national security, there's the big topics. But it seems, it seems unlikely that none of the candidates would put forward a privacy plan, because everyone kind of understands it now. After Cambridge Analytica, ever like, there are lots of Amazon echoes in the world. It seems like very obvious to say, here's what, here's what we think Amazon should be allowed to do with their microphones in your house. And it just hasn't, no one's made that connection yet.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  No, not yet.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  Right next to that is after Trump got elected and Ajit Pai takes over the FCC, and he immediately cancels the FCC's privacy rule for telecoms. So telecoms are way less regulated than they were before. There's no net neutrality, the states can't, they're not supposed to, there's a court fight over that, they can't impose their own net neutrality rules, there's no privacy rules. It just seems like the split between how much we care about tech companies and telecom companies is getting ever wider.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, we were, this is really interesting, and I bring this up with a lot of the people that I talk to, but we're not going to see much momentum on federal privacy regulation until we have the same movement that folks like Free Press created with net neutrality. Like, you're not seeing people in the streets or websites shutting down because of privacy.

• 31:08Nilay Patel?

  But there is, it does seem like it's more, I can't quantify it, it does seem like people are more aware of the privacy risks than ever before. It does seem like the split between GDPR in Europe and here is, made that more concrete. But you're saying that hasn't really turned into any action?

• 31:23Speaker 03

  No, it hasn't turned into like grassroots momentum or anything like that. And maybe it will in the future, but as of right now, it's not really a measurable effort, you know?

• 31:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. The other piece of it, though, is how little we think about telecoms in these conversations. Like, we've talked a lot about 2:30 and speech and what Google can put into its algorithms, we do not talk about what AT&T can do with its network, at all, really, and they like own CNN. Does that come up anywhere in this conversation, or is that purely like, where's the internet going to be and who's going to have access to it?

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Right. No, I think that's basically it. When you talk about telecoms with candidates, their biggest telecom plans have to do with getting people access, because that's still a very big issue. So, last month, I went to Iowa and I drove over 800 miles. All across the street from Des Moines, like a metro area like Des Moines. I talked to folks who had spotty access and I went all the way up north, only a couple of miles from the Minnesota border and people who have absolutely no access. So it's those people that a lot of candidates really want to start reaching. So all the candidates, all of the major ones have big plans on how to expand rural broadband access and that's something that Trump promised and we still haven't gotten.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  So it's been something that's been in campaigns for a number of years, but something that we haven't seen a lot of momentum on from the executive branch. Except from the FCC, they like to create piles of money.

• 32:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  And allocate that in the USDA too.

• 32:53Nilay Patel?

  Why the USDA? And this was in your story, but explain to people.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Right, no, so the USDA, there's a handful of grant programs that small providers or even like big telecom providers can get access to, to lay the fiber, to create the towers, to expand access in rural areas. Because I, when I was there, you could travel down a dirt road for a mile and you could only, if you laid fiber down for that, you would only connect maybe like one home.

• 33:20Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  It is, it is so unprofitable. So you need that grant money and it needs to come from a variety of different sources. So the USDA and the FCC has their own grant programs to get that money out. And that can be like millions of dollars, a couple hundred thousand dollars to just get the fiber laid or whatever solution is best for the community.

• 33:40Nilay Patel?

  Right, so the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture is like, we also want you to have fiber because you're farmers?

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's basically any small provider who really needs the money can, they have to fill out, oh my god, it's such a horrible process.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  But and a lot of people hire consultants to like fire, to file these grants applications because they're so difficult to file. But yeah, so they just say, hello, we need help and these are all the reasons why we need help and how many farmers we're going to connect and how many small businesses we're going to connect and how many families and schoolchildren. And the USDA looks at that and decides whether or not they'll grant them the money.

• 34:18Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Same thing with the FCC, they've been doing that too. But the USDA reconnect program has been around since 2018, I think. So not, definitely not as long.

• 34:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So. There's a push to get access. Right now, what do the plans look like? What are the differences between the plans you're saying?

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Right. So you have some folks like Amy Klobuchar, who are like trillion-dollar infrastructure package. It's gonna happen. And we're gonna have a lot of money in there for broadband deployment, which makes grants more accessible and things like that. There's also, we are very familiar with this here at The Verge, but there are laws that ban communities from coming together and creating their own networks when AT&T or Verizon or whoever, A, won't lay down

• 35:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  the infrastructure needed, or B, it's like too expensive because there's no competition in the area. There are laws in the books in many states that ban communities from doing that. So Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the more progressive-leaning candidates, want to author some kind of legislation once they're in office that would basically preempt all of those municipal laws.

