This Week in Tech 1071: "Image Pickles"
Podcast: All TWiT.tv Shows (Audio)
Host: Leo Laporte
Guests: Stacey Higginbotham (Consumer Reports), Wesley Faulkner (works-not-working.com), Thomas Germain (BBC)
Date: February 16, 2026
Episode Focus: Legal and ethical dilemmas at tech’s social and privacy frontiers; social media addiction trial, Section 230, surveillance technology, AI privacy, age verification, hardware subscriptions, and more.
Episode Overview
In this lively and wide-ranging episode, Leo Laporte and his guests explore technology’s current moral crossroads—where product design, privacy, legislation, and everyday use collide. The panel tackles headline events like the landmark social media addiction trial, privacy-invasive tech rollouts from Meta and Ring, and the latest in AI-based surveillance and regulation. With insights drawn from policy, journalism, and industry experience, the show examines not just what’s happening in tech, but why it matters and what can (or can’t) be done about it.
Main Topics & Key Discussions
1. The Social Media Addiction Trial: Legal & Moral Dilemmas
- [03:30] Los Angeles court case—Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and Google/YouTube sued over alleged addiction and harm to children.
- Key contention: Are these platforms purposefully engineered to addict, and where's the line between content, design, and legal liability?
- Stacey: “What should be on trial is ... dark patterns, deceptive patterns ... deployed at scale in such a, I guess, emotionally close way for people. ... Do I think these companies have a lot to answer to? Absolutely.” [04:57]
- Thomas: “...If we can prove that the design of the platform is the thing that's hurting people as opposed to the content itself, then maybe we can hold the companies liable ... the whole future of the Internet hinges on [this legal question].” [06:01]
- Leo: Raises concern that making companies liable for making “too good” a product could chill free speech, but is open to regulations like ad limits for kids.
- Discussion about parallels with 1980s deregulation in children’s TV and cereal advertising.
- Addiction vs. “habituation”
- Stacey: Shares her own “TikTok addiction” and RSI story, framing it as habit-forming, not physically addictive like heroin but “very easy to form a habit, much like smoking cigarettes.” [10:36]
- Wesley: Highlights the social/cultural compulsions and the role of “everyone is using it” effect.
- Deliberation: Is Instagram/YouTube “just entertainment” or a new, more manipulative breed of “social platforms”?
2. Section 230 at 30: Backbone or Bottleneck?
- [16:33] 30th anniversary of the “26 words that changed the Internet” (Section 230).
- Leo: Strongly defends Section 230 as vital for online speech and small platforms: “If I were liable for the things people posted ... I would just shut them down.”
- Thomas: “...Maybe needs to be addressed in a different way than ... your Discord community, because it operates in a completely different [way].” [19:43]
- Nuanced takes on potential reforms vs. dangerous, sweeping regulatory changes. Transparency requirements for algorithms proposed as a middle way.
- Stacey: “...It's time for nuance... and I'd love to read like some really good thinking on that. Please send me stuff.” [20:28]
- Thomas: Supports algorithmic transparency and third-party auditing as a step forward.
3. Surveillance & Privacy: Facial Recognition, Smart Glasses, and the Ring/Flock Fiasco
- [35:31] Meta’s planned glasses with face recognition (while the public is distracted).
- Thomas: “It’s one of the most cynical things I’ve ever seen from the tech industry. And that is really saying a lot.” [36:01]
- Downstream privacy issues—law enforcement, marketers, even casual users leveraging facial tracking with minimal oversight.
- Ring’s “Search Party” and prior partnership with Flock Safety (license plate surveillance)—backlash and privacy risks.
- Ring’s rapid police partnerships and the “neighbors” app’s ties to racism and over-policing.
- The “surveillance net” risk: Every camera, everywhere, all the time.
- Wesley: “What is being created right now is a marketplace for locating people. They will try to get as much data and sell it to as many people as they can.” [43:11]
- Ring’s culture and staffing changes reduce internal pushback on privacy.
4. Tracking, Pixels, and the Ubiquity of Data Collection
- [57:25] Thomas’s report: TikTok tracking you (pixel) even if you’ve never used the app.
- TikTok, Facebook, many ad networks use invisible “pixels” in websites and emails to shadow users everywhere online.
- Stacey: “This can be—they put image pickle—image pixels... into emails.” [60:06]
- How to fight back: ad blockers, privacy browsers, DNS-level filtering, disabling remote images in emails.
- Thomas: “There are things you can do ... It does make an enormous difference.” [61:43]
- Not all ad blockers protect equally well—EFF and DuckDuckGo tools recommended. Browser fingerprinting remains a hard problem.
5. The Trouble with Tech Hardware: Security Fails & Subscription Fatigue
- [88:00] DIY hack exposes thousands of DJI vacuums worldwide to remote control and spying, due to a basic security lapse by the manufacturer.
