Max Read on how the Internet Got Infested With Garbage

Summary

Odd Lots Podcast Summary: Max Read on How the Internet Got Infested With Garbage

Released on November 8, 2024, the "Odd Lots" podcast by Bloomberg, hosted by Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, delves into the pervasive issue of declining content quality on the internet. In this episode, guest Max Read explores the transformation of online platforms, the rise of AI-generated content, and the broader implications for media and society.

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1. Introduction to the Guest and Topic

The episode begins with Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway introducing their guest, Max Read, a prominent figure in the discussion about internet content quality. Max, the author of the well-regarded "Reed Mac" Substack, shares his experiences and observations on how the internet has evolved into a space rife with low-quality, AI-generated, and misleading content.

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2. The Evolution of Social Media Platforms

Max Read traces the transformation of social media platforms from user-curated spaces to algorithm-driven entities. He discusses how platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok have shifted their focus towards maximizing engagement through algorithms, often at the expense of content quality.

Max Read [04:20]: "It's because platforms began prioritizing engagement metrics over meaningful interactions, leading to a surge in sensational and low-quality content."

Key Points:

• Algorithm-Driven Feeds: Platforms now emphasize content that maximizes user engagement, often promoting sensational or trivial posts.
• Shift from Social Networks to Content Feeds: The prioritization of content from strangers over connections leads to a less personalized and more chaotic user experience.

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3. The Rise of AI-Generated Content and Bots

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the influx of AI-generated content and automated bots that dominate online interactions. Max highlights how these factors contribute to the "garbage" clogging the internet.

Max Read [08:00]: "AI-generated nonsense and bot activities have created an environment where authentic, valuable content struggles to gain visibility."

Key Points:

• AI Content Proliferation: Automated tools generate vast amounts of low-quality content, making it harder for genuine posts to stand out.
• Bot Activity: Bots amplify misinformation and trivial content, further diluting the quality of online discourse.

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4. Impact on Journalism and Media Consumption

Max delves into how these internet changes have adversely affected journalism and media consumption. Traditional media outlets find it challenging to compete with the rapid spread of low-quality content.

Max Read [16:58]: "Journalists once relied on platforms like Twitter for breaking news, but the current algorithmic chaos has eroded that trust and utility."

Key Points:

• Erosion of Reliable Information Sources: The overwhelming presence of misleading content makes it difficult for users to discern credible information.
• Challenges for Journalists: Traditional media outlets struggle to maintain their role as primary information sources amidst the noise created by algorithm-driven platforms.

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5. The "TikTokization" of All Platforms

Max introduces the concept of "TikTokization," describing how various platforms are emulating TikTok's content delivery model, prioritizing short, engaging videos over substantive discussions.

Max Read [09:22]: "We're witnessing a universal trend where every platform is morphing into a TikTok-like feed, prioritizing fleeting engagement over meaningful content."

Key Points:

• Homogenization of Platforms: The adoption of similar content structures across different platforms leads to a lack of diversity in online experiences.
• Focus on Short-Form Content: Emphasis on brief, entertaining content detracts from in-depth discussions and analyses.

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6. Consequences for Social Interactions and Community Building

The shift towards algorithm-centric content delivery has profound implications for how people interact and build communities online. Max discusses the decline in authentic social interactions and the rise of echo chambers.

Max Read [12:20]: "The essence of social networks was about connecting with known individuals, but now it's more about consuming random content, which weakens genuine social bonds."

Key Points:

• Decline in Authentic Connections: Users engage less with their actual social circles and more with impersonal content streams.
• Echo Chambers and Polarization: Algorithm-driven feeds tend to reinforce existing beliefs, leading to increased societal polarization.

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7. The Future of Internet Content and Media

In the concluding segment, Max Read reflects on the future trajectory of internet content and media. He expresses concern over the sustainability of current trends and the potential loss of meaningful online discourse.

Max Read [30:19]: "If the current path continues, the internet risks becoming a vast expanse of hollow interactions devoid of genuine human connection."

Key Points:

• Sustainability Concerns: The ongoing emphasis on engagement metrics may lead to an unsustainable decrease in content quality.
• Hope for Curation and Regulation: Potential solutions include better content curation algorithms and stricter regulations to preserve meaningful online interactions.

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8. Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway wrap up the discussion by emphasizing the importance of staying informed and seeking quality content amidst the overwhelming digital noise. They encourage listeners to support platforms and content creators that prioritize authenticity and value.

Tracy Alloway [39:08]: "In a world cluttered with low-quality content, finding and supporting genuine creators is more crucial than ever."

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Conclusion

This "Odd Lots" episode provides a comprehensive exploration of the challenges facing the internet today, particularly the surge of low-quality and AI-generated content. Max Read offers valuable insights into how algorithm-driven platforms have transformed online interactions and the implications for journalism and community building. The discussion underscores the need for conscious efforts to prioritize meaningful content and authentic connections in the digital age.

Notable Quotes:

• Max Read [04:20]: "It's because platforms began prioritizing engagement metrics over meaningful interactions, leading to a surge in sensational and low-quality content."
• Max Read [08:00]: "AI-generated nonsense and bot activities have created an environment where authentic, valuable content struggles to gain visibility."
• Max Read [09:22]: "We're witnessing a universal trend where every platform is morphing into a TikTok-like feed, prioritizing fleeting engagement over meaningful content."
• Tracy Alloway [39:08]: "In a world cluttered with low-quality content, finding and supporting genuine creators is more crucial than ever."

