Tracking a license plate across the country has never been easier, which is good news if your car has been stolen, but in an era of ICE and Border Patrol raids, these warrantless searches feel increasingly invasive—and unconstitutional.
Guest: Joseph Cox, co-founder of 404 Media and host of the 404 Media podcast.
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27:30
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27:30
Crypto Keeps Criming
Trump promised to stop the “persecution” of the cryptocurrency industry. He did call off the SEC investigations that began under Biden, and pardoned Binance cofounder and ex-CEO Changpeng Zhao. But is the crypto industry ultimately better off because of that?
Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, tech reporter for the New York Times.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.
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24:57
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24:57
How Meta Profits Off Fraud
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta, doesn’t (just) have a scam problem—with 10 percent of its revenue coming from scam ads, and a third of all successful scams in America using a Meta platform at some point, it’s more an interdependence with scammers.
Guest: Jeff Horwitz, tech reporter for Reuters.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
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32:09
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32:09
Data Centers on the Ballot
They don’t cut cleanly along party lines, but data centers, and where they get built, became an election issue in Virginia. With so many more data centers to build, are we looking at a new trend?
Guest: Margaret Barthel, reporter covering northern Virginia for WAMU.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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25:10
Why Tesla Is Paying Elon a Trillion Bucks
Tesla shareholders just approved a trillion dollar (with a t!) pay package for Elon Musk. Is it enough incentive to keep him around the company and away from verbal spats with government officials? Because the whole Musk empire is still reeling from that dalliance.
Guest: Faiz Siddiqui, tech reporter at The Washington Post and author of Hubris Maximus: the Shattering of Elon Musk.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
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About What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future
Every Friday and Sunday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
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