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New story in Technology from Time: The Subreddit /r/Collapse Has Become the Doomscrolling Capital of the Internet. Can Its Users Break Free?

Every morning, Johnny Sayles wakes up and scrolls through news about the collapse of human civilization.

Formerly a medical assistant at a surgical department in Washington state, Sayles was laid off at the beginning of April, when the pandemic hit. Confined to his home by stay-at-home orders, he began spending more time on the social network Reddit, and came across /r/collapse, a part of the site where users discuss what many see as the inevitable collapse of globalized society.

Sayles says /r/collapse has become part of his morning routine. “I just go to that subreddit and I compare what the world was like last week with this week,” he says. “And every week there is something worse. It’s depressing, but collapse is inevitable. It might be tomorrow, it might be in 10 years. But our ecosystem is shot and there’s only so much time left.”

In one week in early October, the top posts on /r/collapse told you that ice cover in the Siberian Arctic was at its lowest extent in recorded history, that the pandemic had killed more than 1 million people worldwide, and that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was making more money in one second than the average person makes in a month. Further down, someone suggested that the U.S. is heading toward a post-election civil war. “To be honest, it’s just a matter of time,” says the top comment. “Every empire falls. It may be fast, or it may be slow.”

That sums up the worldview of the subreddit, which has more than tripled in size in the last two years, and now has more than 239,000 subscribers. (Like Reddit as a whole, which has roughly twice as many male users as female ones, the majority of them appear to be male.) Its content—a mixture of news headlines, memes and rants—is clearly addictive, at least for some people. It’s laced with hints of existential truths: that progress is a myth, that capitalism is already in decline, and that environmental catastrophe may come much sooner than most people expect. Naturally, this content has the capacity to be highly depressing. A suicide hotline is displayed in a prominent position on the front page, alongside a disclaimer. “Overindulging in this sub[reddit] may be detrimental to your mental health,” it says. “Anxiety and depression are common reactions when studying collapse.”

Read more: Terrified of Climate Change? You Might Have Eco-Anxiety

Before he lost his job, Sayles was a supporter of President Trump who bought into the President’s “Make America Great Again” message. But spending time on /r/collapse, combined with watching the Trump Administration’s handling of the pandemic, has led him to change his allegiance. When wildfires ravaged the West Coast of the U.S. over the summer, the smoke was so thick he had to stay indoors for a week and a half. Homeless people the same age as him—late twenties—are now sleeping in the park near his house. The price of bacon at his local store has doubled. He has already voted by mail, and not for Trump.

For Sayles, the subreddit’s disclaimer about depression rings true. “I agree it is bad for people’s mental health,” he says. “But I also think people need to wake up to the world around them. These dangers are real. It’s impossible to deny these things any more.”

pic.twitter.com/2fJwvGQeza

— Alex Norris (@dorrismccomics) October 26, 2020

If Sayles’ story sounds familiar, that’s because for many of us, it is. As the pandemic confined billions of people to their homes in 2020, the word “doomscrolling” entered the lexicon, referring to the temptation to compulsively scroll through social media platforms filled with apocalyptic news—and the difficulty stopping despite feelings of dread and anxiety. There’s no shortage of reasons for heightened anxieties this year, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the U.S. Presidential election to the racial injustice protests. But social media platforms also play a crucial role, given that they are designed to keep you scrolling and engaged for as long as possible. “As a species we are inherently hardwired to respond first to threatening information,” says Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a psychologist who treats patients for climate-related anxieties. Those evolutionary traits mean that the most anxiety-inducing content is often the most profitable for social platforms like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. “Behind the screen are impassive algorithms designed to ensure that the most outrageous information gets to our attention first,” writes the academic Julia Bell in her new book Radical Attention. “Because when we are enraged, we are engaged, and the longer we are engaged the more money the platform can make from us.”

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Over the last decade, social networks have upended the way we live our lives. In bypassing traditional gatekeepers, these platforms have given ordinary people new opportunities to raise their voices, from the Arab Spring uprisings in the early 2010s to the climate activism of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg at the end of the decade.

But psychologists who study the emerging field of social media addiction also point to a darker side. When you’re constantly presented with evidence of systemic threats, it can foster a negativity bias that can leave you feeling anxious or depressed—and reduce your sense of individual agency. “There’s something inherently disenfranchising about someone’s ability to act on something if they’re exposed to it via social media, because it’s inherently global,” says Kennedy-Williams. “There are not necessarily ways that they can interact with the issue.” This sense of paralysis is at the core of doomscrolling. And it raises an important question: what’s the use of raising awareness, if the medium you’re using to do so inspires lethargy instead of action?

Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesBurnt out homes and structures in Santa Rosa, CA, after a wildfire, photographed on Sept. 28, 2020.

Both users and moderators of /r/collapse have spent a lot of time thinking about that question. Some already practice the solution that Kennedy-Williams often suggests to his clients: log off and engage with efforts to fix the problem at a local level. But for many, it’s not that simple. “The subreddit has definitely ratcheted up my anxiety at times,” says Waleed_Compound, a regular user of the subreddit who lives in Santa Rosa, California, who, like many users TIME spoke with, asked to be referred to only by his username. He says he finds it easy to walk away from his screen, and has found solace in spending more time with his family and helping the homeless.

But the growing frequency of bad wildfires where he lives makes coming to terms with climate collapse unavoidable. In 2018, the Camp Fire killed at least 85 people in and around the town of Paradise in Northern California and gave off so much smoke that Waleed_Compound, who lives 100 miles away, had to stay indoors for two weeks. Days before he spoke to TIME, embers from a wildfire northeast of Santa Rosa set a business near his home partially ablaze. “All this collapse stuff, and thinking about what could happen in the future, doesn’t really get me too down, except for some anxiety here and there,” he says. “It’s the real-world stuff that really gets to me. Doomscrolling is a thing, for sure. But it’s nothing compared to what I’ve actually seen.”