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For More Content: To delve deeper into these topics and explore more insightful discussions on finance, markets, and economics, subscribe to the "Odd Lots" podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform. Join the conversation and engage with a community that values in-depth analysis and thoughtful discourse.

Transcript

[PGIM Fixed Income]

Bonds are back and so is all the credit PGIM Fixed Income's monthly podcast series. From the latest trends to long term perspectives, you'll get timely fixed income insights from leading economists, research analysts and investment professionals. Whether you're new to bonds or a seasoned investor, tune in to all the credit wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is intended solely for professional investor use. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

[Matt Levine]

The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers.

[PGIM Fixed Income]

So that's why we created the Big.

[Tracy Alloway]

Take from Bloomberg Podcasts to give you the context you need to make sense of it all.

[Matt Levine]

Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters.

[Tracy Alloway]

You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff.

[Matt Levine]

Is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

[Tracy Alloway]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio News.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Jill Wiesenthal.

[Tracy Alloway]

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Trud, you don't use Twitter, like, quite as much as I do still.

[Tracy Alloway]

No, I kind of. I don't know what happened. I guess I just went off Twitter. You know what platform I'm on quite a lot and it doesn't help me in any way in terms of Odd lots in my career, but I really like Reddit now.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I know. I see you actually Tracy doesn't like that I sometimes notice what she's browsing, but I respect that you're Jo is.

[Tracy Alloway]

Constantly looking over my shoulder and whenever I start like shopping online for five minutes, you start talking about the furniture that I'm buying.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Well, it's really nice. It's really. I'm always. It's because it looks really good. But I still am completely addicted to Twitter and I don't really know why because.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, why?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I don't know. This is like a question for therapy for a long time because, like, I know it's gotten really bad and I don't even, I don't know, I like to be there. I like to post words. And the short form is a good medium for me. It feels like sometimes I see interesting things. We still source a lot of guests from Twitter, if we're being honest, and we still discover like experts, they're still there. But like it's objectively gotten way worse. And I don't even think it's just a Elon Musk thing, by the way.

[Tracy Alloway]

Well, here's the Thing like this is the key difference in my mind between Reddit right now and a bunch of other social media platforms. Twitter is now run by this like insane algo, right? That just pushes stuff at you and sometimes it's really random. TikTok is the same thing. Reddit, at least you can still curate your feeds relatively easily. But even with Reddit, obviously since the ipo, there's pressure to boost revenues and we're seeing like more algo driven stuff. A lot, lot more AI generated content. Like bots have always been a problem, but I feel like it might be starting to get worse.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

You know what platform is really good?

[Tracy Alloway]

What?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Discord.

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh yes.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

In fact, listeners should check out Discord GG oddlots, because 24. 7 in there, there is a well curated world of fellow listeners who are interested in all the same things, talking in a very generally polite and adult way about important news in finance, markets, economics, tech, automotive, semiconductors, all those things that we like. And actually today we're going to chat with. He's not just a Discord member, but sometimes he chats in there and he has opinions on the Internet.

[Tracy Alloway]

That sounds great. The perfect guest.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

The perfect guest. We have the perfect guest to talk about why so much of the Internet has essentially turned to complete garbage, filled with slop, AI generated nonsense, completely made up news stuff like that. We're going to be speaking with Max Reed, Odd Lots Discord lurker, but more importantly, the author and sole proprietor of the excellent Reed Mac substack, one of the few substacks that I actually pay. So, Max, thank you for coming on Odd Lots.

[Matt Levine]

I'm so excited to be here.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Thank you for being a part of the Discord. It's fine that you don't post much, but we appreciate that you lurk.

[Matt Levine]

I mean, I'm trying to put all of my words in a monetizable format.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah, I respect that.

[Matt Levine]

Have the newsletter.

[Tracy Alloway]

Fair enough. So one thing I'm always curious about, when people are like Internet or culture correspondents, how did you get into that realm?

[Matt Levine]

So I got my start in journalism at Gawker, the media gossip website that no longer exists. And I started there in 2010 and I would say I worked my way up, except the way things worked at Gawker is the people at the top just got fired and whoever was left continued to advance. So I was there during the sort of 2011, 2012 era, which people who were in media will remember as the moment when Facebook, so to speak, turned on the floodgates or, you know, Opened the floodgates. And all of a sudden we went from sort of jockeying for traffic from Google or even homepage traffic. People would visit gawker.com all the time.

[Tracy Alloway]

I used to do that.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. I mean, Gawker was old enough to be a homepage site. And then Facebook said, hey, we've got hundreds of millions, billions of users. Let's direct some of that at the media. And then for various occult reasons, we started to get 15 million page views on a blog. Totally unheard of, for reasons we couldn't figure out, we couldn't understand. And because I was in management at this point, I became kind of obsessed with this. And I found myself thinking constantly about how culture and media and businesses based around those things were changing because of the way platforms were able to direct these huge audiences to places. So, I mean, it's essentially it's because I went crazy when Facebook decided to change the way media worked. And I've never become sane since.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Do you think every once in a while, like, I don't know, like, Gawker, there probably is some version of Gawker that exists out there on, like, its fifth relaunch. I'm not actually sure if that title exists, but it'll be launched. If it's not currently existing, someone will relaunch it at some point. But even outside of that, there's always, every once in a while, like, some new thing is like, we're going to bring back the good old days of like a blog and a homepage. And it's like a team of.

