Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok PatreonBy John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include reincarnation, tattoos, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok Patreon…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include love (both on and off the spectrum), paranormal pranks, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok Patreon…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include bullying, asking forgiveness not permission, love on the spectrum, and much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok Pa…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include improv comedy, Academy Awards, meeting you heroes, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok Patreon…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include bumping and grinding, late-night munchies, falling down, recurring dreams, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagra…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include good deeds, bad doctors, and late-night snacks. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include celebrity impressions, dragons, lawsuits, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include befriending bugs, befriending birds, softball, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTube Instagram TikTok…

John and Cigi sit down for an hour of conversation. Topics include the supernatural, blackmail, pickleball, tough love, family planning, the moon, building a compound, online dating, soda, gaming, hell, john mayer, funny accents, and so much more. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fis…

Cigi and John sit down for an hour of conversation. Hosted by John Del Viscio and Cigi Farmer Produced by John Del Viscio and Trent Dozier Art by Katy Fishell Theme Song by David DeVaul Recorded at Best Production Ever Studio YouTubeBy John Del Viscio, Cigi Farmer

On the season finale of Big Tech, host Taylor Owen discusses the future of tech governance with Azeem Azhar, author of The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics, and Society. In addition to his writing, Azeem hosts the Exponential View podcast, which, much like this podcast, looks at how technology is trans…

In this episode of Big Tech, host Taylor Owen speaks with Ephrat Livni, a lawyer and journalist who reports from Washington on the intersection of business and policy for DealBook at The New York Times. One of Livni’s focuses has been how cryptocurrencies have moved from the periphery of the financial world into the mainstream. The cryptocurrency m…

The internet is an ever-evolving thing, with new features and services popping up daily. But these innovations are happening in the current internet space, known as Web 2.0. The potential next big leap is to what is being called Web3 or Web 3.0. You have likely heard some of the terms associated with this next age — the token economy, blockchain, N…

Humanity has long imagined a future where humans could live for hundreds of years, if not forever. But those ideas have been the stuff of science fiction, up until now. There’s growing interest and investment in the realm of biohacking and de-aging, and leading scientists such as Harvard’s David A. Sinclair are bringing the idea of extended lifespa…

A fundamental feature of the internet is its ability to transcend borders, connecting people to one another and all forms of information. The World Wide Web was heralded as a global village that would remove the traditional gatekeepers and allow anyone a platform to be heard. But the reality is that access to the internet and online services is ver…

The speed at which the Russia-Ukraine war has played out across the internet has led to some interesting insights about how different groups have been experiencing and responding to information and misinformation about it. The West found unity across political divides, and the big tech platforms, breaking their long-held stance, have quickly acted …

In this episode of Big Tech, host Taylor Owen speaks with Margaret O’Mara, a historian of modern America and author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. Silicon Valley and the massive wealth it has generated have long symbolized the wonders of free market capitalism, viewed as proof of how innovation can thrive when it is not bu…

Do you feel as if you can’t get through a single task without distractions? Perhaps you are watching a movie and stop it to check social media or respond to a message. You aren’t alone; studies show that collectively our attention spans have been shrinking for decades. Many factors contribute to our fractured focus, including the processed foods we…

In the history of computers and the internet, a few names likely come to mind: Alan Turing, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Undoubtedly, these men’s contributions to computer sciences have shaped much of our modern life. In the case of Jobs and Gates, their financial success shifted the landscape of software development and the metrics …

Nicholas Carr is a prolific blogger, author and critic of technology since the early days of the social web. Carr began his blog Rough Type in 2005, at a time when some of today’s biggest companies where still start-ups operating out of college dorms. In 2010, he wrote the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction finalist The Shallows, in which he discussed h…

People are divided: you are either pro-vaccination or against it, and there seems to be no middle ground. Whether around the dinner table or on social media, people are entrenched in their positions. A deep-seated mistrust in science, despite its contributions to the flourishing of human life, is being fuelled by online misinformation. For the firs…

Time and time again, we see the billionaire tech founder or CEO take the stage to present the latest innovation meant to make people’s lives better, revolutionize industries and glorify the power of technology to save the world. While these promises are dressed up in fancy new clothes, in reality, the tech sector is no different than other expansio…

Governments around the world are looking at their legal frameworks and how they apply to the digital technologies and platforms that have brought widespread disruptive change to their economies, societies and politics. Most governments are aware that their regulations are inadequate to address the challenges of an industry that crosses borders and …

Many unlocked mysteries remain about the workings of the human brain. Neuroscientists are making discoveries that are helping us to better understand the brain and correct preconceived notions about how it works. With the dawn of the information age, the brain’s processing was often compared to that of a computer. But the problem with this analogy …

Democracy is in decline globally. It’s one year since the Capitol Hill insurrection, and many worry that the United States’ democratic system is continuing to crumble. Freedom House, an America think tank, says that nearly three-quarters of the world’s population lives in a country that experienced democratic deterioration last year. The rise of il…

On the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, Big Tech host Taylor Owen sits down with Craig Silverman to discuss how the rise of false facts led us to that moment. Silverman is a journalist for ProPublica and previously worked at Buzzfeed News, and is the editor of the Verification Handbook series. Before Don…

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Nicole Perlroth, New York Times cybersecurity journalist and author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. Nicole and Taylor discuss how that the way in which nation-states go about acquiring cyber weapons through underground online markets creates an incentive st…

