Using the internet to connect users to queer-owned spaces around the world

For the millions of residents and visitors who commute in and out of the areas daily, billboards in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area have long been a way to see where the state of tech is at the moment — and where it’s headed next.

Yesterday, we explained San Francisco’s fraught relationship with the tech industry. Tech workers weren’t always welcome in the eyes of many other residents, and when the COVID-19 pandemic began, a lot of them left, taking their dollars with them. But on a recent Thursday evening, organizers of a block party downtown were trying to bring people back. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke to Manny Yekutiel and Katy Birnbaum about their efforts to revive the city’s downtown.

Cities across the country are still trying to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic changed how and where many of us work, leaving big holes in downtown office districts. San Francisco, once teeming with tech workers, is no exception. But few cities have suffered the sustained reputational damage that San Francisco has. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali recently visited the city to meet with Heather Knight, The New York Times’ San Francisco bureau chief. Knight, who has been covering the city for more than two decades, offered her take on San Francisco’s image problem, economic situation and tech culture.

In the past week or so, Nvidia’s stock finally encountered the law of gravity — what goes up must eventually come down, at least a little bit. And we look under the hood of artificial intelligence companies that aren’t necessarily making headlines. Plus, the Supreme Court ruled against Republican-led states that accused the federal government of coercing social media companies into suppressing content. But first, major music labels, including Universal, Sony and Warner, are suing two startups that produce AI-generated music. The labels accuse Suno and Udio of using copyrighted works scraped from the internet to train their AI models. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali speaks with Anita Ramaswamy, columnist at The Information, for her takes on these stories in this week’s Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.

It feels like eons ago, but during a town hall on violence in America in 1994, then-President Bill Clinton took to MTV to reach the nation’s youth. Clinton’s openness to MTV and what The New York Times called “other unconventional media” had helped pave his path to the White House two years earlier. Fast-forward to today, and even reluctant politicians use TikTok to reach younger voters — President Joe Biden is no exception. His first post came just ahead of this year’s Super Bowl. We invited Marketplace’s senior Washington correspondent, Kimberly Adams, and Joshua Scacco, professor of political communication and director of the Center for Sustainable Democracy at the University of South Florida, to discuss the evolution of political messaging with Marketplace’s Lily Jamali. Scacco said Clinton’s MTV moment informed how future presidents, including his successor, George W. Bush, have engaged with Americans.

This week, we’ve been taking stock of how tech has both helped and harmed Americans trying to get abortions in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. After the Dobbs decision, some experts warned consumers that menstrual tracking apps would provide a means of surveilling abortion seekers. There was even a social media campaign on what was then Twitter advising people to delete their period trackers. But it’s turned out that the threat to privacy isn’t limited to those apps. Other digital data can actually be more likely to reveal an illegal abortion. That’s according to Albert Fox Cahn, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. He told Marketplace’s Lily Jamali that everyday consumer apps generate sensitive data that can be used for abortion surveillance.

After the U.S. Supreme Court took away the federal right to abortion two years ago, telehealth has helped provide ongoing access, including to people in states where abortion is now banned. That was our subject Monday. Now we are looking into apps that link patients with abortion providers. Julie F. Kay, executive director at the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, told Marketplace’s Lily Jamali that digital privacy protections are far from equal across these services.

Two years ago this week, the Supreme Court ruled that abortions are not constitutionally protected in the U.S., a decision that would draw protests across the country. Since then, 14 states have outlawed abortions. Still, some people in those states have been able to cut through barriers to get abortions via telehealth, according to a recent report from the research project #WeCount. Usually, this requires a virtual visit with a telehealth care provider. The provider assesses the patient and gets their information, then can mail them mifepristone and misoprostol, which aid in ending a pregnancy. The Supreme Court preserved access to mifepristone in a ruling this month, which means it can still be prescribed and mailed to patients. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali discussed the increase in telehealth abortions with Ushma Upadhyay, professor of OB-GYN and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and a coauthor of the #WeCount report.