[Tracy Alloway]

I'm pretty sure we've said that.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

And we've said that too. Is that just impossible in 2024?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. I mean, I think that Substack is probably the closest platform to facilitate the creation of a blog like object. But because it's email distribution above all, you actually can sort of force your way into people's field of vision instead of requiring them to go to a homepage. I mean, we were talking about this already, but the existence of the homepage as a thing that people would check day in, day out was really important to, as far as I'm concerned, was really important to the way a blog exists, how it feels, the tone, the kind of structure of it. And now that most people's first visit is a platform like Twitter or Instagram or one of the others, it's a lot harder to, like, cultivate the audience necessary to type in, you know, JoeWisenthal.com or whatever your blog homepage would be.

[Tracy Alloway]

Could you talk a Bit more about what happened when, like, Facebook and the other platforms started dominating the media sphere and generating those millions of page views. Like, how did that change the actual content?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, I'll use Gawker as an example. So Gawker began, as people will remember, as a pretty mean. Let's call it a mean gossip. Not as mean as I think people remember, but it was sort of sophisticated, witty, cutting, and about a kind of narrow cast of media and political and entertainment figures. And this was sort of started to change and open up as it became clear that, you know, search engine optimization or SEO would allow you to get a bigger audience if you wrote about celebrities that people were Googling, for example. But Facebook opened it up even bigger in an even, as far as I was concerned, sort of stranger way. Because what you were going for was not like, what are people searching for? Or even necessarily sort of what people are interested in. It's what will people share and what will people click on if they come across it in their Facebook feed. So in general, especially at the early stages there, what you were getting was a lot less of the kind of like, insidery, what's Rupert Murdoch up to? And a lot more. I mean, cat videos doesn't even quite begin to cover it. It was sort of. It's sort of sentimental content, inspirational content.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I always think of, like those Buzzfeed lists, like 23 Things Only People who live in upstate New York would know. And they're so powerful because you just share it if you're from upstate New York with everyone you know from upstate New York. And it just sort of changes, like what that category of content is that people care about that affinity content.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was a huge amount of affinity, you know, micro targeted identity content, Things that people would share, things that people would sort of like throw out to all their friends. I mean, this was. The Internet between, say 2012 and 2014 or so was really dominated by this kind of thing. And if you were there, you remember BuzzFeed as being, you know, Jonah Peretti would talk about it as being the next Disney or something, because it had that kind of momentum behind it, the sense that it was so big underneath all of that. It turns out what was actually big was Facebook, not buzzfeed.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I feel like there's also this. And there was a famous. I think it was actually the all which you were part of, but I think it was published there maybe somewhere else. Like the psychological damage that people who weren't at BuzzFeed were undergoing at the time, because everyone just saw BuzzFeed as like this like huge Internet juggernaut. And if you weren't there, like, you weren't cool and you weren't part of like. I think it's actually crazy the degree to which people who weren't their brains got broken by that, by that behavior.

[Tracy Alloway]

Broken by buzzfeed. Okay, so we've been reminiscing about the good old Internet of like 2013. Can we talk about what's happening now?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. So I think we're sort of undergoing a process that I think of as Tiktokization of all these platforms. I mean, you know, the carcinization, the idea that like creatures that live deep, deep, deep underwater tend to evolve into crab like shapes even though they're genetically quite distinct.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

That goes viral on Twitter, everyone.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, exactly. The evolutionary prefixures basically turn them all into like hard shelled, you know, multi limbed, claw bearing animals. And I think there's a similar process happening online where every platform is turning itself into TikTok. I mean, carcinization is like a fun metaphor. It might not be quite right. It might just be people copying what they see as the most successful and biggest platform. But when I say TikTokization, what I mean is a focus on content from strangers and people you don't know rather than your sort of social networks. A tendency like a sort of scrollable video feed that you just bounce through really quickly. And you know, like when I say content from strangers, this is all based around the fyp, like a really, you know, heavily weighted algorithm that's supposed to give you exactly what you're looking for.

[Tracy Alloway]

What does FYP stand for?

[Matt Levine]

It's the for you page on TikTok.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

So if you're, if you're a Twitter or Instagram.

[Matt Levine]

Right. So if you're on Twitter, the for you, there's a for you feed which is effectively the same deal. It sends you what's going viral on the platform. If you scroll past a college football tweet, you will suddenly see 25 college football tweets in your feed. And then the other big thing which I think is really important to this is that the platforms that are heading in the TikTok direction tend to pay posters directly for engagement, which we know about from Twitter, especially the Blue check program and the sort of general like Twitter program where they will pay you out if you have particularly engaging posts.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Would you show your FYP to your friends?

[Matt Levine]

And my Twitter FYP or my.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Anyone, Anyone?

[Matt Levine]

I think I would. I mean, I find it, it reveals me to be A much. I brought up college football because it turns out I'm a much bigger sports fan than I realized. I was. Like, all of my FYPs are like.

