On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Police released a video of some unidentified suspects in a brutal attack on a gay couple. Within a few hours, a Philly sports fan and his online friends had identified some of the people in the video without the blizzard of false accusations that usually accompany an online investigation. Alex speaks to "Fan Since 09" about how he managed to corral a online mob into potentially solving a crime.
TLDR - #36 – The Mystery of Childish Gambino
Rapper Childish Gambino (A.K.A actor Donald Glover) famously claims to have received his rap pseudonym, "Childish Gambino," from an online Wu-Tang Name generator. But investigating whether this story is true or not led TLDR host Alex Goldman on an odyssey of discovery.
TLDR - #35 – Stolen Pictures
This week, hackers stole and published naked photos of female celebrities. Forbes reporter Kashmir Hill has covered stories like this before, but she says that this latest example has completely changed her mind about who to blame for these thefts and how to prevent them.
TLDR - #34 – The Accidental Outing of Rwanda’s Most Powerful Troll
Steve Terrill is a journalist who works in Rwanda. Or at least he worked in Rwanda, until he accidentally got the office of Rwanda's president Paul Kagame to implicate itself in a long-running online harassment campaign. Alex talks to Steve about inadvertently exposing the Rwandan government's most prolific troll, and being banned from the country as a result.
TLDR - #33 – Unfollow A Man
A few weeks ago, writer Katie Notopoulos created a holiday called Unfollow a Man Day, wherein everyone (women and men) was encouraged to Unfollow a Man on social media. Men's rights activists were enraged, cable news was intrigued, and a lot of people felt quiet relief. This week PJ talks to Katie about her mission and her manifesto.
TLDR - #32 – An Imperfect Match
This week, dating site OK Cupid put up a blog post describing experiments it conducted on its users. In one experiment, the site told users who were bad matches for one another that they were actually good matches, and vice versa. Alex and PJ talk to OK Cupid President and co-founder Christian Rudder about the ubiquity of online user experimentation and his defense of potentially sending OK Cupid's users on bad dates.
TLDR - #31 – Race Swap
Whether you think the internet is a great or terrible place is partly a reflection of which parts of the internet you choose to visit. It's also a reflection of who you are, and how people online react to you. Mikki Kendall is a writer who deals with an extraordinary amount of trolling and vitriol online. Mikki is a black woman in real life, and she created an experiment to see how her online life would change if she were a white man.
TLDR - #30 – The Russian Troll Army
Last month, documents surfaced that showed a company called the Internet Research Agency was paying people in Russia to go to an office and post pro-Kremlin comments all day. Alex talks to Buzzfeed's Max Seddon about why they do it, and how successful they actually are at swaying public opinion.
TLDR - #29 – Olivia Taters, Robot Teenager
Rob Dubbin accidentally built a teenage girl named Olivia Taters who lives on the internet. She may not always communicate in complete sentences, but she's convincing enough that teenagers actually converse with her. Also, she's very, very funny. PJ talks to Dubbin about how Olivia came into existence, and what she's been talking about lately.
TLDR - #28 – No Trail
In February of this year, Philip Welsh of Silver Spring, Maryland, was murdered. His murder remains unsolved, largely because he didn't use the internet, and left no digital trail. Alex talks to Philip's family and reporter Dan Morse about the case.