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- [00:01]
Sam Cole
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new.
- [00:07]
Matthew Goll
It can help you with practically anything
- [00:08]
Sam Cole
on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block.
- [00:13]
Matthew Goll
Or finally break down that long article
- [00:14]
Sam Cole
you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it,
- [00:17]
Matthew Goll
ready to make anything online make sense.
- [00:20]
Janice Rose
There's no place like Chrome.
- [00:21]
Sam Cole
Check responses set up, required compatibility and availability.
- [00:24]
Matthew Goll
Veris18
- [00:26]
Jason Kebler
Frankly, I'm more scared of stuff like this. The idea that you can walk around, you have no idea if you're being filmed. I hate it and it's terrifying. And it's going to change how we all act and behave in public. It sucks. Hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support to. To subscribe, go to 404 Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content@404 media co. Also do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch all of our episodes, including this one. Subscribe@YouTube.com 04mediaco I'm your host Joseph and with me are 404 Media co founders Sam Cole.
- [01:24]
Sam Cole
Hey.
- [01:25]
Jason Kebler
And Jason Kebler.
- [01:27]
Sam Cole
Hello.
- [01:28]
Jason Kebler
And we also have regular contributor Matthew Goll.
- [01:31]
Matthew Goll
Hello.
- [01:32]
Jason Kebler
Before we get to this week's stories, this week on Thursday the 30th at 1pm Eastern, we are hosting our latest foyer forum. This is a hour, probably two hour realistically livestream where me and Jason walk 404 media subscribers through how to get records from the government. You know, we've done this for emails, body camera footage, audio, Slack chats, all sorts of things. Jason, what are we going to talk about this time?
- [02:07]
Sam Cole
Yeah, I think we're going to focus on how to watch city council meeting, which is not necessarily a hard thing to do, but sort of like conceptually how to think about them, how to search information on them. Because city council meetings are often three hours long or more. There is usually a lot of throat clearing. There's usually a lot of discussion about whether to approve a permit for an apartment complex or like cut a tree down. Like a lot of stuff that is relevant to the local community but might not be relevant if you are a journalist or if you're someone looking for a specific thing. So we're going to talk about how we approach it there's also every city has like a different system that it uses for uploading and archiving them. So sort of like how to search them and then also how to take things that happen at city council meetings and then file public records requests based on the back of that. So there's a bunch of different systems. We'll go through a few recent articles that we've done and some general thoughts about how to do this.
- [03:13]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, and we show you how to file public records requests. We'll probably go through some previous ones we have going. And if you are a 404Media subscriber, you also get access to the whole archive of FOIA forums where we've spoken about court records or getting police emails or anything like that. We have ideas for other ones in the future, you know, focused on fusion centers and then some other stuff as well. So if you want to join that again, that is Thursday, July 30th at 1:00pm Eastern. Check the website and it'll be in the show notes for the link to the live stream. And if you can't make it for whatever reason, you can watch the video later. But speaking of city council meetings, that brings us to this first story that Matt wrote. The headline is what happened when Flock came to my town. So I'm going to ask you, Matthew, about like, the specifics of your particular town and how it impacted things there and what you did. And then I'll throw to Jason for some of broader context. But first of all, just describe your town. How big are we talking here or how small are we talking?
- [04:25]
Matthew Goll
It's pretty small. It's 12,000 people and it's one of these places. I think there's a lot of these kinds of places in America where it's kind of on. In a ring of other suburbs, in suburban sprawl. So kind of on the edges of Columbia, which is the capital city of South Carolina. And it's. It's basically like a couple of major streets and a. Like a bunch of suburbs kind of all linked together and called a town and the unincorporated areas kind of around it. And yeah, it's only 12,000 people, but it has a mayor, it has a city council. We have an okra strut every year.
- [05:07]
Jason Kebler
I mean, that's the most important part,
- [05:09]
Matthew Goll
the okra strut is, you know, we get a guide in an okra costume and there's a parade down one of the major streets and people strut because okra is one of the major, like, agricultural products.
- [05:20]
Sam Cole
I just, I just cooked okra for the first time on Friday.
- [05:24]
Matthew Goll
How did you do it?
- [05:26]
Sam Cole
I, like, sauteed it for a while, and then I turned it into, like, a coconut curry with cod and then put over rice. I think it was pretty good. I never made okra, and I heard. I didn't know it was, like, slimy, but I also didn't mind that. I thought it was good.
- [05:42]
Matthew Goll
You get a. I mean, if you cook it right, you don't mind the slime so much. I like okra.
- [05:48]
Jason Kebler
Well, this okra parade, or however you
- [05:51]
Matthew Goll
described it, it's a strut.
- [05:53]
Jason Kebler
Sorry, sorry. The okra strut is presumably why your town needs automatic license plate reader cameras, which are constantly getting the license plate of all the people in okra costumes walking by them. So your town already has flock cameras. 11, right? In the context of this story, they wanted more. Can you just give us sort of the beforehand? You said they had 11. Like, when did they first come in and, like, what were they being used for? Sort of before this meeting that we're going to talk about.