[Tracy Alloway]

90 or the algo has just pinned you as like a white male.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

See, I recently searched like a health related thing and then my FYP thing was like disgusting afterwards. Like, I don't. I'm not going to talk about it.

[Tracy Alloway]

This is, this is one of the problems with Algos. It's like when you first sign up to a platform, I find there is so much pressure on the first thing you click because that's basically going to show up in your algorithm forever. It feels like.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, I mean, and I find myself very consciously, if I have accidentally gotten into a place I really don't want to be, you know, politics on Twitter in particular is a bad situation for this. If you go down the wrong rabbit hole, the next thing you know your FYP is just filled with guys you never want to hear from and don't ever want to see again. And so I will really consciously go and find something else to like scroll through, click on, you know, like, wait over so that I can cleanse my FYP of all this stuff I don't want.

[Tracy Alloway]

So one thing I don't get about this recent development, and by the way, I don't. I'm not on TikTok. I rely on Sam Rowe to curate the best of TikTok and post it on Instagram for me. But like, why the emphasis on random content from Algos? Because when I think back to the essence of a social network, the idea was that you had an actual social network of people that you know that you want to hear from.

[Matt Levine]

I mean, I think what the big platforms found was that people actually didn't really want to hear from their friends and family. I mean, we, we know this as a phenomenon. I think we can all acknowledge it being a phenomenon on both Facebook and Twitter, where you had this idea of context collapse, where you would be posting something to an imagined audience of your friends, say, but your aunts and uncles and everybody else is also on the same platform. And all of a sudden the things you feel comfortable saying in front of your friends and in front of your family might be different and they might get in fights in the comments and it might be awkward and strange. And I think that Facebook kind of recognized this. Twitter is a slightly different thing because I think it was pretty rare to sort of follow your family on Twitter. But, you know, there's a reason for that. And I think TikTok coming through and showing that actually there was a huge opportunity in these sort of fully programmatic, algorithmic, non social networky feeds. Sort of pushed Facebook in particular because remember Meta owns Facebook and Instagram and it sort of controls a huge amount of what platforms are doing at any given moment. Decided that they were going to start pushing a very similar kind of structure.

[PGIM Fixed Income]

Bonds are back and so is all the Credit PGYM Fixed Income's monthly podcast series. From the latest trends to long term perspectives, you'll get timely figures, fixed income insights from leading economists, research analysts and investment professionals. Whether you're new to bonds or a seasoned investor, tune in to all the credit wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is intended solely for professional investor use. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

[Marin Sums]

Not everybody likes talking about money. Some people find it awkward. Sometimes they even find it a little embarrassing. I do not. I like talking about money. Whether it's the boardroom, the newsroom, the trading floor. I've spent the last 30 years talking about money, writing about money and talking about it and writing about it a little bit more. I'm Marin Sums at Webb and every week senior reporter John Stepek and I answer your questions about personal finance and we discuss the best strategies for making the most of your money. Listen in for the kind of insights and explanations everyone can use to help them make better saving and investment choices for themselves and their families. My question is whether you think maxing out my company Pension Match is enough for when it comes comes to saving for my pension, should I attempt to.

[Tracy Alloway]

Pay my child's university fees and living costs? My partner and I have excess savings.

[Marin Sums]

So should we overpay on our mortgage.

[Tracy Alloway]

Or should we put the money into.

[Marin Sums]

Stocks from Bloomberg podcasts, Tune into Marin Talks Money follow Marin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

So can we talk about Twitter or X for a second? Because that's where I started and I still to this day am on Twitter like a lot. Although actually I think I post a little bit less than I used to, especially on weekends and stuff.

[Tracy Alloway]

Are you monetizing yet?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I am not. I am not. I do not think that. I don't know. I just did my ethics training here at Bloomberg and it didn't say anything about that specifically, but I just probably not going to touch that. You know, there was a point, I would say, I don't know, seven or eight years ago, maybe a little longer, where it never felt that like Twitter just never had the same size really as some of the Other big social networks, particularly Instagram or Facebook. But I always felt like all reporters are on there. You know, other people have said this Twitter is like the assignment desk for much of the Internet. And I remember like at one point, I don't know, watching the Summer Olympics one year and the basically the news was like, and then this basketball player tweeted this from the city and it's like, oh, the future of TV news is actually people reading tweets on air. Is Twitter right now, like setting aside whether it's profitable or good or anything, is it important?

[Matt Levine]

Yes, I mean, I think it's important in a kind of disconnected way. Not in the same way that you're talking about where we had function as a kind of assignment desk. My friend John Herman, who's the tech writer for New York Mag and is a great thinker about these things, used to call Twitter the context for media. Like it was where you would go to understand sort of what was going on. And I don't think it functions like that anymore. But because of the fact that it's owned by Elon Musk, I think you could argue, oh, Elon bought Twitter in order to make himself important to politics. But in a funny way, I think Elon has an incredibly influential and like hugely well resourced figure. Owning this social network means that what happens on it is important insofar as it reflects an idea about like where politics is headed. But like the way you're talking about reading people's tweets out loud, it still happens, sure, but it's just not, it's not the same thing.