Big Tech subscription services are once again in the crosshairs of the Federal Trade Commission, nonprofits with links to OpenAI are becoming less transparent, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is urging Congress to require warning labels on social media. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali speaks with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired magazine, for this week’s Tech Bytes: Week in Review

Picture this: The year is 2014. The song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams is playing on every top 100 station, and the Ellen DeGeneres star-studded Oscars selfie has just “broken Twitter.” As all of this is happening, a bunch of content creators in certain corners of social media are about to start making a whole lot of money. Culture reporter Steffi Cao recently wrote in The Ringer that 2014 was the year that shaped the internet we know today. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke to her about what happened online 10 years ago.

Once upon a time, in a magical land of Oklahoma, fairy Jasmine LaFleur wanted to create a hashtag to unite Black fairies all across the land. And she did.

Since 2021, on the second Saturday of May, Black fairy enthusiasts have united around #BlackFaeDay to show the world that Black fairies are real, and that there's space for them online and off.

In this episode of Endless Thread, we look into #BlackFaeDay, and how important it is to those who celebrate. And what we find isn't a hashtags to riches story, but a fairytale about how the internet can be a place where dreams bigger than your follower count can come true. Producer Quincy Walters also examines what it takes to become a Black fairy.

In this episode, host Olivia Neal speaks with Detective Sergeant John Price from the West Midlands Police Force in the United Kingdom. He shares insights from the world of digital forensics and how investigators are using technology to help victims more effectively in the modern age.

Olivia Neal [host] | LinkedIn 

John Price [guest] | LinkedIn

Microsoft Public Sector Center of Expertise for more information and transcripts of all episodes

Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts

Welcome to the latest episode of the GLOBAL edition of our What Matters in Edtech Series, our podcast collaboration with Bett. This podcast series is all about the things that matter in education, and how and when tech might help. 

Thank you to Bett for supporting this series and to FormAssembly for supporting this episode.

What's in this episode?

Follow the conversation, share and comment using #edtechpod and #Bett2021.

People

• Prof. Pierre Dillenbourg, Associate Vice-President for Education, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland | Twitter: @EPFL_en; @EPFL
• Margus Pedaste, Professor of Educational Technology at the Institute of Education of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Tartu | Twitter: @pedaste
• Dr. Anantha K. Duraiappah, Director, UNESCO MGIEP, The UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development | Twitter: @akduraiappah
• Benoit Wirz, Partner, Brighteye Ventures | Twitter: @bthewirz; @brighteyevc
• Lance Huang, Education Lead, Agora | Twitter: @AgoraIO
• Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast | Twitter: @podcastedtech

Time Stamps for the episode

• 5:22  - Pierre Dillenbourg
• 15:58 - Magnus Pedaste
• 29:41 - Anantha Duraiappah
• 44:47 - Benoit Wirz
• 58:21  - Lance Huang
• 1:10:40 - Guest recommendations and resources 

Show Notes and References

You can find links to any references from the episode in our show notes: https://theedtechpodcast.com/edtechpodcast.

Tell us your story

We'd love to hear your thoughts. Record a quick free voicemail via speakpipe for inclusion in the next episode. Or you can post your thoughts or follow-on links via twitter @podcastedtech or via The Edtech Podcast Facebook page or Instagram.

Are you a freelance writer looking to save time, get inspiration and make use of some of the brilliant digital tools out there (if you only knew what the best ones were)? In this episode - a follow-up to our 10 Essential Writing Tips episode a few weeks before - details some great tools we use in our own writing work.

Resources we talk about in this episode

Hemingway App https://hemingwayapp.com/

ContentBot https://contentbot.ai/

Cheese Ipsum http://www.cheeseipsum.co.uk/ 

Otter Ai https://otter.ai/

The Phrase Finder https://www.phrases.org.uk/

Plain English Dictionary https://sandralmuller.com/plain-english-dictionary/

oTranscribe https://otranscribe.com/