Why it’s time to delete yourself from the internet

Summary

Apple News Today: Episode Summary Title: Why it’s Time to Delete Yourself from the Internet
Host: Shemitah Basu
Release Date: April 23, 2025

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1. Educational Censorship Under the Trump Administration

Shemitah Basu opens the episode by delving into the escalating tensions within the education sector across the United States. Educators are grappling with the implications of the Trump administration's policies aimed at eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. The administration's vague executive order has left many teachers uncertain about the boundaries of acceptable classroom content, fostering an environment of fear and self-censorship.

Key Events:

• Brevard County School Board Incident ([00:05]-[01:33]):
  Basu recounts a chaotic meeting where efforts to reinstate Melissa Calhoun, a teacher dismissed for using a student’s preferred name, were thwarted by the school board. A motion to retrain and bring her back failed, marking the first known dismissal under the administration's crackdown on recognizing alternative gender identities in classrooms.

  Quote:
  School Board Member ([01:14]): "Ma'am, I'm gonna go ahead and speak. Let me finish and I'll let you speak, okay?"

• Idaho Teacher Sarah Inamma’s Poster Controversy ([01:33]-[03:29]):
  Sarah Inamma faced directives to remove inclusive posters from her classroom, not due to their content but their colorful presentation, which the district deemed non-neutral. Initially compliant, Inamma reverted the removal, citing discomfort and asserting the importance of inclusivity.

  Quote:
  Sarah Inamma ([03:14]): "He told me that political environments ebb and flow and what might not have been controversial three or six or nine months ago can be considered controversial now."

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2. Economic Concerns: Declining Value of the US Dollar

Transitioning to economic discourse, Basu addresses the recent instability in the US stock and bond markets, highlighting the sharp decline in the dollar's value—a drop of nearly 10% since Inauguration Day.

Insights from David Lynch, Washington Post’s Global Economics Correspondent ([04:43]-[06:26]):

• Market Anomalies:
  Unlike typical investor behavior during uncertainty, both stock and bond prices fell simultaneously, signaling distress rather than the usual rush to safe-haven assets like Treasuries.

  Quote:
  David Lynch ([05:05]): "Stock prices fell, but bond prices fell at the same time, which is really unusual."

• Implications of Rising Yields:
  Increased bond yields can lead to higher interest rates for consumer loans, potentially stifling major purchases and straining financial institutions.

  Quote:
  David Lynch ([05:52]): "When the price of a bond falls... the yield... goes up. And that was like a red warning light flashing on the dashboard of an old car."

• Investor Confidence:
  The decline suggests a waning confidence in the dollar and the Treasury market, driven by perceived instability in Washington’s economic stewardship.

  Quote:
  David Lynch ([06:26]): "Global investors were losing confidence in the future of the dollar, the future of the treasury market, and that they were doing so because when they looked at Washington, they didn't see a steady hand at the wheel."

Conclusion:
While the immediate impact raises concerns, Lynch advises caution against overinterpreting the data, noting no permanent shift in the dollar's global standing yet.

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3. Data Privacy: Why It’s Time to Delete Yourself from the Internet

A significant portion of the episode is devoted to personal data security and the growing risks associated with maintaining an online presence. Drawing from Nicole Nguyen’s Wall Street Journal piece, Basu outlines the pervasive nature of personal data exposure and offers strategies for mitigating associated threats.

Risks of Online Data Exposure ([06:26]-[08:02]):

• Identity Theft and Scams:
  Nguyen emphasizes the severity of cybercrimes like deepfake voice scams, which exploit personal data to perpetrate fraud.

  Quote:
  Nicole Nguyen ([07:42]): "Scams, especially deepfake voice scams. And there are billions of dollars lost every year in this type of cybercrime."

• Data Brokers’ Exploitation:
  Data brokers harvest extensive personal information from various online and public sources, compiling detailed profiles for sale.

Strategies to Protect Personal Data ([08:02]-[10:10]):

• Practical Tips:
  Nguyen advises using burner emails and phone numbers, limiting social media postings, avoiding sharing birthdates, and disabling tracking on devices to reduce data footprints.