[Tracy Alloway]

So one thing I wanted to bring up is I guess breaking news on Twitter because that seems to have changed quite a bit. And, and I do remember again the good old days when you would go on Twitter when something is happening, you would search and you would get like a lot of different opinions, maybe little anecdotes on the ground, reportage, things like that. What happens with breaking news now?

[Matt Levine]

Well, I mean, talking about the FYP because it's not chronological, because it's really kind of anti chronological, you're going to see stuff. If you sign onto Twitter and you look at not your following list or any other list, if you just look at the default feed, which is your FYP, you're going to get tweets from 12 hours ago, from 20 hours ago, from five minutes ago, all jammed up against one another. You're going to get a huge number of people who are putting themselves out there not for any kind of, let's say Noble informational value. Yeah, but to specifically to get followers, to get engagement payouts. So you're incentivizing hoaxes. You're sort of diminishing the value of the feed itself. And so what you get, I mean, we saw this with the most recent hurricanes. This was a. You know, I wrote about this for my newsletter, that this was a thing where Twitter used to be the place you would go check for a ongoing news event like that. And consistently, it was for all the things you can say that were bad about Twitter. It was a great place to find people, like local reporters in the area or even people who were, like, living through a disaster event like that. You would find images and video. You'd have a hundred different meteorologists who were able to, like, help you contextualize all these things. And I wasn't able to find any of that, really. I mean, it was there to some extent. I don't want to pretend that there weren't meteorologists, say, being helpful or local reporters, but it was just drowned in this flood of influencers and hoaxers and people just trying to get attention for various reasons in a way that. That felt sort of impossible to learn anything real or true about what was happening.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

No, I found this true. In fact, on the most recent hurricane, the one that was heading right near Tampa Bay, I realized that I had been on Twitter all morning, through the night, and I didn't actually know what had happened. And then the only place that I found sort of the preliminary assessments was bloomberg.com and I thought that was, like, really striking. Like, I just didn't get any value. But, you know, the other thing, and you mentioned hoaxes, and I guess, like, in 2016, people started calling it fake news, but, like, the degree of, like, fiction or fantasy, you know, you would, like, see these tweets that would go viral for, like, FEMA is on the ground aiming snipers at anyone who's trying, and they've been told that they're not allowed to return to their house, and their private property is now the property of the federal government and all that, like, truly, like, beyond fiction type stuff. And then It'll have, like, 15,000 retweets. And I'm curious, like, if you have a theory for that, because to me, it feels like part of what's going on. There's the engagement bait. There's maybe the desire for blue checks to get payout. But I also, like, worry that basically sort of real facts that exist in the world are just becoming, like, a category of facts. And then there's other. But these are just as good and these are just as interesting to people.

[Tracy Alloway]

It feels like the algo can only measure engagement, basically. It can't measure quality of the tweet. Right. So if someone is doing engagement bait, if they're just making people angry or they're just tweeting out something that's wrong, and then a bunch of people come on and start, like, pointing out that it's wrong, it still counts as engagement.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

And I guess what I would also say is, like, I'm not even sure people care that it's fact. Like the idea, like there may have been one point where, like, you know, I don't believe traditional media. I believe these alternative sources for various reasons. Some of them actually might be legitimate in my view, but actually the idea that, like, this is an actual fact to be believed, I'm not convinced is that important to people.

[Matt Levine]

I mean, I think there's an attitude a lot of people have on Twitter. I mean, there's two things I'll say. One is that I think an attitude a lot of people have on Twitter, on social media, but especially on Twitter, that you're not actually engaged in describing the world as it is, in communicating information to other people. You are engaged in a fight or a war between political parties, I suppose, but between sort of political factions. And therefore it doesn't have to have any relationship to truth. You're just out there to own the other guys, to rally people to your side, to do whatever. And I think that the changes to the sort of algorithm and to the structure of the platform have exacerbated this tendency because again, then Twitter, over its first decade or so, sort of realized that the edge it had over other platforms was news. It always thought of itself as a social network structured around news. And this was ultimately not a great way to structure themselves in terms of revenue and profits and growth and whatever else. But it was pretty good for getting a lot of journalists to pay attention and to share honestly and earnestly and to sort of assess the truth in fact, value. And now it's like more like a political, like, among other things, a sort of political arena for people with. With not great relationships to the truth to sort of like fight with each.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Other on this point real quickly. Like, I'm old too, so I'm not on TikTok. Would you say the other platforms have emerged in the same way where people view them as an arena for fighting, for pushing a faction?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, to some extent. I mean, I don't think it's not quite the same way as it is on Twitter, which has, because of its news background, a sort of political background. And Twitter still has to some extent a kind of, I think because of its size and its structure, a kind of central sense of what people are talking about and how to join it. And TikTok can feel much more kind of open. And obviously Instagram and Facebook, the idea that there's a set of topics that people are talking about is just non existent. The other thing I would say about this is that one of the sort of industry wide trends that really obvious in the case of Twitter, but it's happening in Meta and Facebook too is a lot of people on content moderation teams are getting laid off. People whose job is to try and sort of limit untrue information, to make judgment calls about what is true and what isn't true. I think Elon's kind of desire to blow that up on Twitter because he, he seemed to believe that it was overbiased and incorrect and all these things has opened up space for Meta, for example, to lay off a ton of its own content moderators. And so I think that, you know, for all that people love to complain about Facebook's inconsistent moderation and the bad moderation, all this. There was people doing real jobs at trying to make the platforms like enjoyable to use and not just filled with garbage all the time. Those people often don't work at those companies anymore or they're overwhelmed and there's not a hu amount of will, from what I understand, to sort of bring.

