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On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk about the recent announcement that Instagram’s founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are leaving the company—partly due to clashes with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the app’s future.
They also discuss tech talks on Capitol Hill this week between the justice department and federal and state law enforcement on political bias, antitrust, and privacy on social media. And they critique the semantics of “privacy” ahead of this week’s Senate hearing on how technology companies use and misuse consumer data.
Then, the hosts spend the rest of the podcast talking about … podcasts. Recent weeks have witnessed some dramatic changes in the podcast industry—including here at the Slate Group. Last week BuzzFeed axed its entire podcast department, a popular and groundbreaking arm of the media company. Meanwhile, Vox Media did the opposite, announcing they’d be doubling their podcast output this fall. To help make sense of all of this, April and Will are joined by media writer Nick Quah, who pens the weekly Hot Pod newsletter, which is considered required reading for many in the podcast industry.
15:41 - Interview with Nick Quah
34:36 - Don’t Close My Tabs
Stories discussed on the show:
- Bloomberg: Instagram Founders Depart Facebook After Clashes With Zuckerberg
- Hot Pod News
- Hot Pod News: Vox Media Expands Podcast Operations
- The Wall Street Journal: BuzzFeed News Cuts Podcasting Team to Focus on Video
- Columbia Journalism Review: Is the podcast bubble bursting?
- Vulture: Serial, Still a Juggernaut
Don’t Close My Tabs:
okayplayer: The Secret History of Outkast’s ‘Speakerboxxx/The Love Below:’ the Last Truly Great Double Album
The New Yorker: How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump
The Guardian: “ ‘Sorry I’m Scuba Diving’ ” Salesforce CEO Criticized Over Response to Border Contract Backlash
Podcast production by Max Jacobs.
If Then plugs:
You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.
If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