- [06:25]
Matthew Goll
They came in about two years ago. You know, it's the same thing that flak cameras are used for everywhere, which is tracking the movements of people coming in and out. And I actually looked through the audit logs. It's a little bit of everything. There's, like, domestic disturbance cases. They're tracking somebody that's. That's leaving different scenes. There's traffic violation stuff. I saw that there were flock searches involved in, like, an embezzlement case. I mean, it really is just kind of everything. Yeah, right.
- [06:54]
Jason Kebler
And now they want more. Which brings us to this city council meeting where the city council has a vote, Right. And if it passes, they'll install these cameras or something. So you went to this meeting just recently, and we'll get to what you said in a little bit. But first of all, just what was the vibe of the meeting, both from other residents who were there, but then the city council itself. Like, what was the vibe when you went in?
- [07:21]
Matthew Goll
Combative, bad? I will say there was one resident, it was an older woman who was the last person to speak during public comments, who was pro cameras and seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the police calls that she had made over the past five years. But other than that, and there's like, more than 10, were people very, very, very angry about flock cameras being installed. Did not want the previous 11, did not want the 22 new ones that were being installed, and had fairly decent working knowledge of, like, how these things work. Fourth Amendment questions around them. Does this constitute an unlawful warrant or a unlawful search and seizure? And had been watching the Supreme Court cases and, like, spoke to that and kind of just understood what Flock was about and why they didn't want it.
- [08:17]
Jason Kebler
And I mean, I don't expect you to go through all of these people's particular criticisms or issues with Flock, but generally, what. Why did they not want the. Want this stuff? Was it like a. What they perceived as a waste of money? Was it a privacy issue? I mean, it sounds like the latter.
- [08:34]
Matthew Goll
It was the latter. I don't think I heard one person. I mean, maybe like one or two were like, why are we spending money on this? But overwhelmingly it was. This is a violation of my privacy. This is part of a long thing that we've seen in this country where there's more cameras and we're being monitored more and more, and some of it we've opted into with our phones.
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Jason Kebler
But if we know about it.
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Matthew Goll
If we. Yeah, if we know about it. But a lot of this is like, governments putting up cameras in places that they don't trust. And they also. A couple people also made the point of like, our town isn't very violent. It's 12,000 people. What this is. Why are we doing this? This is crazy. It's so many cameras. It would be 33 cameras, I think,
- [09:16]
Jason Kebler
with the total number of cameras, wasn't it, that there was. There would be more cameras than police officers. Is that. Is that right?
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Matthew Goll
Yeah, there's 29 officers.
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Sam Cole
Right.
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Matthew Goll
And so there would be 33 cameras. So there'd be more cameras than officers, about one camera for every 300 residents in the town.
- [09:33]
Jason Kebler
And I think the police chief went on to say, or maybe they said this in an earlier point, that these new cameras, if they were installed, would mean that all of the entrances and exits to the town would be covered, which is something that's very attractive to law enforcement with Flock, of course, because it's not just monitoring movements of people and vehicles inside the town, but if you see anybody coming or going, that's going to be useful information to them. And that's the same sort of thing where homeowners associations buy these cameras as well, sort of for their private use. And of course, they may share data with law enforcement after the fact. But that was sort of the reasoning from the police chief, right? Yeah.
- [10:15]
Matthew Goll
He said this in interviews before and during the meeting, that explicitly he wanted to be able to cover all of the entrances and exits of the town, which is really. And again, I can't stress this enough that it's like, a couple of major streets and some, like, suburbs going off of it. So when I look at. When I look at the map, there's, like, one of them that is across the street from a CVS that is part of the town just by dent of, like, it happened to be a piece of it that was incorporated. And so they, like, put a flock camera there. It is really one of these places where when you cross the road, suddenly you're in a different town. You know what I mean?
- [10:56]
Jason Kebler
Right.
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Matthew Goll
You're kind of in this, like, this urban sprawl area and you're putting a bunch of flock cameras around your little section of the urban sprawl. Yeah, suburban sprawl rather than urban sprawl, but, yeah, which is. Which kind of makes it sillier to me.
- [11:12]
Jason Kebler
Gotcha. So you also signed up for this local city council meeting. I think you spoke first. Actually, I did, because I signed up.
- [11:21]
Matthew Goll
I sent them an email telling them I was coming beforehand, so they put me on the list first.
- [11:26]
Jason Kebler
Do people usually just rock up and sort of just, like, get in line and you're, like, the only one who, like, bothered to email? Was that it?
- [11:32]
Matthew Goll
Yeah. I mean, this is to. I'll be. This is my first city council meeting that I've attended or done anything like this in person. And I, like, I was thinking about it when I heard the thing was coming along. I was like, do I have a responsibility to do. Should I do this? Right.
- [11:48]
Jason Kebler
Because we've covered it a bunch.
- [11:49]
Matthew Goll
Right.
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Jason Kebler
So you have access to this information.