  Quote:
  Nicole Nguyen ([08:31]): "You have to live off the grid. Avoid online shopping. Never sign up for a credit card."

• Tools for Data Removal:
  Basu mentions tools like Google’s “Results about you” for identifying and requesting the removal of personal data, as well as paid services such as Optery and DeleteMe that automate the process of erasing information from data brokers.

  Quote:
  Nicole Nguyen ([09:56]): "These services ask each data broker and people search database to remove your information from them."

Closing Advice:
Nguyen acknowledges the difficulty of completely erasing one's digital presence but encourages vigilance and incremental efforts to protect personal information.

Quote:
Nicole Nguyen ([10:10]): "But there's a couple of tools for a price that can do the work for you on an ongoing basis."

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4. Additional News Highlights

Basu wraps up the episode with a series of brief updates on various national and international news stories:

• Higher Education Funding Battle:
  Over 200 college and university presidents condemned the Trump administration's tactics to influence higher education policies by threatening federal funding, particularly targeting DEI programs and student disciplinary records related to protests against the Israel-Gaza conflict.

  Quote from White House:
  White House Statement: "We will not be swayed by worthless letters by overpaid blowhards."

• El Paso Shooting Hearing:
  During a hearing for the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooter, Yolanda Tinajero expressed forgiveness towards the gunman, attributing the tragedy to his inability to understand Hispanic culture. The judge permitted this unprecedented moment of compassion.

• 60 Minutes Executive Producer Resignation:
  Bill Owens resigned as executive producer of 60 Minutes, citing a loss of editorial independence amid ongoing legal battles with President Trump. The administration had sued 60 Minutes for alleged misrepresentation in an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.

  Quote from CBS President:
  CBS President: "He has unwavering integrity, curiosity and a deep commitment to the truth."

• Measles Outbreak Update:
  Texas reports over 600 confirmed measles cases with two fatalities among unvaccinated children. The outbreak has spread to neighboring states, including new cases in Montana after a 35-year hiatus.

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Conclusion

Shemitah Basu effectively navigates a range of pressing issues, from the challenges facing educators under restrictive federal policies to the complexities of economic indicators signaling potential recessions. The episode’s focal point on data privacy underscores the importance of personal vigilance in an increasingly connected world. Balancing in-depth analysis with timely news updates, Apple News Today provides listeners with comprehensive insights into the evolving socio-political and economic landscape.

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For more detailed coverage and ongoing updates, listeners are encouraged to access the full episode via the Apple News app.

Transcript

[Shemitah Basu]

Good morning. It's Wednesday, April 23rd. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News. Today. On today's show, why economists are worried about the value of the dollar. It might be time to delete yourself from the Internet and the executive producer of 60 Minutes Resign. But first, educators across the country are trying to figure out in real time if their lesson plans, library books, classroom decor, or even how they speak to their students might be perceived as going against the Trump administration or local government's stated goals around eliminating programs that support diversity, equity, and inclusion. Just yesterday, a meeting of the Brevard County School Board in Florida descended into chaos as teachers and others attempted to speak up in defense of Melissa Calhoun, a teacher with over a decade of experience who lost her job in the district after calling a high school student by their preferred name instead of their legal name.

[School Board Member]

Ma'am, I'm gonna go ahead and speak. Let me finish and I'll let you speak, okay? So I'm gonna give you a warning that you're supposed to speak during your time, okay? It's a warning to those in attendance. So if you cause a disruption, you will be asked to leave the recess this meeting. If you continue to cause a disruption.