[Tracy Alloway]

That back, just going back to people fighting on platforms. I will say there is a lot of low level drama on TikTok that I kind of enjoy. And I don't watch TikTok directly, but I do watch the YouTube summaries of like Internet scandals like the Bridgerton party that went wrong and things like that. I do enjoy those.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, it's less political, but definitely because TikTok has the reply feature where you can stitch yourself into another person's video. There's a lot of like responses and trying to coast off of the viral success of somebody else or something. So you're absolutely right. That's definitely a huge part of it.

[Tracy Alloway]

Are we going to be replaced by AI?

[Matt Levine]

I don't think so, but I think a lot of posts are going to be replaced by AI. We're already seeing a lot of stuff on Facebook, on Twitter, even on TikTok and Instagram that is basically AI generated that seems to have no real relationship.

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh yeah, the Facebook images, those are crazy.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, the weird Facebook AI Slop. If you haven't seen these on Facebook, there's a great Twitter account called Weird Facebook AI Slop, which I recently wrote a piece about for New York magazine. This is a case where you have. Facebook has started paying out sort of creator bonus to people who get a lot of engagement. And from what I can tell, it's not necessarily worth it for like an American who has an opportunity to make American minimum wage to try this out as a full time job. But you have a lot of people all over the world for whom the payouts actually are pretty meaningful and who can figure out ways to juice engagement on Facebook groups or on the posts they're making in order to get payout. So I talked to a guy in Kenya, for example, who had started a bunch of pages. He told me that his most engaging topics were Jesus pets and animals. The US Military and Manchester United were like his four big engagement subjects. And he goes in and he just makes these AI images, these sort of roco sentimental Jesus images. And he posts them and tries to get, you know, hundreds or thousands of people to like and share. And he can make, you know, 500 or more bucks a month off of this, which is pretty close to. Which is above minimum wage in a lot of places in Kenya. And this stuff is kind of taking over Facebook. Facebook will tell you it's not. And I believe them that in some sense it's not because it's a drop in what is a huge ocean of content. But I've talked to a lot of people who found that if they click or scroll or check out an AI generated image that in some way and in some sense the Facebook algorithm is really pushing this stuff on people. And I mean, I find it like fascinating. It's like a car wreck, you know, you go and you can't not look at these things. But it's not what I want out of a social network, you know.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah, there's tons and tons of slop. I also like notice on both Twitter and LinkedIn replies that I'm like, sure are AI. Like, I'll like post like new episode about mortgage rates and then I'll get a reply that crypto scheme or something. No, I wish it were that. It's more like. It's more like thank you for keeping us updated on mortgage rates. Staying informed on mortgage rates is really important. And it's like kind of at that line where maybe like someone could have said that, but I'm not sure.

[Tracy Alloway]

And it's making me like somewhere there's a poor guy out there who, like, said that in complete seriousness, trying to be part of the conversation.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I know, but I'm, like, not sure anymore because that's very easy. Like, you know, the free version of ChatGPT could come up with that quite easily. But going back to whether it will be replaced by AI, like, I listened to some of the. I think it's called the Google Notebook. LM like fake podcasts and stuff. Here's my thought on some of this stuff. Like, none of it is interesting. Like, I've never seen, like, an actual, like, interesting AI output, really, that could replace, say, like, an interesting writer. But I didn't hate it. Like, if you, like, you know, I listened to this podcast that was about some DOE nuclear report, and it's like, I did not think it was a terrible way to consume that content. Like, if I were on the subway or something like that. Like, it's not that interesting or that good, but it actually, like, sort of summarized it in an audio way.

[Tracy Alloway]

It serves a use.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah, it did. It was not terrible.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. I mean, those podcasts are one of the. Is probably the most recent thing from out of AI that I've felt like are cool. That are sort of like, wow, this is really cool and like, surprising and interesting and like, I could see this being useful in some ways. I mean, I exported a bunch of my group chats and made podcasts, like, as text and put them in notebook LLM and then made podcasts about my group chats that I shared with my group chats, which was not productive or useful in an economic gdp. But I love doing it. I think that there's a lot of use for that kind of thing. The other thing I'd say is that I think there's a lot of ways that people have talked about the relationship of AI to the platforms that we're talking about here. And one thing writing and reporting about this wave of slot made me realize is how much these two technologies are quite complementary to each other. That in fact, on Facebook, you have this effectively infinite market for content of basically any kind as long as somebody will look at it. And in LLMs, you have an effectively infinite content generator. So if I was in charge of the Facebook platform or whatever, I would have a really hard time figuring out how to make a decision about what, you know, like, what stuff I allow and what stuff I don't allow. Because obviously there's plenty of ways that a podcast about a DOE energy report is like. I mean, that's not going to go viral on Facebook, let's be honest. But there's, there's interesting versions of this that you don't want to tell people they can't post. But the problem is the threshold for creating this stuff is so minimal and ultimately the value at is for 99% of what you're creating. With AI stuff, it's just non existent. It's hard to imagine that the noise isn't going to drown out the signal at some point.