- [11:51]
Matthew Goll
I know this information. Like, I know more than the average person about this stuff. This is the place that I live. Should I do this? And I was like, yeah, I guess I should. I get, like, if I. I can't expect other people to fight if I'm not willing to do, like, the basics of, like, giving people information. So I signed up and yeah, apparently it is mo. Like, everyone else just kind of walked up and put their names on the signup sheet, and I emailed and called because I'm a nerd and got on the list. And so, like, I walk in and they've got the sheet printed up with my name printed up on it, and everyone else is just signing in below. So, yes, I was the first to go up.
- [12:28]
Jason Kebler
And what stuff did you. Did you talk about? Because you threw to some of our. Well, a lot of our reporting over the years at this point. Like, what were some of the things that you thought it was worthwhile residents knew about because not everybody in your town is going to read 404 Media, presumably.
- [12:47]
Matthew Goll
No, what I did was Flock had a closed door meeting with the city council on 7 July and there were some of the minutes from that had published basically like a summary of what they had talked about. And I knew that one of the concerns for one of the city council members was like data security. And so that's kind of what I really, you know, I wanted to highlight data security. And so I kind of went in at the beginning with the like story from earlier this year that y' all did with the, the access to the Condor cameras being exposed and people being able to jump in and kind of watch them just by looking in a web portal. And I went through the audits and was just like, you know, look, it's very easy to pull up. And I went and looked. It was like, here's our searches in June. Here's what they were looking for. Here's exactly when they happened and just wanted them to be very aware that like the data security around this stuff is not super tight.
- [13:49]
Sam Cole
Then.
- [13:49]
Matthew Goll
My plan was to then transition to how they make mistakes. And I had written a little thing, but my presentation was about five minutes, but they only gave me three minutes. So I was kind of cutting in the moment.
- [14:00]
Jason Kebler
At which point you were arrested and escorted from the building. No, obviously you weren't. But I know that there's a non zero chance of that. When, of course I'm referring to what you reported. A bunch when that farmer was escorted from speaking ever so slightly over his allotted time about a data center.
- [14:17]
Matthew Goll
They were very polite. There was.
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Jason Kebler
They.
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Matthew Goll
They had a, they had a timer up on the wall. I went over and I think she was a woman sitting next to the police chief. Turned around, I was like, your time is up. It's like, okay, sure.
- [14:30]
Jason Kebler
So you do that. Other residents speak. What was the vote? What was the vote? What did, what did they vote to do?
- [14:37]
Matthew Goll
Well, they voted 4 to, 4 to 1 to install the cameras. And it's kind of a contingent. It was interesting because the mayor made a big speech about why they need the cameras. And he opened the speech with being very mad at. He says he's being bullied on social media a lot about this topic and people are posting comments that are mean to him on Facebook and he knew some of those people are in the room, but it's going to take more than that to get him to back down. The guy that voted against also talked at length and kind of explained the stuff about. He's like, I know that people are being tracked on their phones and their purchases and all this stuff, but he's like, at least there's a sense of, like, opting into that. Like, you can find out that information. If you don't want to be a part of that, there's ways that you can work around it. Like, this is like we're taking people's choice away. And he was also concerned about. So there's two plans on the books. One is just the 22 cameras. Another is if the city gets some money from the state, it's also going to buy one of Flock's drones for a drones as first responder thing. And the. The city councilman that voted against was concerned about how the footage from that drone might be used and if that would be a privacy violation.
- [15:59]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I mean, we haven't covered the drones, Flock's drones a ton. You know, I have spoken to Flock current and former employees about it and, you know, they do have some concerns about it. But yes, essentially that when there is an emergency call, a law enforcement agency or some sort of first responder can deploy this drone, it will, you know, go out there and provide live footage and then recorded footage as well. And of course, this is a big push of Flock to provide not just the license plate reader stuff, but sort of an all in one suite of tools where they love to use, and I mean, the industry broadly loves to use the term sort of single pane of glass where you'll have your license plate reader data. There you'll have information from the 911 call. And with Flock, you'll have this drone, the footage as well. So as you say, they're planning on purchasing one of those as well, if
- [16:55]
Matthew Goll
they can get money from someone else to pay for it.
- [16:57]
Jason Kebler
Yes, gotcha.
- [16:58]
Matthew Goll
That's the plan.
- [16:59]
Jason Kebler
So that vote happens, I guess. Not surprising given some of the comments from, from the mayor and the police chief and that sort of thing. But the reason that I think this is interesting and important is that this is a snapshot of what is happening all across the country. Right. This is like a microcosm of what is happening all over the place. Jason, you've watched a ton of these meetings. You've read transcripts from them, you've reported on them. Give us some sense of what's the scale of this around the country. Is this a constant? The sort of meetings that Matthew went
- [17:37]
Sam Cole
to, these meetings are happening every single day at this point. They are happening in essentially any town that has Flock or is considering Flock, which is good and is a change or I mean, it's hard to quantify because one thing I've learned reporting on all of this is that there's a lot of towns in the United States of America. It's like, it is crazy.