[Shemitah Basu]

School board members threatened to have meeting attendees removed. A motion to bring back this teacher and, quote, retrain her was brought up at the meeting. It failed. Her teaching credentials are also under review by the state board. The Washington Post reports this is the first known dismissal to come from the campaign to crack down on teachers who recognize alternative gender identities in the classroom. President Trump signed an executive order in January that directs the Department of Education to rescind federal funds from schools that don't follow its guidance to eliminate DEI and what it refers to as divisive ideology from schools. But the order itself is quite vague, which some educators say has made it extremely difficult for them to interpret and has left them afraid for their jobs. In another incident in Idaho, a sixth grade teacher named Sarah Inamma was directed by her district to remove remove two posters from her classroom. One said, quote, everyone is welcome. Here above, an illustration of hands with different skin tones. The other said, everyone is, quote, welcome, important, accepted, respected, encouraged, valued, and equal. The backdrop of each word was a color of the rainbow. The school district told Inamma it wasn't the words on these posters that were a potential problem, but rather the colors of the rainbow and the different skin tones on the illustrated hands. The school district said they violated policy requiring classroom content to remain neutral. At first, Inamma took down the posters, but she told NPR that made her feel gross, so she put them back up. She told npr. A district staffer confronted her.

[Sarah Inamma]

He told me that political environments ebb and flow and what might not have been controversial three or six or nine months ago can be considered controversial now.

[Shemitah Basu]

She says she still has the everyone is welcome poster up.

[Sarah Inamma]

Now, when I was told that it doesn't allow for people to express differing opinions. There's only two opinions of that poster. You either believe that everyone is welcome here or you don't. I just was so shocked.

[Shemitah Basu]

As a result of the on again, off again tariff policy from the Trump administration, there's been a lot of attention on the fluctuations in the stock market. The market swung wildly at the start of the month, prompting brokerages like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and S and P to raise their odds of a recession in the United States. And economists are also watching the value of the US Dollar with growing concern. It dropped to a three year low at the start of the week, and since Inauguration Day, the dollar has lost almost 10% of its value. So what does that mean for the health of our economy? We called up David Lynch, a global economics correspondent for the Washington Post, and he explained Trump's tariff announcement in early April was the type of event that usually spurs more investment in Treasuries and bonds, which investors typically consider to be more stable assets.

[David Lynch]

And the reason for that is that the treasury market is the biggest bond market on the planet, $28 trillion. So it's big, it's liquid, it's easy to get in and get. And so that makes it attractive to investors when they don't know what else to do, they rush into Treasuries, rush into dollars.

[Shemitah Basu]

But that didn't happen in this case.

[David Lynch]

Stock prices fell, but bond prices fell at the same time, which is really unusual. And when the price of a bond falls, not to get too technical, the yield on it or the interest rate it carries goes up. And that was like a red warning light flashing on the dashboard of an old car. You can drive it for a little while, but when that light starts blinking.

[Shemitah Basu]

You know, you rising yields can drive up interest rates for mortgages, credit cards, and pretty much every type of consumer loan, which can make people hesitant to make big purchases. And long term, it can hurt the financial system by putting a bigger strain on the balance sheets of big banks and firms.

[David Lynch]

So what consumers and businesses do at a time like this is they just freeze. And that's why economists worry that all this uncertainty multiplied by millions and millions of individual consumers all feeling uncertain can have a chilling effect.

[Shemitah Basu]

Now, lynch told us that it's important to not read too much into what falling bond prices might mean for the future.

[David Lynch]

However, during this tariff episode suggested to a lot of prominent and smart people that global investors were losing confidence in the future of the dollar, the future of the treasury market, and that they were doing so because when they looked at Washington, they didn't see a steady hand at the wheel.

[Shemitah Basu]

In the meantime, investors are continuing to monitor the situation, looking towards company earnings and economic reports, as well as trade talk developments for signals of what will come next. Lynch writes that, at least so far, there aren't indications that the recent change in the dollar's value will impact the currency's global status permanently. Do you know just how much of your personal information is floating around on the Internet for anyone to find? Things like your home address, phone number, birthday, or names of family and friends. A recent piece from the Wall Street Journal personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen titled Go delete yourself from the Internet tells you how to do exactly that, and you better believe that was an instant click from me. Now, I'll get to the tips in just a second. But first it's important to understand why you should delete personal data from the Internet. As Nguyen explains, there are a lot of risks that come with leaving personal data exposed, from relatively benign nuisances like getting more junk mail to much more serious threats like identity theft or impersonation.

[Nicole Nguyen]

Scams, especially deepfake voice scams. And there are billions of dollars lost every year in this type of cybercrime. Anyone who has a buck and some can learn a lot about you, and the more they know about you, the more enticing and convincing that attack can be.

