Valentino Rodriguez Sr. is on the treadmill one morning when he gets a call—Sgt. Kevin Steele is dead. Val Sr. has lost not only his friend, but his partner in their shared quest to find the truth. A meeting with the FBI provides few answers, even as new questions arise about why a second whistleblower from New Folsom has lost his life.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
One of the strange things about our new media universe, is how innocuous decisions taken in Silicon Valley - turning a dial, or adding a few lines of code to increase engagement - can change your life.
In 2016, Instagram introduced a new way of looking at content: the non-chronological feed.
Now, instead of seeing what your friends were posting in the order they were posting it, an algorithm brought you stuff based on search history, likes, and interactions.
That’s how tech engineers saw things back then - not just at Instagram, but at Pinterest, and other platforms too - if you engage with something, that must mean you want more of it.
Ian Russell believes that this algorithmic change may have altered the course of his 14 year old daughter Molly's life.
Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Composer: Jeremy Warmsley
Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams
Execuitve Producer: Peter McManus
Commissioner: Dan Clarke
A BBC Scotland Production for Radio 4.
Archive: 'Instagram implements big changes to users' feed, ditches chronologixal content' DT Daily; March 16th 2016. US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Nov 7th 2023
If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, including urgent support, a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
How did Sgt. Kevin Steele go from being a true believer in the institution of New Folsom to writing an explosive memo hoping to tear it down? We sift through video evidence, interrogation tapes and internal reports to find glimpses of his transformation. But when he feels his reports of corruption are ignored—he takes an even more drastic step.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
2016 is a big election year. But something is going very wrong online. Journalists in America and the Philippines start to notice something strange going on online.
In Manila, Maria Ressa - the editor of online news site, Rappler - discovers a sock puppet network of social media accounts, all pushing for the election of a strong leader. Someone like Rodrigo Duterte. Maria is suspicious. She makes an urgent call to Facebook.
In Veles, in Macedonia, a young man called 'Marco' starts writing fake articles and posting them online. Very soon they're being read by millions of people around the globe and he's making huge sums of money.
The online ecosystem is under attack.
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Composer: Jeremy Warmsley
Exec: Peter McManus
Researcher: Juliet Conway and Elizabeth Ann Duffy
Commissioned by Dan Clarke
Archive: BBC News, AP Archive, Bloomberg Television, CNN
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
Valentino’s unexpected death just days after a confidential meeting with the prison’s warden leaves his grieving father with a tangle of questions and suspicions. When law enforcement and prison leadership fail to act, Val Sr. finds an ally in Sgt. Kevin Steele, a senior officer who’d taken Valentino under his wing. The two men have a shared mission–to find justice for Valentino.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
The tech pioneers were right: all this connectivity and sharing is creating a new age of freedom and democracy. A global consciousness.
Arab Spring, Barack Obama – both fuelled by social media - make the possibilities feel limitless.
But, just as the dream to connect everyone is being realised - at the height of technological optimism - everything starts to fall apart.
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound Designer: Eloise Whitmore
Mix: Gav Murchie
Composer: Jeremy Warmsley
Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams
Executive Producer: Peter McManus + Heather Kane-Darling
Research: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway
Commissioned by Dan Clarke
Archive: C-NET Jan 2007; The Obama White House Archive, April 2011; C-Span, December 2008; C-Span 1996.
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
Consumed with stress and fed up with how he’s being treated, Valentino Rodriguez reaches a breaking point at work. A veteran officer and mentor to Valentino starts looking into the murder that happened in the dayroom. Valentino and Mimy get married, then Valentino goes in for a final meeting with the warden of New Folsom.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
From the rubble of the dot com crash, an ambitious young Harvard student with a passion for hacking and love of Roman emperors, sets up an exciting new website.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is an instant hit on college campuses.
Soon it attracts the attention of Silicon Valley’s most successful - but controversial - venture capitalist, Peter Thiel.
The company starts to scale up. But there’s one problem - how is it going to make money?
Contributors: Roger McNamee, author of Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe; journalist Owen Thomas; Eric Jackson, author of The Paypal Wars; Jeff Hammerbacher; Anil Dash, tech entrepreneur.
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway
Executive Producer: Peter McManus
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Music: Jeremy Warmsley
Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams
Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke
A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4
Archive: Bloomberg Quicktake, October 2019; C-Span, Telecommunications Bill signing, Feb 1996; Hoover Institute, Decemeber 2009; Startup Academy, March 2018; Makers, December 2012.
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
Soon after correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez starts working at New Folsom prison, he gets caught up in a bad incident. An incarcerated man ends up in the hospital with horrific injuries, and the prison starts an investigation. Valentino feels pressured to back up his fellow officers' version of the story, even though he thinks it might not be the truth. Then he gets an opportunity he's dreamed of-- to join an elite unit investigating crimes in the prison.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
For years something strange has been happening online, but most of us have no idea what’s really going on.
Ethnic conflict in Myanmar. A chemistry professor is killed in Ethiopia. A teenager dies in her bedroom in London. A mob storms the Capitol in Washington DC.
And that’s the moment that catches Jamie Bartlett’s eye. A few days after the riot, on January 9th 2021, the outgoing leader of the United States is suspended on social media. First Twitter, (renamed X), and then Facebook. A President silenced. It’s a glimpse behind the curtain. For the first time millions of us can see the power of technology companies.
They can delete you. They can amplify you. They can change your life. Social media has conquered the world.
Jamie Bartlett follows the roots of this story back to San Francisco : the home of Big Tech, where he meets one of the early pioneers of social media who tells him about a strange hand bound book, passed around hippy communes in the summer of love, and how it turned the world upside down.
Archive Credits: Wolf of Wall Street, Paramount Pictures; Telecommunications Bill sign in, C-Span 1996; Bloomberg's TicTic 2019; Fox News 2020
Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Music: Jeremy Warmsley
Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams
Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway
Executive Producer: Peter McManus
Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke.
A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