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[Marin Sums]

Not everybody likes talking about money. Some people find it awkward. Awkward. Sometimes I even find it a little embarrassing. I do not. I like talking about money, whether it's the boardroom, the newsroom, the trading floor. I've spent the last 30 years talking about money, writing about money and talking about it and writing about it a little bit more. I'm Marin Sums at Webb and every week senior reporter John Stepek and I answer your questions about personal finance and we discuss the best strategies for making the most of your money. Listen in for the kind of insights and explanations everyone can use to help them make better saving and investment choices for themselves and their families. My question is whether you think maxing out my company Pension Match is enough for when it comes to saving for my pension, should I attempt to pay.

[Tracy Alloway]

My child's university fees and living costs? My partner and I have excess savings.

[Marin Sums]

So should we overpay on our mortgage.

[Tracy Alloway]

Or should we put the money into.

[Marin Sums]

Stocks from Bloomberg podcasts, Tune into Marin Talks Money, Follow Marin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

[Tracy Alloway]

There is the dead Internet theory. So the idea that like eventually it's just going to be bots talking to each other and people just aren't going to be that engaged in terms of content creation anymore. Does it matter who is producing content on the Internet? Like assuming that we're all addicted to it and we're still going to keep looking at it, why does it matter?

[Matt Levine]

I have a strong feeling that it matters in some fundamental way to us, that the things we see and engage about are human created. I'm trying to think about how to articulate this. Maybe put it this way, it matters less that the sort of content we consume, like the TV shows or the novels or whatever are created by AI than it does that there are other humans to talk about that stuff with. Like, I think so much of how we consume culture is about our relationship to other people and the ability to kind of consume it in tandem with other people that we can talk about it with. I'm skeptical that we will get the same level of satisfaction or like wholesome, like happiness out of like talking about AI generated content with AI bots waiting for the next AI generated episode of a TV show. But it remains to be seen.

[Tracy Alloway]

Does it matter to advertisers at all? Like if the currency of the Internet is eyeballs and they're still getting eyeballs, do you think they care?

[Matt Levine]

Right now it doesn't seem like they do. I mean, look, I think for me, what is optimistic for me is the idea that we're looking on a medium term time horizon. There is a recognition on the part of advertisers that these are not like high quality views that they're getting on their ads, that if you're scrolling through a bunch of slop, a lot of people are going to have left. The people who are scrolling through it are not looking for the stuff they're doing, but right now it doesn't seem like it. I mean, they're happy to get their clicks. And so much of what Facebook is about is really specific micro targeting for small to medium sized businesses where it doesn't matter if it's all AI slaps running as long as you're getting the people who might go to your restaurant or whatever it is.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I mean, everyone knows about the terrible economics for a lot of legacy media businesses, the entities that in theory try to create factual, real things, et cetera. But there are like some things, I mean, you're a sole proprietor of a profitable newsletter that people pay for and there are Reddit pages and discord groups that are sort of run by a dictatorship in which no and like, right? Like, no, there are rules and you will be banned at whim. And if it was a mistake, sorry, but on net, like this is a good thing to have a very heavy hand at. It is the future of all media. Just like narrow subscriptions to actual humans you trust or narrow communities run by humans you trust.

[Matt Levine]

I think we're basically, we're hollowing out the middle. So you have on the one side, I mean, this is what it seems like to me right now is on the one side you have the Times, probably the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, who can remain afloat as really sort of enormous national outlets. I mean, the Times already employs like 7% of everybody of all journalists or something like that. I may be making that up, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. It's some shocking number of the currently employed journalists in the US Are employed by the New York Times. And then on the other side you have substacks and streamers and this sort of Internet personality model of media, which is for better or for worse, where my career has ended up. But this sort of big middle of what used to be like a really diverse set of magazines, you know, weeklies, even like local daily newspapers.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

You know, what still exists is local news networks somehow, like you'll go to like a town like, or something like we'll be traveling and there still are like the local NBC affiliate or whatever, which always surprises me.

[Matt Levine]

They're also like, surprisingly powerful too. Like the fact that Sinclair owns them and is like quite pro Trump has always been a little bit interesting to me. But yeah, they do still exist. I mean, I wonder like, what the time horizon is for those. But it seems like that's a. Seems to be relatively successful business model.

[Tracy Alloway]

For now on the personality driven media. One thing I always think doesn't get enough attention, but, like, there is a tension between telling reporters that they need to develop their own brand and audience and do all that. And Joe and I have been told that basically our entire careers and have tried to do that. But then the legacy newsroom doesn't really know how to handle that. Like, they don't seem to have like a strategy for if you develop your own audience, what do they actually do with it?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, I mean, we've seen a million examples of this over the last few years. Taylor Lorenz, the Internet reporter, recently left the Washington Post and sort of essentially said this, that she'd built a brand for herself and she was running up against the limits of what the Washington Post was willing to let her do or allow. And I think that a lot of the tension that we've seen in newsrooms, I'm sure a lot of people have read about tension inside the Times, for example, since 2020 or so between rank and file journalists and management. I think that the sort of star economy of this is a bigger driver of that tension than people maybe recognize or understand that both in the sense that if you are a working journalist and you're watching people get a lot of leeway and a lot of rope from management because they happen to be big stars, you might start to feel frustrated and also because you have people who have Huge followings on Twitter or Instagram, say, who know that they have an audience, know that they have some leverage with their bosses because they're bringing people to the Times, and maybe they should just walk away. You know, again, like I said, I wouldn't want to be in charge of Facebook. I'm not sure I'd want to be in charge of a big institutional media organization, too.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I remember, like, a couple years ago at some point when people were, like, convinced that Twitter servers were about to crash. And I remember, like, people talking about, you know, they would try to find some other site. And a few people used the word lifeboat, which I thought was really interesting, because it implies to my mind that a journalist's social media profile is the thing that they hold onto when their organization syncs. So Twitter is a lifeboat. If you're at, like, some newspaper, Twitter is your life, because your newspaper might go down, but you still exist as an entity, and that could take you to the next safe port of call.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