- [18:01]
Jason Kebler
I say this all the time. It's just like it's a big country. Yeah. You've never heard of this town, but people are having this exact same conversation there. It is crazy to me.
- [18:12]
Sam Cole
Yeah. I mean, it's obviously like this conversation is being had in big cities that have millions of people. But then also this sounds probably very obvious, but if you don't live in the United States and also just like if you live in a big city or like have your head in the sand, don't really know how things work. It's like the United States is made up of like unincorporated places and townships and like, of course, like cities and villages and things like this. And so when we were talking earlier about their, like, about our FOIA forum, and it's like in some places the county is buying the flak cameras. In other places the town is buying the flak cameras. In other places it's like the State Highway Patrol, like so on and so forth. And each of these government bodies has some sort of meeting. And sometimes there is a meeting about how to appropriate funds and whether to buy flak cameras or any surveillance device. But then in other places the police have like what's known as a discretionary fund where they are able to just buy technology that they want, usually with no public oversight whatsoever. And so a lot of flock cameras were installed around the country without any sort of meeting. But what has happened over the last few months, as people have learned more and more about this company, they've been demanding meetings about the contracts and about flat cameras. And so you're starting to see a lot more cities and towns and villages and counties have these meetings about whether they should buy flaw cameras in the first place. But then you're also seeing a lot of cities have meetings about whether they should renew the contract, whether they should cancel the contracts, whether they should like renegotiate them to have different protection protections, things like this. And so there have been, there's meetings like this happening constantly, essentially. Like, it's hard to quantify because doing any sort of like, study of what cities are doing is really difficult because like, we have a good sense of how many cities have flock and like there's this open source effort through D Flock to sort of determine where the flock cameras are. And all this but again, the United States is vast and is like a complicated mix of state, city, local and federal governments. And so figuring out like, who owns a flat camera, who approved it, like why it's up is like quite. Can be difficult. And so that's why it's important that this movement has been so decentralized and that it's been local residents sort of organizing to, to figure out who the contract is with and then like sort of push back against them. And so these are happening all the time. People are showing up, you know, as like a overall percentage of the population. Of course it's not that much, but like, again, I've watched a lot of city council meetings basically. My mom used to video videotape city council meetings for a small city in Maryland for, for like decades. And so As a like 7 year old, I would go to these meetings sometimes, like if she didn't have a babysitter or if my dad wasn't home or something. And I would sit there and I got a sense for like how these things work just through osmosis basically. And so I've, I, when I say I've seen a lot of city council meetings, I mean like, I've seen a lot, a lot of city council meetings like over the course of my life.
- [21:50]
Jason Kebler
You're not exaggerating.
- [21:51]
Sam Cole
Yeah, yeah. And so usually no one shows up to these, like a standard city council meeting. There will be like a, it's like an episode of Parks and Rec if you've ever watched Parks and Rec. And there will be like an old man who comes to every single one and complains about like a crosswalk, not like not being put in place or something like that, like really esoteric stuff and they'll beef about it. But like, for the most part, like these things are not usually well attended. They're super long, they're super boring. Usually there's like a public comment period for like anything that's happening in the city and you'll have a handful of people who show up like 2, 3, 4, something like that. Even at bigger, even in bigger cities, unless there's like some sort of hot button issue happening. And it's not always flock. Sometimes it's something like we're going to build a pickleball court. Like that's an early story that we did on 404. Media was like, pickleball has become quite controversial. And so people will come up and like shout at each other about the noise and things like that. But like, flock has become one of those hot button issues where when they do a meeting, it's not like one or two people show up. It's like 50 people show up. And a lot of them talk. And many of them use up all their time. And sometimes there's like special meetings being called just for this issue. So this is something that's happening, like, over and over and over again. And it's something we've been covering, like, because often these meetings kind of go off the rails where you have people who are mad, understandably so. But then you have like varying levels of politicians either taking.
- [23:42]
Jason Kebler
Crashing out.
- [23:42]
Sam Cole
Like either crashing out or, I mean, or voting down flock. Like, it is a mixed bag. Like, a lot of cities have canceled the contracts, and so they have like city council members who have like, informed themselves on the privacy concerns, on the concerns of like, this data filtering up to ice, things like that. And then you have cities and towns that are just like, really flock pilled. Like, they're just like, you know, this can be used to find stolen cars, this can be used to find criminals. And they are the ones who tend to crash out because they are like, we don't understand why all of our residents are mad at us. We're keeping this fuck you goodbye. And so it's really been kind of like a mixed bag in terms of like, how these meetings go. I would say largely the experience is similar to what Matt had, I think, where all of the residents who come to speak are mad about this, and then the politicians are like, oh, that's nice, we're getting them anyway. That's what happened in Dunwoody. And it's like, it will be very. Dunwoody is in. In Georgia, which we covered, like quite recently, but basically like, they. They've had flock for a really long time, and the residents are like, really outraged. And the city council is like, we don't care, we're keeping them. But basically, like, it will be interesting to see whether the politicians who ignore this issue, who are like, hey, we're keeping them anyway, whether they face consequences the next time they're up for reelection. Because this has become such a hot button issue. I'm curious if we're going to see a bunch of people run on sort of like a pro privacy, anti surveillance platform like around the country. I think we're starting to see it already.