[Shemitah Basu]

A lot of your personal data online can be found by scammers for free through social media and public government records, things like speeding tickets or home sale records. But there's also an entire industry for personal data where data brokers scrape the Internet for information on you, digging into things like magazine subscriptions, credit card applications and warranty cards. And then they package that information up for a price. Avoiding the data brokers isn't easy.

[Nicole Nguyen]

You have to live off the grid. Avoid online shopping. Never sign up for a credit card. I realize that this is extremely hard to do, but you can prevent some of this information from leaking out.

[Shemitah Basu]

Nguyen recommends using a burner, email and phone number to shop online. Don't post publicly on social media either, and try to avoid sharing your birthday with websites.

[Nicole Nguyen]

But that's not all turn on. Do not track on your phone. This prevents the tracking of activity across different websites, and that's what allow data brokers to connect your behavior as you search the web and that information is for sale.

[Shemitah Basu]

If you want to figure out what personal information data brokers have collected about you, there are a few tools. Google has a free one called Results about you, which surfaces search results that contain your personal data. You can use it to request to have your data removed from those sites. And if you really want to keep your exposure low, you'll have to comb through people search websites and data brokers to request they delete your information too. Now that can get pretty tedious. There are hundreds of these sites and you'll need to rescan the Internet a few times a year and repeat the process. But there are a couple of tools for a price that can do the work for you on an ongoing basis. The services Nguyen mentions by name in the article are called Optery and Deleteme.

[Nicole Nguyen]

These services ask each data broker and people search database to remove your information from them. You have to pay them a fee, but you don't have to pay them to give you an exposure report.

[Shemitah Basu]

And if hearing all of this has you feeling a little overwhelmed, just know, Nguyen says. The reality is it's really hard to not leave digital breadcrumbs these days. So be patient, be aware, and just do your best to stay vigilant. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. The presidents of more than 200 colleges and universities signed a letter on Tuesday condemning the Trump administration's attempts to shape policy at higher education institutions by threatening to revoke their federal funding. The administration has paused billions of dollars in federal grants in recent weeks to pressure some of the nation's most prestigious schools to change hiring and admissions, to shut down DEI programs, and, in some cases, to hand over disciplinary records for students who participated in protests against Israel's war in Gaza. The White House, in response, said the administration, quote, will not be swayed by worthless letters by overpaid blowhards. An unusual moment in a hearing for the gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019. Yolanda Tinajero, whose brother was killed, told the gunman she forgave him and wished that she could give him a hug, and the judge allowed it. Patrick Crucius had driven to El Paso to shoot people and stop what he called the Hispanic invasion of Texas, tinajero said to him in court. If he would have gotten to know their culture, it would have turned his ugly thoughts around. Crusius will serve multiple life sentences after pleading guilty to capital murder and 22 counts of aggravated assault. In media news, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, quit yesterday because he said he could no longer run the show with editorial independence. CBS and 60 Minutes have been involved in a legal battle with President Trump since 2024, when Trump sued the network for $10 million over an interview with then Vice President Kamala Har. In a promotional preview of that episode, 60 Minutes shortened one of Harris's answers, which Trump claims the show did to make her look better. 60 Minutes has described it as a common practice. A number of legal experts have called Trump's argument indefensible. After Owens resigned, the president of CBS praised him for his, quote, unwavering integrity, curiosity and a deep commitment to the truth. And finally, an update on the measles. First in Texas, officials say more than 600 cases have now been confirmed. So far, two unvaccinated children with no underlying conditions have died in Texas. Cases in New Mexico and Oklahoma have been linked to that outbreak. Meanwhile, health officials in Montana last week confirmed the first cases of measles in the state in 35 years. Five individuals who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown are currently isolated at home. Montana health authorities say those infected are adults and children who were exposed while traveling outside of the state. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has been working on a new drug to address diabetes and weight loss. What makes it stand out from other options on the market, though, is that it's a pill, not an injection. The early phase studies of its effectiveness have been promising, and Time magazine spoke to the team behind it. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.