And so this idea is like, I need a new lifeboat, because Twitter might not be there anymore, I think was like, a very revealing word to describe how a lot of these star journalists view the platform.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. I mean, you need an audience. And like, substack is now my lifeboat, and I have a port. I mean, one thing that substack was very attractive with for a lot of journalists is they allow you to port your email list. So you've got, you know, you lose your Twitter account, as I have, But I now have 40,000 strong email lists that I own that I can take where that's my lifeboat.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Max Reid, thank you so much for coming on o blocks. That was awesome.

[Matt Levine]

Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Tracy. I love talking to. I like, you know, it's always fun every once in a while to do.

[Tracy Alloway]

Basically just gossiping about our own industry.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah. You know, I don't like to indulge in it too much. I actually find a lot of media navel gazing to be sort of boring, to be honest. But sometimes it's sort of fun to look back how things have changed in the last, I don't know, 15 years.

[Tracy Alloway]

You know, I got a really good idea from that.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah.

[Tracy Alloway]

That won't be useful in my personal life, but maybe it will be useful to others. I think when you go on a date with someone, when you go on a first date, people should show their for you PHS on various social media platforms, and you would instantly get a sense of who that person is or at least who the algorithms things could.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Even be a for you page based dating app where it's just all you see is the person's for you page.

[Tracy Alloway]

That's a good idea.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Like this person. That would be good.

[Tracy Alloway]

Should we make that startup?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

[Matt Levine]

You know what?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I really liked the word Carsonization.

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh yeah.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

And I think that's a really powerful idea. The idea that like all apps trend towards looking and functioning the same way and currently it's all towards TikTok. The other thing which we didn't get into but I think is also an example of Carsonization is like everything sort of being. It's either TikTok or a chatbot. Like text. Like I've like opened windows, like I'll open an app and it will take me to a second to realize, wait, am I in? I am right now. AM I in ChatGPT right now? Like this sort of, this dominant mode of interfacing with the Internet that's all like chat related.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean it is true on this point that even Reddit, which like I started out fawning over, is starting to like experiment with more algo push chat content. So it will suggest subreddits for you now. But luckily you can still ignore them for the time being. But again, like as pressure to generate revenue actually ramps up, it seems like the direction of travel, all roads lead to TikTok basically.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Yeah, Spotify too. And like, you know, there's like stories on Spotify. It looks very similar. You get pushed. All this different stuff that people that you're not listening to. I think the answer is to just subscribe to Odd Lots and just hang out in the Odd Lots discord and then just not worry about any of this other stuff.

[Tracy Alloway]

That's right. It's a safe space and you can still curate what you what you want to talk about. All right, shall we leave it there?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Let's leave it there.

[Tracy Alloway]

This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

And I'm Joe Wiesenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Check out Max Reed substack. It's called Read Max. Find that at Maxread Substack. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at CarmenArman, Dashiell Bennett at Dashbot and Kale Brooks at Kalebrooks. Thank you to our producer Moses Andam. For more Odd Lots content, go to bloomberg.com odlots we have transcripts a blog and a daily newsletter that you can subscribe to and get into your inbox and you can chat24.7 in the nicest, most moderated environment you can find our Discord, Discord, gg, OD and if you enjoy odd lots.

[Tracy Alloway]

If you like it when we occasionally indulge ourselves by talking about the media, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. You will also get that daily newsletter. All you have to do to listen to ad free episodes is find the Bloomberg Channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.

[Marin Sums]

Not everybody likes talking about money. Some people find it awkward. Sometimes they even find it a little embarrassing. I do not. I like talking about money, whether it's the boardroom, the newsroom, the trading floor. I've spent the last 30 years talking about money, writing about money, and talking about it and writing about it a little bit more. I'm Marin Sums at Webb, and every week senior reporter John Stappick and I answer your questions about personal finance and we discuss the best strategies for making the most of your money. Listen in for the kind of insights and explanations everyone can use to help them make better saving and investment choices for themselves and their families. My question is whether you think maxing out my company Pension Match is enough for when it comes to saving for my pension, should I attempt to pay.

[Tracy Alloway]

My child's university fees and living costs? My partner and I have excess savings. Savings.

[Marin Sums]

So should we overpay on our mortgage.

[Tracy Alloway]

Or should we put the money into stocks?

[Marin Sums]

From Bloomberg podcasts, tune into Marin Talks Money, follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.