Over the last two years, as the subreddit has tripled in size, moderators have noticed its content changing, too. With a bigger audience comes a greater opportunity to spread the word. But where the subreddit used to be mainly used as a forum for discussion of data and hard news, the most popular threads today are memes, alarmist headlines and polemics. Those are more appealing for a large audience–who accordingly “upvote” the posts to the top of the subreddit.

Interesting Times from collapse

But the risk is that this content becomes so appealing as to provoke the paralysis of doomscrolling. “Any online forum that reaches a certain scale encounters barriers of quality and difficulty of moderation, because the nature of online discussion is such that the lowest effort content wants to float to the top,” says Mike Rezl, one of the subreddit’s moderators, whose username is LetsTalkUFOs. This doesn’t necessarily mean content that takes low effort to produce, he says. A funny meme can take a long time to craft, but take just seconds to consume. In other words, as the subreddit has got bigger, it has become easier to doomscroll, potentially making the subreddit more depressing while reducing its most active users’ capacity to act.

“I think to a certain extent, the subreddit has almost lost the battle already,” says one of the longest-serving moderators of /r/collapse, who goes by the username Babbles. “Reddit, and the way people engage with it, is not really conducive to productive conversation. And this is true for social media in general.”

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Babbles says that a few years ago, when the subreddit was smaller, there was a running joke about how new users tend to go through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It’s not a linear process, or an enjoyable one. Babbles jokes that many users, including himself, still seem to be cycling through the final three stages.

But as the subreddit grows, the regulars of /r/collapse are being forced to grapple with a heavy question: what does it mean to introduce such emotionally impactful ideas to a large number of people in an environment as impersonal as Reddit? “It’s helpful to have this information available to those who seek it out,” says James, a regular user from Australia who asked to be referred to by his middle name to protect his online identity. “But is Reddit the best platform for that? Absolutely not. You can read something that completely shatters your worldview and there’s nothing to bring you back.”

Read more: Is Social Media Making Me Miserable?

Meanwhile, the moderators feel an acute sense of responsibility. In 2017, some users set up a dedicated sister subreddit for helping people deal with collapse-related anxieties, to which moderators often direct commenters who seem suicidal or self-destructive. Still, the issue weighs on them. “We have to assume that there are countless people who still fall through the cracks, who we don’t see, who slip into deep depression, who do not return, because they were not able to overcome the weight of this information,” says Rezl.

Just as coming to terms with the loss of a loved one is a painful but eventually necessary experience, so—many of the longest-tenured users of /r/collapse believe—it is necessary for large numbers of people to come to terms with the idea that they may experience civilizational collapse in their lifetimes. But in some ways, doomscrolling is a barrier to achieving this goal: users might find it easier to come to terms with these ideas if they were not paralyzed by algorithms constantly serving up more doom. And the more people who find the subreddit, the worse the risk of doomscrolling becomes. “The subreddit is going to continue growing as systemic disruptions occur,” says Rezl, the moderator. “So we have to figure out a way, at any scale, to address that. But there’s no ultimate solution. You can’t have a million people in a room all talking at once.”

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The collapse subculture uses a term for what comes after grief: resiliency. This is the idea that even if collapse is inevitable, there are ways–both on an individual and a societal level–to build preparedness, both mentally and physically, for what is to come.

“We attach ourselves to this material, study it, then we freak out about it and try to tell all our friends about it, and our friends don’t want to hear about it because it’s depressing,” says Babbles. “But then you kind of move on from that, and things open up for you. A lot of people look at making substantial changes in their life: how they live, how they measure their own resiliency in the face of what might be coming, and to a certain extent, even how they expect to cope spiritually and existentially with this newfound knowledge.”

For many of the subreddit’s most active users, this has meant spending time on Discord, a chatroom service similar to Slack, where it’s easier to forge interpersonal connections and where alarmist content doesn’t dominate the conversation as often. The official collapse Discord server has around 880 users, many of whom are also active members of the subreddit. “I’ve gravitated toward the Discord side of things because it’s a lot more reasonable,” says James, the user from Australia. “The issue that I have with Reddit is the fact it’s based on a point system, and the fact you can see your score. It’s a big driver to generate content that will get upvotes, and that doesn’t necessarily lead to content that’s actually of any real use.”

It has also led many users to make changes to their lives. James, who began reading the subreddit regularly after devastating bushfires ripped across Australia in 2019, recently moved out of Melbourne and began experimenting with self-sufficiency. He says that rather than making him more depressed, engaging with a community of like minded individuals via Discord has been a validating experience. Waleed_Compound, the user from Santa Rosa, says the same about helping homeless people in his community.

Read more: 2020 Is Our Last, Best Chance to Save the Planet

But at the same time as finding ways of safeguarding their mental health, many users have also resorted to preparing to save themselves and their loved ones from the worst. Waleed_Compound has stockpiled supplies of beans and rice, as well as guns and ammunition. Sayles, the former Trump supporter, has been increasing his supplies of food as the election approaches.

This behavior is known as prepping—short for “preparing.” Posts about prepping are discouraged on /r/collapse, and moderators redirect users with practical questions to the /r/preppers subreddit, which has 203,000 subscribers. But there is a significant overlap between the two groups, who share similar approaches to dealing with what they see as inevitable disaster in their own lifetimes. Bradley Garrett, an ethnographer studying the subculture, visited dozens of communities of preppers when he was researching his new book Bunker: Building for the End Times. While these communities tend to have a reputation as crazy people in the media, Garrett says he ended up convinced by many of their arguments. “If you accept the inevitability of the climate crisis, there are only two responses,” he says. “You either succumb to the despair, or you work to face it somehow. And if you don’t believe that you have the ability or the capacity to change our trajectory, then the only option you have is to build up your resiliency, and be able to adapt to those changes as they take place.”