- [25:30]
Matthew Goll
I have a. I have a small anecdote to follow up on that. So in the afterwards, in milling people milling about outside of the city hall, the guy that voted against the city councilman that voted against the flock cameras was doing Some direct to camera stuff with somebody. And the mayor came up and was like, you're not authorized to speak on behalf of Vermo about this. They got into a little bit of a fight and then another resident who was filming it yelled at the mayor and said that we should have a recall election. And now that guy is running for city council. It has like set up pages. It is like doing a. A push to get on the council as part of an anti FL block agenda.
- [26:14]
Jason Kebler
Jason, I was just going to say, have you heard of paddleball? It's the thing that's going to replace pickleball.
- [26:22]
Sam Cole
I've heard of paddle tennis, which is you use a paddle and a tennis ball instead of a pickleball, like a water ball.
- [26:29]
Jason Kebler
This new one I've seen rumblings of. I feel like it's going to be the new thing we need to send a bunch of public records requests on.
- [26:35]
Sam Cole
Wait, what's it called?
- [26:37]
Jason Kebler
Maybe I'm mispronouncing it P A D E L Ball.
- [26:42]
Sam Cole
Yeah, I know paddle. I've. I've seen this. I've seen this.
- [26:44]
Jason Kebler
But it's in like a glass container and the construction is obviously a lot more invasive and single use than a tennis court or a pickle court. So I think it's going to piss off a lot more people. You see what I mean? Because if you build that, you can't use it for anything else.
- [27:02]
Sam Cole
Yeah. I think this is paddle tennis, like, as in. I think. I think I. It's not called paddle tennis. I think it's called paddle like. You are correct. But I've just called it paddle tennis. Because there's like a tennis ball involved.
- [27:15]
Matthew Goll
Yeah.
- [27:16]
Sam Cole
Yes. Interesting.
- [27:17]
Jason Kebler
Sublime.
- [27:18]
Matthew Goll
Yeah. Can I ask a stupid question? Just because I don't know why. Why is pickleball worse than like a tennis court?
- [27:26]
Sam Cole
Jason, it's louder. Is the thing is like, basically what happened, I mean, we did a whole episode about this, which is like, like long ago, but basically the sound of the like, hard paddle, like a solid paddle hitting a wiffle ball, like, it makes just like a loud noise. And it happens all the time because as in it's like a shorter court, so it's like constant, kind of. And you can also fit more pickleball courts in a smaller spot. And so the pickle, Basically, it's like NIMBYism kind of gone wild, where it's like people living like really close to these things are like, I can't sleep. My kids can't sleep. We had like, anecdotes of people Taking, like, decibel readers, like, sound readers out into their backyards, being like, oh, my God, this is so loud. And, like, it's not that loud. And it's also. It's funny. I mean, there's not an episode about pickleball, but it has just quickly become one.
- [28:30]
Jason Kebler
I'm gonna put it in the show notes. It'll be fine.
- [28:31]
Sam Cole
It's, like, popular with older people for the most part, although, like, younger people are getting into it, but, like, basically it's wealthy homeowners versus other wealthy homeowners. And so you have, like, the, like, the NIMBY wars, like, and it's been quite funny. I haven't kept up on it, like, this is something we did soon after we launched 404 Media. I don't know if this battle is still occurring or if it. If it's like, yeah, past. And then there's also beef because, like, tennis players are like, you're taking our courts vibes. But I think what may have happened is that there's been the rise of, like, the private pickleball club, which are basically, like, big warehouses where there's, like, 20 pickleball courts in them. And I think it's like a classic supply and demand problem where, like, capitalism has won and it's become like the market, the market has provided. But I'm not sure if that's the case. If, you know, let us know if.
- [29:33]
Matthew Goll
God bless Big Pickle.
- [29:35]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I feel like you're going to get to the Back to the Okra strut by saying big pickle in some sort of way. All right, we'll leave that there. When we come back after the break, we're going to talk about how being a Luddite is fun again. We'll be right back after this.
- [30:03]
Sam Cole
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- [31:52]
Jason Kebler
And we are back. This one is by our contributor Janice Rose, but Sam edited it. The headline is being a Luddite is fun again. So, Sam, this piece opens with a scene containing some gnomes. What is happening at the start of this piece? Like, what are people saying?
- [32:12]
Janice Rose
Yeah, yeah, I mean, just to, I guess, back up a little bit. Janice hit me up on signal and said, I'm gonna go to this Luddite festival thing. Do you want me to cover it? And I was like, yeah, check it out, you know, see what, see what it's about. It was weeks before it even was gonna happen. And I was like, go to an event. See what it's like. And she did. And while she was at the event, I think, or maybe right after. Cause they didn't allow phones at the event. She was like, the spokesperson is a puppet. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, that could mean a lot of things.