- Stacey: “These sorts of configuration errors are not uncommon. And it’s, it’s really terrifying.” [89:40]
- Wesley: Raises the risk of even safety issues (e.g. hacking devices to create fires, brick them, or invade homes).
- Ongoing problem: Weak legal/regulatory framework for connected device security.
- HP’s laptop subscription: New model where you never own your laptop—just pay monthly.
- Pros/cons debated: affordable access vs. lack of hardware control, lock-in, software “tethering.”
- Thomas: “But I will die before I pay a subscription for a piece of hardware.” [103:48]
- Growing concern about subscriptions for features in cars, printers, and now laptops.
6. AI in Telecom and Devices: New Powers, New Risks
- [111:19] T-Mobile launches real-time, on-network AI translation for calls—no extra hardware needed.
- Panel expresses skepticism about privacy, law enforcement access, legal gray areas (wiretapping), and opt-out realities.
- Apple’s ongoing struggle with “Siri+AI”
- [117:55] Apple delays next-gen Siri, stalling promised “AI everywhere”—panel agrees: voice assistants are still failing to deliver, and voice AI reliability lags marketing claims.
- Stacey: Reports Google Home latency/downgrade, too.
- Debate: Is the “hallucination” problem of LLMs inherent, and could Apple’s reputation for safety make delivering true AI assistants even harder?
- Thomas: “Large language models … to actually put [AI] in charge of something that really matters, like functions of your phone, you need to have a level of confidence … they just can't get.” [121:13]
7. Age Verification on Social Platforms: Privacy, Chilling Effects, and Workarounds
- [77:12] Discord (and by implication, all social platforms) are moving towards “age verification”—sometimes using facial estimation, sometimes government ID.
- Global patchwork of regulation: UK, Australia, US states like Mississippi and Texas all pushing for verification.
- Panel consensus: Uploading your ID everywhere chills speech and is a privacy risk (data breaches have already happened).
- Alternatives: Gatekeeper (Apple/Google account) suggests a “chunked” age API—but with caveats about law enforcement cooperation and company trustworthiness.
Memorable Quotes & Moments
On why the social media addiction trial matters:
“It’s like this one little narrow legal question that, you know, in a lot of ways, the whole future of the Internet hinges on.”
— Thomas Germain [06:49]
On Privacy and Surveillance:
“That is the end of any form of privacy in our society. It’s over. … A guy walking down the street can, like, hit a button on his glasses and identify who you are, it’s over.”
— Thomas Germain, on universal facial recognition [41:22]
On device insecurity:
“You could actually cause loss of life in extreme cases.”
— Wesley Faulkner, on IoT device hacks [90:44]
On hardware subscriptions and user rights:
“Literally you have no rights. … I’ve created a chart full of software tethering harms.”
— Stacey Higginbotham, on ‘leasing’ hardware and software lock-in [105:09]
On Section 230 and nuanced regulation:
“This time is terrible for nuance and I’d love to read like some really good thinking on that. Please send me stuff.”
— Stacey Higginbotham [20:28]
Notable Timestamps
- [03:30] Start of discussion: Social media trial over “addiction algorithms”
- [16:33] Section 230’s 30th birthday and vulnerability
- [35:31] Meta’s facial-recognition Ray-Bans and privacy risk
- [43:11] Commercialization of location/facial data
- [57:25] TikTok, pixels, and the state of tracking
- [88:00] DJI robotic vacuums security fail—a cautionary tale
- [103:48] Hardware subscriptions and the future of owning tech
- [111:19] T-Mobile's on-network AI translation—privacy and legal questions
- [117:55] Apple Siri AI delays—voice assistant disappointment
- [121:13] Limits of current LLMs as “AI assistants”
- [154:40] The Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income initiative—a philanthropic UBI experiment by Jeff Atwood
- [145:32] The “death” of ChatGPT-4o and the mourning of AI companions
Final Thoughts & Endnotes
On Tech and Human Needs:
The episode closes with discussions ranging from universal basic income pilot programs, the emotional impact of losing an “AI companion,” and the deaths of significant tech figures—showing the deeply personal ways that technology shapes, and sometimes fails, our lives.
On the Future:
While new tools offer incredible powers (AI, instant translation, smart devices), they bring privacy and ethical dilemmas. The consensus: More regulation, greater transparency, and thoughtful design are needed—because users, not billionaires or “crazy ones,” ultimately bear the risks and the rewards.
For the full experience, recommended follow-up:
Conclusion
A rich, honest, and accessible discussion for listeners, whether tech insiders or concerned citizens, illuminating why tech’s legal and ethical battlegrounds now shape the world we all live in. Highly recommended for anyone thinking about the future of the internet, privacy, and our relationship with the technology in our hands and in our homes.