From spending time with preppers, Garrett came away with a similar attitude to doomscrolling as many of the most regular users of /r/collapse. “I do think that there’s some merit in unplugging, even if it just gives you more time to forge local connections and build up local resiliency, because there will inevitably come a time when we’re going to have to depend on each other,” he says. “That’s so much more important than knowing that there’s a disaster on the other side of the world taking place.”

But for Bell, the author of Radical Attention, unplugging from social media only to focus on your own survival is an extension of the core problem of how platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are designed: that doomscrolling isolates us, making the kind of collective action that is necessary to prevent climate catastrophe even less likely to happen. “It takes a certain amount of courage to say no, I’m going to do something about this,” she says. “We’ve forgotten what that means, because we’re being encouraged to just passively consume all this stuff.”

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New story in Technology from Time: U.S. Hospitals Warned of Hacking Threat Amid ‘Coordinated’ Ransomware Attack

Several federal agencies on Wednesday warned hospitals and cyber-researchers about “credible” information “of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and health-care providers.”

The FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security and known as CISA, said hackers were targeting the sector, “often leading to ransomware attacks, data theft and the disruption of health-care services,” according to an advisory.

The advisory warned that hackers might use Ryuk ransomware “for financial gain.”

The warning comes as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations surge across the country. The cybersecurity company FireEye Inc. said multiple U.S hospitals had been hit by a “coordinated” ransomware attack, with at least three publicly confirming being struck this week.

Ransomware is a type of computer virus that locks up computers until a ransom is paid for a decryption key.

The attack was carried out by a financially motivated cybercrime group dubbed UNC1878 by computer security researchers, according to Charles Carmakal, FireEye’s strategic services chief technology officer. At least three hospitals were severely affected by ransomware on Tuesday, he said, and multiple hospitals have been hit over the past several weeks. UNC1878 intends to target and deploy ransomware to hundreds of other hospitals, Carmakal said.

“We are experiencing the most significant cybersecurity threat we’ve ever seen in the United States,” he said. “UNC1878, an Eastern European financially motivated threat actor, is deliberately targeting and disrupting U.S. hospitals, forcing them to divert patients to other health-care providers.”

Multiple hospitals have already been significantly affected by Ryuk ransomware and their networks have been taken offline, Carmakal added. “UNC1878 is one of most brazen, heartless, and disruptive threat actors I’ve observed over my career.”

Attackers using Trickbot malware, which is also cited in the federal advisory, claimed Monday in private communications channel to have attacked more than 400 hospitals in the U.S., said Alex Holden, the founder of the cyber investigations firm Hold Security. By Tuesday, the Trickbot attack group — which frequently works with ransomware operators Ryuk — claimed to have ransomed about 30 medical facilities around the country, Holden said.

Noncriminals running these malware and ransomware operations are known to embellish their achievements, he said.

St. Lawrence Health System in New York, Sonoma Valley Hospital in California, and Sky Lakes Medical Center in Oregon on Tuesday all publicly stated they were affected by ransomware attacks, according to local news reports.

The ransomware that has targeted hospitals, retirement communities and medical centers this year has typically started with emails that purport to be corporate communications and sometimes contain the name of the victim or their company in the text or its subject line, according to a FireEye report released Wednesday. However, the emails can contain malicious Google Docs, typically in the form of a PDF file, that contains a link to malware. The use of multiple links, as well as PDF files, can help trick email filters designed to spot simpler phishing tactics.

—With assistance from Alyza Sebenius.

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New story in Technology from Time: Top Facebook India Executive Leaves the Company Following Controversy Over Hate Speech

Facebook’s top policy official in India, Ankhi Das, stepped down from the company on Tuesday following reports this summer by TIME and the Wall Street Journal that detailed links between senior Facebook staff and India’s ruling party.

A Facebook spokesperson told TIME that Das’s departure “has nothing to do with the parliamentary inquiry or the media reports.”

“Ankhi has decided to step down from her role in Facebook to pursue her interest in public service,” said Ajit Mohan, managing director of Facebook India, in a statement.

Das, one of the most senior Facebook staff members in India, was one of several people involved in internal conversations about whether posts by politicians violated Facebook’s rules, including on hate speech, and how to act. But Das had also shared an anti-Muslim post on her personal Facebook account, according to a Journal report in August, and had celebrated the 2014 victory of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in national elections. (“These posts are taken out of context and don’t represent the full scope of Facebook’s efforts to support the use of our platform by parties across the political spectrum,” Facebook said at the time.)

TIME understands that Shivnath Thukral, WhatsApp’s public policy director, has been asked to take over Das’s duties on an interim basis until a replacement can be found.

Read More: Facebook’s Ties to India’s Ruling Party Complicate Its Fight Against Hate Speech

In August, TIME reported that Thukral, one of Das’s key lieutenants at the time, had walked out of a meeting in 2019 when an activist had raised concerns about a post by a BJP state lawmaker who suggested Muslims were rapists. The post remained online for more than a year after the meeting, until TIME contacted Facebook to ask about it. (Facebook told TIME the post had been flagged as hate speech internally at the time, but did not explain why they had failed to remove it.)

Thukral also worked on behalf of the BJP during the party’s 2014 election campaign.

The TIME and Journal reports led to Das being summoned to give evidence to an Indian parliamentary committee. Instead, Mohan attended and gave evidence on Facebook’s behalf in the closed-door session.