- [32:50]
Jason Kebler
Like, yeah, they're a corporate puppet.
- [32:52]
Janice Rose
Yeah. I was like, are they like, whatever. Are they like a stand in for someone else? Are they like, are we talking about a literal puppet? She was like, no, it's a literal puppet made of garbage. So I was like, yeah, stay there, keep. Keep writing notes, keep taking pictures, whatever you need to do. The gnomes are a part of, I think in the story. She called it the Million Gnome March or something. It's like a march of. Of people wearing gnome hats. So they were pointy little paper hats, colorful hats. They were in New York City to celebrate the summer of Ludd, which is short for Luddite So Summer of Ludditism, it's this group that their entire thesis is that you can have just as much fun in real life and you can organize in real life and have a really cool event in person that you would online or that we can let go of the technology and have a phoneless Internet. Less good times still.
- [33:58]
Jason Kebler
And what does the Summer of Ludd look like in practice beyond the March of the Million Gnomes and people like what, what. What was actually going on for the Summer of Ludd?
- [34:11]
Janice Rose
Yeah, it was, I think it was a full week of events. You couldn't find out about the events online. You had to go, you had to see one of the posters in real life, like on a, on a phone pole or something, paste it up, and then you could go to a bookstore and find a list of what was happening or you could call a phone number and they would tell you what was happening that day. So very old school retro how we used to do things in New York and elsewhere, but especially I think it works really well in New York because everyone's kind of close and there's already kind of this feeling of, you know, you can serendipitously stumble into something weird and fun happening. But yeah, it was, it's an. It was a specific group of events that were happening in a specific week in New York. But it is part of a bigger thing where they're organizing and saying, you know, we need to get off of social media and get together in person. The. Some of the events that were scheduled were called an offline Rizz workshop to get off of dating apps, which I wonder how that went.
- [35:22]
Jason Kebler
Wait, so I'm sorry, so you're educated in how to obtain and project Rizz, is that correct?
- [35:27]
Janice Rose
Yes, yes, yes. A phone free rave called let's Get Off Together, which is becoming more and more popular. Phone free raves and phone free dance parties are more of a thing.
- [35:39]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, it's very funny. They have to have a dedicated event for that when it's just like, oh, I mean in Europe. That is the thing. That's the.
- [35:47]
Janice Rose
Really? I didn't know that.
- [35:48]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I mean you. It's when you'll go to an event and you know, I think this is more popular in the States now. But you'll go and they will give you stickers to put over your phone cameras. And if you bring your phone out. It's not just that. The rules of the event say that like if you bring your phone out at a certain venue, people will look at you like what the fuck is that?
- [36:06]
Janice Rose
It's like, bad form. Yeah, yeah.
- [36:07]
Jason Kebler
Like, what the hell are you doing? So it's interesting that that is now because that was a. Obviously a much more privacy and living in the moment thing, and now it's like manifesting in the States as a response to like, big tech specifically, at least in a way.
- [36:26]
Janice Rose
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just like the, like the. The feeling that you're always going to be posted on social media if you're dancing weird or like, you know, people are always, like, worried about being in the background of a video or, like, know, it's just, it's. I think it's great that more and more venues here are doing the sticker thing especially.
- [36:41]
Jason Kebler
Well, let me just say on that, because I meant to cover this and frankly, I couldn't find a smart way to say it, so I just, I didn't. But there was this viral video that went around of two lawyers on a bench right in New York, and they were making out, I think during a weekday afternoon or something. Somebody comes up and films them and then just posts it online and it goes viral. And random people identify them, find the law firms they work at and Frank, I didn't even go much further than that. Like, maybe they're single, maybe they're not, or whatever, but it's none of your business. And it's just created this insane environment where if you're walking in public, you have no idea if you're being filmed or not. And I of course agree that Flock is a big privacy issue, for example, or location data. All the stuff I write about, frankly, I'm more scared of stuff like this where you have no idea if you're going to be in the background of somebody's attempt at a viral video. And maybe it does take off when you're just trying to mind your own fucking business. I find that weirdly, sometimes more scary than the very scary stuff I cover. It's a completely different threat. The dynamic is different. But the idea that you can walk around, you have no idea if you're being filmed, I fucking hate it. And it's terrifying. And it's going to change how we all act and behave in public. It fucking sucks.
- [38:11]
Janice Rose
Yeah, I think it already has changed the way that people act and behave. And it's changed how I, like, move around the world and think about what I'm doing.
- [38:17]
Jason Kebler
But how do you mean in public? How's it changed it?
- [38:20]
Janice Rose
I mean, it's just like when I'm, like, having a conversation in public, I'm like very aware of what's around, which I guess is good security practice, but just being more mindful about who's around. I went to people's beach a couple weekends ago, which is kind of a tops optional beach, and I was like, I definitely see this in a different light than I would have years ago. I think it would get you through thrown off the beach if you tried that there. But.