• 35:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And these are like, they work in cities too. I think Comcast famously lobbied against like Philadelphia's citywide Wi-Fi system they wanted to build. Disclosure of Comcast through its NBC Universal arm is an investor of Fox Media. I assure you, they do not care for me. It's just a fact. But they've done it in smaller areas too, where you have a bunch of people in a small town. They're like, we're gonna build our own Wi-Fi network. The town is gonna pay for it. And there's like a state law usually that says you are not allowed to do that. Your small town is allowed to do that. So the idea here from Warren and Sanders is they would allow small communities to build their own networks?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, to create more competition. Or just have them have access in the first place.

• 36:03Nilay Patel?

  How is that received? It feels like the municipal broadband conversation just went away for a long time.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Right. So I think when you have more progressive candidates coming in, you hear a lot more about publicly-owned utilities. So this publicly-owned utility conversation is like coming back, I wouldn't say in like full force, but definitely in a recognizable and important way.

• 36:22Nilay Patel?

  How does that square with my favorite, which is the 5G rhetoric, which is, we don't need to do any of this. We're just gonna put 5G networks in there. It's just gonna get magically connected.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  It's really interesting because nobody knows what 5G is or why it's a race or any of this.

• 36:34Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  So it's really great to rely on that as your supplement for broadband.

• 36:40Nilay Patel?

  But sort of the Trump FCC has, I mean, Ajit Pai, he consistently says he cares about rural broadband. He's consistently, he just put out a white space proposal, another thing that has historically not worked for a decade, but whatever, now here's a new proposal. He's committed to it in a sense that he talks about it a lot. Has that moved the ball forward at all?

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Right, so I mean, with 5G, I'm not entirely sure. He has the World Digital Opportunity Fund that just came out. Some Democratic commissioners have some beef with it. But it is $20 billion that gets into the hands of providers to connect people over the next 10 years, which is very valuable. With 5G, I don't know. I always think back, there was a hearing in Congress a couple of weeks ago with Gigi Sohn.

• 37:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  And I always think about that quote because it's like, you're relying on a technology that hasn't proven itself yet for such a valuable part of our economy now and something for broadband access that could lift a lot of like people in rural communities out of poverty.

• 37:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  And give them more opportunity. And too, I just think it's really hard to want to invest billions of dollars into a tech that just hasn't proved itself yet.

• 37:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and especially when AT&T and Verizon and now T-Mobile, the Sprint merger, they're committed to doing it.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:00Nilay Patel?

  So you could let that play out while you go build the proven network.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:03Nilay Patel?

  And that just doesn't seem to be the case that's being made.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  I mean, it's the divide right now on the digital, unfortunately.

• 38:11Nilay Patel?

  So you're saying the progressives want to say community networks. What are the more moderates on the Democratic side?

• 38:15Speaker 03

  I mean, most of it with Klobuchar, it's mostly money.

• 38:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  If you get more money, money is the whole thing, keeping people from being connected. So the sums of money are vastly different from like $20 billion. Bernie's plan is like $150 billion, so. I don't know how any of this, it also comes back to, we've been trying to get an infrastructure package for so long.

• 38:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's infrastructure week.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's infrastructure week every week and it never actually happens. So it's hard to decide or figure out or even imagine how much of that money would actually make its way through Congress.

• 38:54Nilay Patel?

  Is there a split on sort of Republicans and Democrats in Congress? Because it, I mean, the more rural states are generally redder, right, they have more Republican representation, presumably those people would like better networks in their states. Is there, is there any movement on that side of the aisle?

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Right, it seems like it's a pretty bipartisan issue. If you look at the committees that handle this, for the most part, Republicans and Democrats agree that they need to do something. How they're going to do that, I think, is where they disagree. Like, even when it comes to, this is kind of wonky and excuse me.

• 39:25Nilay Patel?

  I'm ready for it.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  But the broadband maps, right? So, right now telecoms create their own maps, basically. They send all the data back into the FCC and they craft the maps where people don't have access, based on data from the companies. And everyone is basically in agreement, Republicans and Democrats, that these maps are messed up and we need to figure them out, like, now, like, yesterday.

• 39:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  But, and there's a couple of pieces of bipartisan legislation that are moving, but Congress is slow. Right now, we're just finished impeachment.

• 39:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  And all this stuff. So, I mean, I could definitely see more momentum in the future, but when it comes to a big infrastructure package with all this money, I don't know. I don't think anyone knows.

• 40:05Nilay Patel?

  Well, so this seems like kind of the big theme. We've talked about a lot of different issues. There's an election going on. It's an opportune time for these issues to come to the fore.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:17Nilay Patel?

  And there just seems to be a gap between, we're going to take away 2:30 and scream out Facebook political ads, and, hey, huge chunks of America don't have broadband and we don't even know where they are because the maps are bad. Like, that is an easy problem for people to understand. It's an easy problem where people agree that the solution is just figure out a way to connect them. We should know where the maps are. And yet, that's not being talked about at all. Why do you think that split exists?

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Right now, in between the campaigns and these issues?

• 40:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it just doesn't seem like it's... What's the most core tech policy issue? It's like, literally, the digital divide. Right. Like, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if Facebook's doing it, if you can't access Facebook at all.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:56Nilay Patel?