TIME also revealed that Facebook has commissioned a human rights impact assessment to consider the impact of Facebook on human rights in India. Facebook did not immediately respond to TIME’s questions about whether Das’s departure would change the scope of that assessment in any way.

“I have decided to step down from Facebook after long service to its mission of connecting people and building communities to pursue my personal interest in public service,” Das said in a statement.

“When I joined Facebook in 2011, internet growth in the country was woefully low and I often wondered how social and economic asymmetries will be addressed. We were a small unlisted startup back then guided only by our mission and purpose to connect people in India. After nine long years, I feel that mission has largely been met. There is an enormous amount I have learnt from incredibly smart and talented people in the company, particularly from people on the policy team. This is a special company and a special group of people. Thank you, Mark for creating something beautiful for the world. I hope I have served you and the company well. I know we will be in touch on Facebook.”

Dia Kayyali, an activist who coordinated an open letter from more than 40 NGOs in September calling on Facebook to fire Das, told TIME: “Ankhi Das leaving Facebook should be recognized as what it is– the result of sustained organizing by human rights defenders and civil society. This is a win for everyone who has been affected by Facebook’s refusal to moderate content that directly leads to offline violence.”

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WATCH: Amy Coney Barrett sworn in as Supreme Court associate justice at White House ceremony

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New story in Technology from Time: ‘This Is a Global Crisis.’ Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Discuss the State of the Digital World

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are working to educate others about the role that online communities can play in people’s lives offline.

While hosting a specially curated edition of TIME100 Talks, Harry and Meghan spoke with Edward Felsenthal, Editor-in-Chief and CEO of TIME, about the state of our shared digital experience and why it’s important to create online communities that are more compassionate, safe, and trustworthy—a building block of the Sussexes’ nonprofit Archewell.

“What our job is, especially throughout these conversations, is to get people to listen to the experts and for them to explain how what’s happening in the online world is affecting the world,” Harry said. “It is not restricted to certain platforms or certain social media conversations. This is a global crisis: a global crisis of hate, a global crisis of misinformation and a global health crisis.”

During a time when the boundaries between many people’s physical and online lives have never been more blurred, the Duchess of Sussex says that the couple has begun connecting the dots between many of the causes that they’re passionate about—like women’s empowerment, mental health and the environment—and online spaces.

“Both of us realized that we can continue to champion these things that we’re passionate about. We can continue to do this work to try to affect change and help the people who need it most or the communities or environments that need it most, but it’s almost like you’re taking two steps forward and five steps backward if you can’t get to the root cause of the problem,” she said. “Which at this point right now we see in a large way as a lot of what’s happening in the tech space.”

Noting that they convened leaders in the tech world that they think can help make people more aware of these problems—including Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Center For Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris and UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry co-director Safiya U. Noble—for Tuesday’s TIME100 Talks, the Duke and Duchess addressed why it’s imperative to make online communities healthier for everyone.

“This isn’t just a tech problem. This isn’t solely a mental health or emotional wellbeing problem,” Meghan said. “This is a human problem. And what’s happening to all of us online is affecting us deeply offline.”

New story in Technology from Time: ‘What Will You Sacrifice for the Truth?’ Maria Ressa Discusses Misinformation and Social Platforms With Prince Harry and Renée DiResta

Maria Ressa urged U.S. voters to think about the kind of information ecosystem they want to live in when they vote in the Nov. 3 presidential election, in a TIME100 Talks discussion with Prince Harry and Renée DiResta.

Ressa, founder of Filipino news site Rappler, which is critical of President Roderigo Duterte, is currently facing six years in jail in the Philippines after a court found her guilty of “cyberlibel” in June. In 2018, she was one of four journalists and one news organization named as TIME’s Person of the Year.

“Every American going into elections, you can’t just think voting is enough,” Ressa told Harry, who was co-hosting the event for TIME. “You’re going to have to sit and ask yourself the same question I ask myself, which is: what will you sacrifice for the truth?”

In the 25-minute conversation, Harry, Ressa and DiResta, the research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, discussed how social media platforms have allowed for the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories while increasing the pressure on professional journalists to cater to an attention economy that often sacrifices nuance for sensationalism.

Ressa and DiResta agreed that the rise of algorithms geared toward increasing “engagement” on social media sites have led to the collapse of shared realities within democracies. “What we see are the things that are curated for us,” DiResta said. “The feed … is algorithmically ranking hierarchically what we are most likely to be receptive to, or want to pay attention to.” The result, Ressa said, is an erosion of democracy. “When you have a democracy, and an algorithm that is meant to exploit your weaknesses to keep you on the platform, when that is what determines the context of the messages that give meaning to your world, you’re really reduced to meaninglessness,” Ressa said. “The designs of the platforms themselves actually encourage ‘us’ against ‘them.’”

Prince Harry, who has been critical of the tabloid press for what he has called “relentless propaganda” targeting his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, agreed, shifting the conversation toward how social media platforms have put new pressures on the news media. “On social media, I don’t know how many characters you’re allowed on most of these things, but of course it’s going to anger people, of course it’s going to cause divisiveness because what should be a story of context … gets shrunk down into about one sentence,” he said. “And it enrages people because they’re making opinions or decisions based on that instant hit.’”

“As a journalist, that must be incredibly hard because there’s competition that is now being created where you have to get something online first,” Harry said, addressing Ressa. “And if you don’t then you lose out by however many millions of clicks, and then commercially you lose out as well. And then surely the pressure that’s coming from above to get that story online as quickly as possible, all of a sudden the importance of facts is sort of pushed to the side, so invariably there’s this struggle to get the story first, and even if there isn’t a story, 24 hour news cycle, you gotta fill the space. You’ve gotta create the news.”