- [38:49]
Jason Kebler
Oh, filming. Filming in the nudist.
- [38:51]
Janice Rose
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like. It's just. It feel like even having that thought cross my mind in a place that like, is actually very friendly to, like, privacy and people wouldn't do that there. But just having that thought cross my mind that's like, oh, like people could be, you know, recording this or you never know. It's like you just. You just don't know. And especially, yeah, in New York, it's like everything is so condensed and people are on top of each other anyway. So, like, I think it does change the way people move and I think it's been kind of beaten to death and maybe it's more of a panic than it should be. But the idea that young people don't dance, don't go to parties anymore, don't take risk anymore. And I think part of that is probably because you might be in some kind of weird viral moment. I think with the lawyers, people were justifying it because these two lawyers were big law and they allegedly, I guess, worked with OpenAI and. And defended OpenAI against Elon in that big lawsuit.
- [39:46]
Jason Kebler
Oh, that means they're not allowed to make out then, right?
- [39:49]
Janice Rose
I mean, so stupid to do that. First of all, don't make out in Central park. If you're big law partners probably don't do that. But people are using that as justification as like, oh, well, you deserve it. You're going to get it thrown back to you. But I don't think that that's. I don't think that's anything's going to change. You know, it's not. They're not going to be like, oh my God, I have a different view of privacy now that I have been recorded. Like, you know, I don't know. It's. And the guy who recorded it was like a. He's like a known.
- [40:14]
Jason Kebler
He's a troll.
- [40:14]
Janice Rose
He's a known tiktoker. Yeah, he's like a. An antagonizing tiktoker.
- [40:18]
Jason Kebler
So, yeah. The last thing I'll just say about this because I think it is related to the Luddite conversation is that with Meta's smart glasses and Apple's basically rumored but basically confirmed smart glasses also coming at some point in the railway near future. The argument is that, well, the Meta glasses have a light on them, but now actually maybe we'll get rid of that light because people don't actually want the light. Whatever. I think those technical discussions are interesting and important, but it also just misses the fact sometimes that people aren't even doing this surreptitiously. They're just shoving a phone in your face and they don't really care if they know they're being recorded. There's an element of that where this troll and various other people, they don't really care. They're being open about it because it's so acceptable now to just film people and you just post it online in the first place because people lap it up and then they justify in all the ways you were laying out, Sam. So I think like, obviously when more people start using smart glasses, we're going to contend with more of that. But like this is worse right now almost or very, very bad in a lot of ways. So anyway, back to our lido stuff. A lot of these people are saying, obviously you can't. They're a phone free event. I imagine they're also. You're not allowed to bring Meta smart glasses to some of these events.
- [41:40]
Janice Rose
Oh my God. That would get your ass kicked.
- [41:41]
Sam Cole
Yeah.
- [41:42]
Jason Kebler
You get punched in the face.
- [41:43]
Matthew Goll
Yeah, for sure.
- [41:44]
Janice Rose
Yeah. I mean it, it's, that would definitely be bad. They, they had all of the journalists present sign this big like comically long scroll said. Yeah, like a, literally like a scroll that was like long and like draped over and it said, I think it said, you don't. You agree not to make short form video content, which is like, you know, fine, obviously we didn't, we, we obeyed the rules. But yeah, a lot of it was, you know, something that Janice notes in the story is how people were. She recorded with a, like an offline, like old school voice memo recorder and took notes in a notebook and that's what everybody was doing. It's like that's, that's how it was done 10 years ago. You know, it's not even that, that long ago, but like now it's like, oh my God, everyone's taking notes on paper. It's very crazy.
- [42:36]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I remember using a dictaphone like that.
- [42:38]
Janice Rose
Yeah, same.
- [42:39]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, yeah, Carrying around all the time. So just to get more specific on their issues before I ask Jason something like, what were some of these people's specific issues with Big Tech that they wanted to highlight through this series of events and stuff. What specifically were they sort of talking about?
- [42:59]
Janice Rose
Yeah, I mean, so one of the things that they did that Janice saw was a mock trial for Sam Altman. So they had like, a big chatgpt, like a giant phone made of cardboard. And the phone said, you know, may exploit loneliness, erode cognitive ability, hallucinate, include induce psychosis. May have Pentagon contracts, mass surveillance, maybe one of the largest donors to the Trump administration. It's just like they were listing, like, the grievances that have been very much public about OpenAI and ChatGPT and companion apps and LLMs and things like that. So they're anti AI, which is pretty much a given. I think one of the people said, I. I used AI to write one of my essays and got in trouble. Now I'm starting a war on AI.
- [43:46]
Jason Kebler
That's an interesting way to get into it.
- [43:48]
Janice Rose
Yeah, yeah. Just like, radicalized by your professor thinking that you cheated.
- [43:54]
Jason Kebler
Well, you did cheat.
- [43:55]
Janice Rose
Fair enough, to be clear, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. You got in trouble for a reason.