  And it doesn't seem like that comes up as much as it should. Do you think there's a reason for that? Is it just not politically sexy enough? Or what is it?

• 41:03Speaker 03

  It might not be politically sexy enough, but I'm also thinking that when I was in Iowa and I was covering the caucus, people were shocked to have a tech reporter ask them questions. I mean, why just because we don't have enough tech people covering this stuff and asking those questions? It's really hard to tell, though. There also isn't a lot of party agreement on how to track these things. Like, if the Republicans were running for president right now, for the most part, we'd have the populist wing of the party, the Josh Hollies versus the libertarian wings of the parties. They can't come to an agreement on what tech policy looks like for them. And I think it's the same thing with the Democrats. You have progressives like Warren and Bernie and AOC, who talks for Bernie all the time, and they're like, "Yeah, break 'em up."

• 41:48Speaker 03

  But the more moderate wing of the party doesn't want to do that.

• 41:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  So, I mean, maybe it's just because when it comes to tech policy, it's such an emerging issue, that there just isn't enough agreement in the parties to make it that much of a central issue.

• 42:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's not even a clear enough split between the parties.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:06Nilay Patel?

  Because a lot of the, like, the Josh Hawley proposals, he squint. It looked a lot like some of the more progressive proposals. Like, "I will take control of Facebook myself. I Josh Hawley. I will do it. Here's what I intend to do." And that doesn't seem like, like Bill Barr is like, "I'm gonna buy Nokia." It doesn't seem like your classic, small-government conservative proposal, but he's like, "That's how I'll fix the 5G encryption problem." So, I agree with you. Like, there's enough of a spread of ideas that they haven't coalesced into party identities yet.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:37Nilay Patel?

  But at the same time, it just seems like... Well, we're gonna cover it. We're gonna keep sending you to places. It seems like it's at the top of mind for how, like, literally how democracy will function, because what we're fundamentally talking about is how information is distributed. Right? And who has access to it and who sees true things and fake things.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:56Nilay Patel?

  And that, I don't think that we're taking that seriously enough, quite honestly.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  No, I totally agree. And it's, I mean, it is kind of, it feels, how much did we learn from 2016?

• 43:07Nilay Patel?

  Not enough.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Not enough.

• 43:08Nilay Patel?

  The answer, yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  No, not enough. The thing that I've been thinking about a lot recently is that in 2016, we came out of it terrified of foreign interference. And now in 2020, the emerging issue is interference from the candidates themselves with Bloomberg and fake, deep fake videos and things like that. And that's something that gets really closely tied to regulating speech in a way that we're very uncomfortable with, but in a way that is, we, it's a very important conversation that we need to have if these platforms are gonna be as important as they have been in democracy going forward.

• 43:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, the good news is you're on the podcast today, because we're launching a whole thing to do election coverage. You're gonna be, people are gonna see your name a lot, because you're covering it very closely. What's the next big thing that you think is your focus?

• 43:58Speaker 03

  So the things that I'm really interested in are, it may seem pretty minor, but I did a piece on just this random guy out in Washington who's running for Congress as a socialist on TikTok. So I'm very interested in how these emerging platforms are being used and really interested in how candidates, whether it's presidential candidates, congressional candidates, are using the internet to organize, because for a lot of these smaller campaigns, they're quickly becoming national campaigns.

• 44:28Nilay Patel?

  Huh.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Because if you're on TikTok and you're on everybody's for you page, or if you have a Discord server with people who support you all across the country, all of a sudden, your small little district in rural Washington or wherever becomes a national campaign.

• 44:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  And that's something I think we're gonna see so much more of, and I think it's gonna be really important to dig into.

• 44:49Nilay Patel?

  Is that a fundraising thing, or is that just a culture thing?

• 44:51Speaker 03

  It's fundraising. It's phone banking. It's text banking. Like, it's creating big national movements for small, little candidates, and I'm very excited to look more into that.

• 45:00Nilay Patel?

  That seems really fun. All right, Mckenna, thank you so much for taking the time.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  No problem.

• 45:04Nilay Patel?

  We'll have you back on soon.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  Definitely. Cool.

• 45:06Nilay Patel?

  All right. My thanks to Makena Kelly for joining us on this interview episode. Like I said, we launched a big election coverage section of The Verge today. You can go check it out on the site. We're going to be updating those guides to policy issues all year as the election goes on. Obviously, Casey and Zoe are doing the interface or newsletter about social networks and democracy. There's just a lot of tech policy coverage to come. Check it out on the site. We'll be back on Friday with a chat show. Got to talk about that Mac Pro review. Tuesday with an interview and on, on we go. Please tweet at me. I'm Matt Reckless. I love hearing your feedback on the show and who you want me to talk to. We'll see you later.

• 45:40Speaker 11

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want online only at homedepot.com.

• 46:10Speaker 12

  Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger. Fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.