“Media is a huge responsibility and a huge power, and it’s a privilege,” Harry said. “But the moment that it gets taken out of responsible hands, then you have uncharted territory — chaos, one might describe it as.”

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New story in Technology from Time: Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Discuss Misinformation With Silicon Valley’s Biggest Critics

Anyone who has watched The Social Dilemma already knows that technology has fundamentally warped the way we see the world. But Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have become invested in holding technology companies accountable for the misinformation spread on platforms like Facebook. For a special TIME100 Talks hosted by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the couple sat down with two experts Tristan Harris, a Silicon Valley veteran who co-founded the Center of Humane Technology and appeared in The Social Dilemma, and Safiya Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression.

During the discussion, Noble touched on Meghan’s own experience being the target of online hate. Noble explained that if you are part of a community “targeted with hate, disinformation, calls for genocide, calls for racist violence against you, misogyny, as Meghan I know you know so profoundly, the technologies are able to…amplify those kinds of messages and those kinds of harms,” says Noble. “The harms don’t just live in the platform. They often extend to shaping behaviors that people also act upon.”

Harris added that technology companies’ profit imperative thrives on disinformation, controversial opinions or fake news. “They are competing to seduce us with that promise of virality,” he says, citing the hashtags that promise billions of views on a single TikTok video. “But of course that doesn’t reward what’s true, what’s credible, or what is really good for society.”

And though he suggests that people try to take back control of what content they do and don’t choose to consume, ultimately, he argues, individuals simply cannot put down their phones in a world that relies so heavily on tech: “To make it a personal responsibility for a systemic, oppressive issue is what’s inhumane.”

It’s up to the tech companies to self-regulate their content—or, failing that, governments to step in and impose restrictions. When Meghan and Harry asked how the truth might win out over virility, both Noble and Harris cast doubts as to whether the tech companies could be trusted to self police: Noble argues they have failed to do so, calling them “foxes guarding the henhouse”.

New story in Technology from Time: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Speaks with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex About Building a Better Tech Industry

When Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian decided to take action in support of racial equality and Black Lives Matter this June, he made a surprising move: stepping back to let someone else lead. He resigned his position on the company’s board, and publicly urged the social media platform to replace him with a Black board member.

But while Ohanian hoped that his decision would make room for someone else on Reddit’s board, he says that he hopes his decision is only the first step both for him personally, and for the social media company. In conversation with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex for a special TIME100 Talks on social media and our online lives, Ohanian discussed the importance of considering the role that social media and technology companies play in society—and the importance of having diverse perspectives among the people who build them.

According to Ohanian, his experience as husband to tennis legend Serena Williams and as father to their daughter Olympia, has pushed him to think about his role in the world—and the legacy he’s leaving behind.

“I just can’t help but want to create a world that is just fair to my daughter,” Ohanian said. “And I know that that’s lofty, but it’s a thing worth striving toward. And you know, I’m gonna work every day to get a little better.”

Read the full transcript of the Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Ohanian below:

MEGHAN, DUCHESS OF SUSSEX: Hi everyone, I am here with my friend Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, an investor and also a founder of VC Funds 776, Alexis, thanks for being here.

ALEXIS OHANIAN: Well thank you for having me Meghan.

MEGAN: It feels very official, different from our normal chats. I’m glad that you’re here and what we’re talking about today is obviously so important and something that you are so knowledge in obviously as a founder with Reddit.

But I think if you don’t mind we can jump right into it because it made a lot of news and garnered attention when you decided to step back from your board seat at Reddit and instead to ask if they give that seat to a person of color and specifically someone who is black.

And I think you know that resonated with people in a huge way especially because you said you were doing it because you were inspired by your daughter Olympia. Can you tell us a little bit about the thinking behind that and what it’s been since you made that choice?

OHANIAN: Yeah. Well you know I just remarked recently on Twitter that given that I am still getting hate mail about it I knew I made the right choice. Because sadly, you know we’re at a place in this country where there is still a lot of work to be done, a lot of work to be done.

And when I looked at – when I looked at the positions that I occupied, especially one, Reddit is a multibillion dollar company, has a lot of influence on the world, especially in the United States.

And I thought about the role that it plays and the role that all social media companies play in our society and the world that it’s shaping for everyone including people like my daughter, like my wife, I knew that I had a responsibility to be able to answer her when she asked me in ten years when she’s a snarky teenager, you know what I did to help be a part of making things better for her.

And I’m happy to see that since you know that resignation protest, you know Reddit started making a lot of changes to improve the content, you know banning a ton of communities really built around hate and started to enforce more seriously a lot of these policies, I know there’s a lot more work to be done, and I hope that this is really a first step for me to try to just be more deliberate min the work that I’m doing and frankly more effective in the work that I’m doing to create a better future for my daughter and lots of other people who look like her.

Because frankly, it’s gonna mean a better outcome for all of us. And so I actually have kind of selfish motivations for that too. Companies are going to be more successful the more diversity they have because that means a broader range of ideas.

We’re seeing more and more studies that show just how healthy that is for boardroom conversations all the way down to the most junior employees to have those diversities of thought and experience. And frankly this is long overdue.

And I’ve been heartened when I have seen other people in similar positions who have stepped down to create opportunities for people of color. I still, you know I don’t have to look too hard to see there’s a lot more work to be done. And you know I’m happy to sign myself up for that, because I owe it to – I owe it to a lot of people and I’m ready for the challenge.

MEGAN: Well you know one of the things that you had said actually on the heels of a piece that my husband had written for Fast Company, you wrote leaders lead. And I think that’s what you’re doing. Just let me thank you for saying that about the work that he’s doing is something obviously we’re both really passionate about.