- [44:00]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, yeah. It wasn't a perception. You did use AI to write the essay, but. Yeah, now you're on the other side.
- [44:05]
Janice Rose
Exactly. Yeah. And I think they had a lot of grievances that were very much valid, and they were pointing to very specific things as part of this event. But I think what was interesting about this in particular is it wasn't just like, here's. Here's how, like, dark and horrible everything is. Like, here's how depressing and terrible Big Tech has made our lives. It's like, you know, we can still be, like, joyful and playful and participate in things in person and create community in person and have these organic experiences that are not facilitated by an app. So I think that's a big part of it is. It's not just like, here's what we hate. It's like, here's what we really love and here's what we want to keep in our lives, and that is the connections with real people, the connections with their community. They're obviously very against social media, but I think it's interesting that, you know, it's like they. They opted to just advertise this completely offline. I do think that they got into some mailing list, and that's how Janice found them. So, like, people were still finding them online.
- [45:16]
Jason Kebler
That's just how people find them sort of thing.
- [45:19]
Janice Rose
Yeah, they were. It was like a.
- [45:20]
Sam Cole
We got emails about it. There were, like, some emails about it. Happening? Yeah, that, that there was like a mailing list, but I didn't see it really on social media in the way that you'd normally expect.
- [45:34]
Janice Rose
No, they were very intentional about, like, please don't, you know, we ask you not to like, upload all this stuff to social media and while it's happening. Or, you know, we were allowed to. They provided a bunch of pictures to journalists that they took and you know, you're allowed to take pictures of like the, the other stuff that was going on. But the whole point is, like, it's very diy, it's very offline, which I think is. I think it's cool. I think it's an interesting experiment at a time you have to almost be so radically the other way about this stuff, because if you're just kind of in the middle, we're going to advertise this on the Internet, people just end up having their phones out the whole time or trying to get some kind of viral moment out of it, like we said. So I think going completely the other way and saying, you know, we're going to reject, not only just reject doing this online, but really make it something that people are participating, feel obligated to respect that as well, to the point where they're making journalists sign big comical scrolls. So you have to go in such an extreme direction or people will just like be on their phone the whole time tiktoking it.
- [46:46]
Jason Kebler
Jason, how do you think this plays into the broader Luddite movement, which is definitely a movement now?
- [46:53]
Sam Cole
Yeah, I mean, I think that this is all part of it. As in, I don't have any huge takeaways here other than we are starting to see more and more offline, focused events, not just in an activismy sort of sense, but also just in a. People are valuing, getting offline. I think that the other, like, I've seen quite a few, like, no phones dating events in both, like Los Angeles, New York, probably happening elsewhere, where it's like just show up, no pictures, no phone, no Instagram, like that sort of thing. And I don't think that that's necessarily part of the Luddite movement, but I think that this is something that is compelling to people. I think people are just like really sick of AI. They're sick of social media, they're sick of the algorithm, they're sick of staring at a computer and doom scrolling all day. Like, I think that. And so I think that this sort of rejection of needing to be online at all times and needing to be reachable and Tracked and all the things that we report on all the time is part of the broader kind of Luddite movement. Like that is just reassessing our relationships with technology and our relationships with the Internet, our relationship with social media, our relationship with other people. And so I sort of put it firmly in that. I think this is very cool. I think it's a little bit of a, like, it's earnest in a way that would be easy to make fun of, but I won't make fun of it. I think it's cool, but I think it's like idealistic in a way that kind of. It would be easy to be like, oh, this is just a flash in the pan. This doesn't mean anything. But I think that it does. I think that we are starting to see more and more things like this and I think that is good.
- [49:04]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree it's not a flash in the pan. I mean, people are going to do their own things to get offline. I mean, literally the coming weekend I'm going to go to an Airbnb, turn off all devices, cover up all the clocks with post it notes. So I have no idea what time it is and have zero screen time for 48 hours and just be like, finally, I'm not having a notification pushed into my face. You know, I don't know. I read, I read some article when a guy did this. I was like, yeah, I kind of want to see how my body reacts to not having external social media or really anything YouTube or whatever stimuli for at least two days. Maybe I'll. I don't know, maybe I'll transcend. Maybe I'll reach enlightenment or something. I think it takes longer than two days to do that, I'm going to guess, but I'll give it a shot. All right, we'll leave that there. If you're listening to the free version of the podcast, I'll now play us out. But if you are a paying 404 media subscriber, we're going to talk about the flock influencers who frankly make a bullshit for clout, you can subscribe and gain access to that content at 404 MediaCo. 404 Media Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you do wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You also get to listen to the subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is produced by Alyssa Midcalf. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating on and review for the podcast. That stuff really does help us out. Here's one of those from Zippy Lips. I would recommend this podcast and the associated written content created by 404Media for anyone who wants to keep abreast of the changing landscape of technology. Thank you to the show creators. I have some more of these to read out. I'm really sorry if I've repeated that one. I think I'm good though. This has been 404 Media. We'll see you again next week.
- [51:09]
Janice Rose
SA.