In the early days of the internet, information technology could be viewed as morally neutral. It was simply a means of passing data from one point to another. But, as communications technology has advanced by using algorithms, tracking and identifiers to shape the flow of information, we are being presented with moral and ethical questions about ho…

Social media has become an essential tool for sharing information and reaching audiences. In the political realm, it provides access to constituents in a way that going door to door can’t. It also provides a platform for direct access to citizens without paying for advertising or relying on news articles. We’ve seen how Donald Trump used social med…

Humans need privacy — the United Nations long ago declared it an inalienable and universal human right. Yet technology is making privacy increasingly difficult to preserve, as we spend fewer and fewer moments of time disconnected from our computers, smartphones and wearable tech. Edward Snowden’s revelations about the scope of surveillance by the N…

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is an enigmatic, controversial and hugely influential power broker in both Silicon Valley and the political arena. He is often seen as a libertarian, who at one point was exploring the idea of building floating stateless cities in international waters. But at the same time Thiel is very much an insider. He is actively i…

Science fiction has long been a medium for bringing light to societal issues, including religion, culture and race. It helps us imagine futures of hope and prosperity or warns of dystopian nightmares. And our experience of race plays a central role in our understanding of science fiction. “There’s this amazing quote from Junot Díaz, the Pulitizer P…

Since concluding the last season this past August, a lot has happened in the big tech governance and regulation space. Whistle-blower Frances Haugen and the Facebook Papers shone light on social media’s harmful impacts on our society and reignited the debate over how we regulate platforms. There have been employee-led labour movements at Amazon, Ub…

This season of Big Tech has featured conversations with experts across many fields —law makers, academics, journalists, authors, activists and a bishop — who are working to address technologies’ impact on our lives. In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen looks back on those conversations and highlights six themes that have emerged across the seas…

Liberal democracies around the world have protections for free speech, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or, more famously, the US First Amendment. Many of the free speech activities that are protected by law, such as the right to organize and protest, have moved onto social media platforms. But, as we have seen, the power of soci…

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Geoffrey Cain, author of The Perfect Police State, about the technology enabled in China’s Xinjiang region to oppress its Uighur population. Through a network of surveillance systems, social credit scores, algorithm-driven pre-crime computer software and a society where people are now fearful of …

Western democracies and tech companies have long painted the Chinese tech sector as not only a threat to the US sector but also as operating in direct conflict with American companies. They say that China is walled off from the rest of the world, that these tech companies are just an extension of the state, and that they create and promote state su…

The journalism industry in America has grown and adapted over its 300-year history. Different business models and ownership schemes have been tried, mostly in an attempt to establish an independent free press. Social media platforms have contributed to both the decline in revenue for news outlets and the echo-chamber effect that results when users …

Tech platforms from around the world have turned their attention to the India as a new area for user growth. These tech giants are keen to see mass adoption of their products and services by the one-billion-strong Indian market. At the same time, politicians in India have leveraged the platforms’ powers to entrench their own power. In late May, Pri…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is hailed as a great technological leap forward, one that will enable immense efficiencies and better decision making across countless sectors. But AI has also been met with serious questions about who is using it and how, about the biases baked in and the ethics surrounding new applications. And an ever-growing concern…

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat.com, an open-source intelligence and investigative journalism website. Higgins’s site uses publicly accessible online data to investigate and fact-check human rights abuses, war zone atrocities and other criminal activities. Bellingcat’s reporting on the d…

Americans’ trust in democratic institutions has been strained over the past few years. The stress fractures are expressed in everything from cries of “fake news” against the media, to outrage over violent and racist police actions, to suspicion about COVID-19 precautions and vaccines, to the siege on the US Capitol Building in the aftermath of the …

Global technology companies that power websites and services, like Amazon and Microsoft, and platforms, like Facebook and Google, have created spaces and tools that allow corporations, states and themselves to exert power in many sectors of our lives. In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Naomi Klein, author, social activist and film…

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Nicole Perlroth, New York Times cybersecurity journalist and author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. Nicole and Taylor discuss how that the way in which nation-states go about acquiring cyber weapons through underground online markets creates an incentive st…

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Mutale Nkonde, founder of AI for the People (AFP). She shares her experiences of discrimination and bias working in journalism and at tech companies in Silicon Valley. Moving into government, academia and activism, Nkonde has been able to bring light to the ways in which biases baked into technol…

The world watched as the Australian government passed a new law in February 2021 requiring Facebook and Google to pay news businesses for linking to their work. In the lead-up to its passing, Facebook followed through on its threat to remove news from its platform. But many viewed Facebook’s move as only reinforcing the government’s position that b…

In the early days of the internet, information technology could be viewed as morally neutral. It was simply a means of passing data from one point to another. But, as communications technology has advanced by using algorithms, tracking and identifiers to shape the flow of information, we are being presented with moral and ethical questions about ho…

Are retail investors and message boards rewriting financial markets? The GameStop shakeup over the past week demonstrated how the market could be manipulated by users of the subreddit group WallStreetBets and robo-investing apps like Robinhood. The activities that happened in cyberspace on social media and financial digital platforms made waves in …

During his term, President Donald Trump has vilified the media, spread mis- and disinformation and built a loyal base of followers who believe his message. His refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, failed legal challenges and Stop the Steal campaign further rallied his supporters. The tipping point came on January 6, 2021, just as law…