But that’s what you’re doing, you are leading by example. And I think, you know, I’m sorry to hear that you’re still receiving hate mail. I know we have shared experiences in being in interracial marriages and you know raising small children who are of mixed race and how that plays into that.

But I think you know to touch on what you were saying earlier, what do you think that we’re losing in a broader sense when we don’t have that level of representation, not just in the companies themselves but in what the content is and how it’s being shared. I mean you touched on it there about the diversity not just of color but the diversity of thought, all of that is so key.

And I think perhaps you can address for people the damage that it actually does in the absence of that.

OHANIAN: Yeah, I mean I think – you know we’re having a – we’re having quite a year in 2020. And I think this has absolutely been a year of reflection and it’s one that I think will continue for many years to come.

And in particular if we look at the platforms and specifically in technology and in social media that have shaped so much of how we live, how we work, how we play, how we get informed, everything, you know you look at all of us who created those platforms and there is a common thread among all of us.

We all look the same. We all had very similar education experiences and backgrounds. And the way that has now played out and manifested fifteen years later is the culmination of frankly a lot of blind spots. And I say this you know knowing that there’s a generation of CEOs who I meet now who are sort of the version of me but you know fifteen years later, fresh out of college, starting something that they know one day will be, or really truly believe will be a world changing type company, who have so much more perspective than I did.

Who it goes with the saying – without saying, more often than not also don’t look like me. But even if they do have much more perspective on it. And what they’re realizing is when we talk about culture within an organization, you know people and culture, I think a lot of people originally thought of as just being like a rebrand of HR, human resources.

But what we are now seeing crystal clearly is that smart investments in people and in culture early. And that means thinking deliberately and intentionally about the values you want to create at a firm. Thinking about the way you want to do hiring, the way you want to do onboarding.

Because the kinds of environments you want to create for employees to feel welcome and feel included and feel a sense of belonging, those pay huge dividends over five, ten, fifteen years when you get them right. Because it means your retention is higher. It means it’s easier to bring on and recruit top talent. And it means that you have more voices in the room when you’re making even simple product decisions.

Because you have different perspectives. You have someone who can actually say and is empowered to say or ideally is in a position of power to say, we need to build this differently, because this – this just won’t work for me, or people who look like me because of some unintended consequence that well intentioned people just won’t get, won’t see.

And I’m – I’m excited because like I said at the end of the day, there is a strong capitalist reason to want this, aside from the obvious societal one. And as more and more companies realize that and are able to show that this is not just the right thing to do from a societal standpoint, but the right thing to do from a business standpoint, I think it really starts to get momentum.

And it’s important. This work, we’re seeing the – we’re seeing the implications, we’re seeing the results of not doing it and we can’t gt started soon enough.

MEGAN: Well and I think also, you know as you remember we were, Harry and I just convened a small gathering just a month or so ago and you weren’t able to make it unfortunately.

But in your absence you recommended someone to come in your place I think was so beneficial for us to have that added perspective from John because what he was able to share is in conjunction with, as you put it, it’s almost like if I knew then what I know now, how differently would Reddit look now, if you had this sort of knowledge?

And in knowing that, what you are trying to create right now, which I think is just so impressive and necessary is speaking to all the things that you have from this leaned experience, having – having seen what’s happened through Reddit and other platforms, can you touch on that a little bit?

OHANIAN: Yeah. And you know John is the CEO of a company I invested in called Sentropy. He took all of his experience building you know machine learning. So artificial intelligence to basically teach robots how to read. And he used this to build a business he sold to Apple. He could have spent his remaining years just living a great comfortable life there.

But instead he wanted to start a company to make social media safer for his children and for everyone’s children. And we reached a breakthrough in the last couple of years where technology is now actually capable of reading and understanding language in a way that it never could before.

And so in the past, if you wanted to ban a racial epithet, you could by uploading you know a list of five hundred ways to type that word. And you’d do an okay job, but inevitably bad actors would find ways to.

MEGAN: Slip through the yeah.

OHANIAN: Yeah. And we still see examples of this to this day, where you know in the wake of Ahmaud Arbery being murdered, communities were using the word jogger as a racial epithet for the N word. And without as lot of humans staying on top of it in community management, it’s impossible to really try to keep tabs on.

Now thanks to this kind of technology it can be detected in real time. When I look back at fifteen years of building a platform like Reddit and all of our social media peers, and I looked forward to the new sort of what’s to come, investing in those types of tools, those trust in safety type of tools is something that all of us you know as an industry sort of put off because what was most important was growth, and not far behind that was in revenue.

And what we are realizing now is those two really important things are actually very much tied to the toxicity of our platforms. People actually do churn out once they have enough bad experiences, there’s actually a business reason to intervene when those harassment situations happen, when that toxicity starts to build up.

And now that we’re finally connecting the dots as an industry I think we’ll start to see more change, but it hasn’t happened fast enough. And frankly it’s sad on the one hand that it’s had to become a business decision. But the fact that it is now sort of tied to the key drivers of the business, it means that it can’t be undone.

We now have to think of the trust and safety of our users, just as importantly as we think about growth and just as importantly as we think about revenue.

MEGAN: Well and also the trust and safety of the employees, right? Because I think building the technology that can help cite those things and help safeguard everyone is key if you think about moderators and what they’re exposed to and the psychological offshoring that happens for so many people.

I was just reading about an employee of the YouTube who has just filed a lawsuit for the posttraumatic stress they’re experiencing because of the types of vitriol they have to read through without any emotional wellbeing support to go home with.

Can you imagine carrying that every day? So it’s really, it’s everyone that ends up being affected by it because someone has to tease through it unless as you say, what Sentropy’s doing, being able to find the technology that can help keep all of us safe in that.

