Category: Retired

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The Gatekeepers - 1. We Are as Gods

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

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Gatecrashers - Introducing: Covering Their Tracks

Covering Their Tracks is the extraordinary story of a young man’s escape from a moving train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, and his fight to hold the French national rail company, the SNCF, accountable for their actions as they later bid for lucrative high-speed rail contracts in the United States.


For more information visit http://tabletmag.com/coveringtheirtracks or search for Covering Their Track wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Gatekeepers - Introducing The Gatekeepers

It all started with a crazy idea to realise a hippie dream of building a “global consciousness”. The plan was to build a connected world, where everyone could access everyone and everything all the time; to overthrow the old gatekeepers and set information free.

But social media didn’t turn out that way. Instead of setting information free – a new digital elite conquered the world and turned themselves into the most powerful people on the planet.

Now, they get to decide what billions of us see every day. They can amplify you. They can delete you. Their platforms can be used to coordinate social movements and insurrections. A content moderator thousands of miles away can change your life. What does this mean for democracy – and our shared reality?

Jamie Bartlett traces the story of how and why social media have become the new information gatekeepers, and what the decisions they make mean for all of us.

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On Our Watch - Introducing Season 2: New Folsom

We’re back with a second season of On Our Watch from KQED! “New Folsom” traces the footsteps of two whistleblowers in an elite investigative unit in California’s most dangerous prison. Host Sukey Lewis and co-reporter Julie Small piece together a gripping narrative about broken promises and unwritten rules. It’s a story about who gets hurt when the system that promises to keep us safe is bent on protecting itself. New episodes drop weekly, starting February 6. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Cows Are Mad - 10. Zombie Deer

Online videos of crazed deer crashing through the American countryside are racking up views online. They have the deer version of BSE – Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD - and it's now spread to northern Europe too. Scientists are worried.

History repeats itself as hunters speculate on the origin theories of this deer prion disease. The US government insists people are safe, but conspiracy theories about a hoax or cover up are starting to spread online.

Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor

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The Cows Are Mad - 9. Cow Eats Man

Did mad cow disease actually come from humans? Alan Colchester, the doctor who raised suspicions about the Kent meat rendering plant, has one of the most disturbing theories so far.

He publishes an academic paper that suggests a grisly international trade in decomposing animal remains could have brought the disease to the UK, after human bones picked out of the Ganges in India is unknowingly mixed with the cargo.

Will there ever be an answer to the origin of BSE? Scientist John Collinge is still looking.

Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor

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The Cows Are Mad - 8. Reaction

Organic farmer Mark Purdey’s followers roll their concerns about pesticides into the public inquiry into BSE. A group of farmers who claim they were poisoned by pesticides join forces with green activists and work to get their own fears about neurological disorders in rural Britain onto the news agenda.

They fail to convince government scientists that pesticides are to blame for BSE, but their trust in mainstream science is destroyed forever – then Covid hits.

Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor

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The Cows Are Mad - 7. Factor X

The BSE crisis becomes a lightning rod for other safety issues in the countryside. Organic farmer Mark Purdey becomes convinced pesticides are to blame for making cows go mad, and thinks they caused vCJD in humans too.

He sets out to prove his claims by crowd-funding for lab experiments. He becomes the star of the alternative mad cow disease community, for people who refuse to believe the official government narrative on BSE – or any other official narrative, for that matter.

Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor