Podbit · This Week in Tech (Audio)
Twitter was caught sharing users' two-factor authentication phone numbers with advertisers. The FTC imposed costly ongoing audits. Now X argues it shouldn't be bound by those obligations because it's a different company with a different name — while keeping all the same user data.
Where this was said
At 21:22 · chapter starts 20:00
Leo walks through Twitter's original sin: a coding error caused the platform to share users' two-factor authentication phone numbers — given for security purposes — with advertisers. The FTC imposed ongoing audits. Now rebranded as X, Elon Musk's company is arguing those obligations shouldn't apply anymore because it's technically a different company. Lisa Schmeiser delivers the episode's most quotable line: 'You moved the headstones but you didn't move the bodies' [1] — Lisa Schmeiser "That is a real poltergeist. You move the body tombstones, but you didn't move the bodies." 22:41 , comparing it to the horror movie Poltergeist. Leo then raises the $1 billion World Cup security buildout in the US, noting the facial recognition infrastructure almost certainly will not be dismantled after the games end. Finally, he covers the Health and Location Data Protection Act, a bill by Senators Warren and Scanlon that would ban data broker sales and give the FTC $1 billion for enforcement — with mixed but ultimately hopeful panel reactions.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup spent $1 billion on security systems including facial recognition cameras that are unlikely to be removed after the games end.
Ten years ago, 90% of tech media coverage was relentlessly negative and Kalanick felt he couldn't speak freely. Today, the rise of independent podcasters and Elon Musk buying Twitter has fundamentally changed the game — and it's why he's finally willing to talk.
Kay Classman, 28, was arrested for repeatedly posing as a 16-year-old and enrolling in Bronx high schools across multiple districts. She wasn't a predator — just someone so sad and lonely she wanted her lost childhood back. That's somehow sadder.
Disney, Meta, and Paramount have collectively paid Trump roughly $60 million to settle what Galloway calls nuisance lawsuits — all routed to his presidential library. Newsrooms are folding. The White House is handpicking press pool participants. This is what the end of a free press looks like.
One cheap fake documentary made by a teenager in his mother's basement convinced 16% of Americans that 9/11 was an inside job. Social media didn't invent conspiracy — it just gave it a rocket engine.
A progressive organization with a stated mission to destroy Turning Point USA received millions from ActBlue and is now publicly pushing the narrative that TPUSA insiders and Israel murdered Charlie Kirk. Andrew Wilson traced the network of accounts all amplifying the same conspiracy in perfect unison.
The microphone-bomb theory fails on every physical front: no smoke, no ignition, mic on the wrong side of the wound. And the .30-06 rifle round used is extensively documented by the US Army — it does not always produce a through-and-through wound. Wilson argues this is a well-studied projectile with well-understood behavior.
Andrew Wilson publicly offered Candace Owens $300,000 to debate her theory that Israel and TPUSA murdered Charlie Kirk. She refused. He argues that flat-earthers will debate anyone, but Kirk conspiracy theorists won't defend their claims under scrutiny.
Erika Kirk became the CEO of TPUSA while grieving her husband's murder in public, and now faces tens of thousands accusing her of conspiring to kill him. Andrew Wilson calls it mind-boggling psychological torture. The sparklers at the memorial weren't suspicious — they were a grieving widow doing her best in an impossible situation.
Joe Rogan and Andrew Wilson watch a bystander video of the Corey Ruiz police shooting in Madison, Wisconsin live on air. The video is so blurry they initially think a female officer fired the fatal shots. They later learn a male officer did, after Ruiz allegedly pulled a knife and stabbed officers. Their conclusion: you cannot have a hot take on a story you don't understand yet.
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