OHANIAN: That is right. And it is, it is a toll that we are only starting to – only starting to recognize. And you’re right, a lot of companies in the past have literally offshored this to other countries, and some of that work is being done by Americans.

But regardless, it’s being done by human beings who you’re right, pay the mental and emotional toll of looking at awful content day in and day out. And the – the only – I’ll say the one silver lining on this is the number of reasonable decent people far exceeds the vitriolic awful people.

If anything I still do have more hope than ever in decent good people, in spite of everything else, I still – I still do believe that. And so part of this is about building the technology and building the tools to make sure that that small vitriolic, awful group is – does not have a platform to spread their beliefs and spread that kind of hate.

MEGHAN: You’re right, the good outweighs the bad, but my goodness the loud can be – the bad can be so loud, the damage that happens as a result of that is just – I think you’ve talked about and you tweeted recently that we haven’t yet begun to realize the legacy and the effects that all of these platforms and what social media and what the online space is doing to all of us on a deeper level.

And that’s what I think people haven’t realized. We’re in it now, but we have a chance to get ourselves out of it.

OHANIAN: Mhmm. We – you know I was – I was a history major at UVA and I studied post World War II sort of postwar Germany, the de-Nazification process basically that both West and East Germany went through.

And I never thought it would serve me now fifteen years later, but in a way it is. Because I do think there’s gonna be some work that will need to be done to de-radicalize a generation, especially here in the United States who you know predominantly white, predominantly male, feeling very disaffected and sort of left behind and frustrated by a lot of things, and who’ve found solace, who’ve found community, who’ve found kinship in dark corners that normalized really socially toxic behavior.

Whether it was racism, or misogyny, I mean you can sadly see this. And I think historians will have the receipts, they’ll be able to see this sort of paper trail. And I think more and more of these stories are starting to surface and more and more manifestos will be published and we’ll get a sort of much more raw and real and tragic glimpse into this.

But I think that is gonna be a lot of the important work of the next decade or so, to try to find ways, not just to curb the abuse going forward, but also to sort of reintegrate folks who you know have used these platforms to find community around sone of the most vile things.

And it’s – it is the gift and the curse of this technology, because we can now commune online in a way that is – it is really as real as offline. I think for a long time people were very skeptical that you could build a relationship with a stranger on the internet about your love of Pokémon that’s just as real as your best friend at the office who you see every day, or you used to see every day.

But the reality is, I think we all have examples now, and it’s pretty statistically significant, of people who have built very close relationships and friendships with people they don’t even know offline.

MEGHAN: Yes, sometimes even closer than the ones they have in real life.

OHANIAN: Precisely. And so if we can accept that, and we understand that and we believe that, then it is not a leap to consider the effect of what this done for recruiting, what this does for those really abhorrent, awful sort of ideologies and communities that can be formed.

Because yeah, it’s a great thing and we should celebrate it when you find someone else who loves Pokémon as much as you do, that’s great. Like you know and there are plenty of things that are either as benign as Pokémon or as wonderful as you know being in a community where being out is a problem and finding LGBT community online that you can speak to truthfully and candidly and openly.

And so there’s that spectrum. But those online relationships are just as real when they are negative. And what starts even almost sometimes gets waved off as being just a joke, or oh that’s just offensive humor, is a way to actually normalize really problematic behavior.

And I think that’s gonna be the really difficult accounting that we’ll have to have in the next ten years where we sort of – we figure out how to bring a lot of those folks back to deradicalize. Because these are – you know there’s – we talk a lot about the propaganda and the misinformation, but this is like – this is the beer hall.

And it’s not, you know eighty, ninety, you know in the ‘30s that beerhall was somewhere that you could go on a Tuesday night to sort of you know build that community and create that toxicity. But today, that beer hall is on our smart phone and we can visit it any time we want to. We can be right back into that community setting and that sort of normalization anytime.

MEGHAN: Well I think to your point as well that, you know, I was reading this piece in The Wall Street Journal, I’m you saw it, it was months and months ago. But one of the statistics that they shared was on Facebook, 64% of people who are joining extremist groups are joining it because it’s recommended to them.

So when you think about your own user experience of going online and your experience is being shaped by something that is pushing you in the direction that you may have not even been looking, but you’re vulnerable, or you’re bored, or you’re craving community, whatever it is, that one thing that opens this gateway to so many other things that takes you down a path that you weren’t even intending to go, but as you’re saying the adverse effect of that is tremendous.

And I think you know for us to be able to really – we were talking about this earlier, harness, how do we now reframe this space for good? How do we use all of the positive stuff that is part of the online space and try to create a community that is really focusing on that and empowering people in that vein?

As opposed to this vitriol that we’re seeing. And I think just, you know as we sort of wrap up one of the things that I would ask you is a lot of the sort washing of the hands that comes up and the lack of accountability is from the space of, well what really is hate speech. Which I don’t think that’s in question, but that does come up for a lot of people. Or how does a content moderator know if that’s just a joke, as you were sort of suggesting, some people say. Or if that’s true.

And how you monitor that in a way to keep everyone who’s on those platforms safe and not taken in the wrong direction.

OHANIAN: Yeah. Well, I’ll use – I’ll stretch the beer hall analogy a little further. Which is to say if I – and I love a good beer, so you know if I own a beer hall, I ultimately get to decide what my beer hall policy is. And that beer hall policy can be stricter than the policy of let’s say the country the beer hall is in.

And I can say actually no, the kind of environment I want to create at this beer hall is this, that, and the other. And that is the ultimate responsibility of a private business, right. They – you know – you know, free speech laws obviously vary country to country.

But if we just start with the United States, we have a framework created by the government which is the you know designed to be sort of among the most free possible. But as a private company, as an owner operator of a beer hall, we actually get to decide, no, buddy, you’ve had enough to drink, like we don’t want you to be here. Or like we don’t want your group organizing here, this is just not why we built this beer hall.

We got a lot of people who patronize this beer hall, and we just decided you’re some of the folks we don’t want to serve anymore. That is fully within the rights of a private business. And for too long basically it will never suffice to simply say oh, you know, we’re just a platform.

Because we know just how much of an impact it has. We know how much it actually informs, how much of the – I mean media is in the name social media. So I don’t know how – how that worked for so long. Like no, no, you can’t – you can’t say platform when you’re actually calling yourself a social media site, like it’s in the name. It’s media.

MEGHAN: And there’s responsibility with that, there’s responsibility in media, there’s responsibility in journalism, you’re responsible for what is being pushed out there. Just like in broadcast. But somehow the platforms have – have created a space where they are not subject to that same sort of jurisdiction. And it’s troubling. But you’re right, I mean I’d like to be at your beer hall, because it sounds – it sounds like a good happy, positive place.

OHANIAN: And it turns out, that beer hall actually would be really, really popular, because the vast, vast majority of people don’t want that in their beer hall so to speak.

MEGHAN: And that the owners would still make money. That’s the thing, and that the business is still successful.

OHANIAN: Yes. And in fact would be more so because people are more engaged and it’s – the only other sort of point I’ll make sure to make here is it’s also worth pointing out while often it’s said, well look, these communities can still organize elsewhere.

And that’s true, right. The internet itself is an unregulatable entity. But there is a huge difference that is made when platforms either explicitly or implicitly basically cosign these communities. And so like – and this is something you know that – that I think – I think we’ll ultimately be getting more and more scrutiny even at a government level.

But right – there is an impact that it has when you’re used to – you know you’re – you’re scrolling through a news feed of, oh a cute photo of your nephew, oh, you know my uncle just got a promotion and then oh, some weird – some racist conspiracy theory. And that normalization, it’s different if you know you’ve got to go to jenky url.com to find, to know.

MEGHAN: That’s a really good point.

OHANIAN: That – as a user, you feel like – I mean, and I – we – we – I think we far too often separate online offline, like these are – they’re actually more similar than we realize. And so it’s the difference between opening up that sort of civilized newspaper or watching that – that sort of typical news station, and then seeing yeah, you know family photos and then craziness. It in a way.

MEGHAN: It conflates it.

MEGHAN: Normalizes the craziness.

MEGHAN: You’re right.

OHANIAN: Absolutely.

MEGHAN: That’s absolutely right.

OHANIAN: And that – that has another role to play in it and it’s one where – like I said, I think we’ll be spending a lot of time working to undo and fix a lot of this stuff. I’m grateful for the work obviously that you and Harry have done and I know will continue to do.

Because it’s just – I don’t know, I – and I’ll admit, you know it’s on the one hand it’s – it’s – it is disappointing to know that so much of this perspective I only really got once I, you know, once I – I married, well started dating but then certainly once I married my wife and once we had our daughter, it leveled it up to another – another place.

Where yeah, I – I mean we talked about this often, I just never – I’ve had so many moments in my life where I was given the benefit of the doubt, where I never felt unsafe, where I always felt heard, where I did not realize until I was in a relationship with someone who has achieved as much as she has and still regularly deals with this in painful frustrating ways.

And as a husband you just get outraged, and then especially now in the role as a father, I just can’t help but want to create a world that is just fair to my daughter. And I know that that’s lofty, but it’s a thing worth – worth striving toward. And you know, I’m – I’m gonna work every day to get a little better.

MEGHAN: Thank you so much, honestly, and just all of your insight, I think it’s gonna help a lot of people to better understand why we’re all so passionate about this, but mostly just thank you for doing the work and leading the way and finding solutions, not just for all of us, but for your little girl, for our little boy, for all of us. So we really appreciate it, thank you.

OHANIAN: Thank you for having me.

New story in Technology from Time: The Justice Department’s Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google Isn’t Enough to Stop the Abuses of Big Tech

This week’s Department of Justice antitrust suit against Google is the agency’s first major case against Big Tech since the 1998 Microsoft suit. It comes on the heels of a 451-page report by the House Antitrust Subcommittee that enumerates the dubious and harmful practices of the dominant digital companies and proposes the reinvigoration of the antitrust laws. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly not far behind with its own antitrust action against Facebook.

All these initiatives are important, but they are not sufficient.

The abusive practices of the dominant digital platforms are so widespread and have become so embedded that there is no single solution. What is needed is a cocktail of remedies that blends antitrust with ongoing regulatory oversight.

Mixing such a blend begins with establishing goals for the outcome. It is not necessary to invent new expectations, but to simply return to the common law concepts that Big Tech has ignored. The common law duty of care provides that a company should anticipate adverse effects of its actions and mitigate them. The common law duty to deal establishes that the provider of an essential service has the responsibility to provide impartial access to that activity.

The industrial era produced unrivaled innovation and prosperity while being governed by these common law concepts. The internet era has seen the digital companies make their own rules while selling the elixir that government oversight would spoil the magic of their innovation.

The House report and Department of Justice lawsuit have laid bare the results of the companies assuming a pseudo-government role. The dominant digital-platform companies have become gatekeepers controlling access to consumers and competitive assets. Such concentrated monopoly power is what the antitrust laws were created to prevent. Unfortunately, however, antitrust suits are reliably lengthy proceedings with uncertain outcomes. Recent court decisions constraining antitrust authority, coupled with the challenge of applying industrial-era statutes to the digital economy, cry out for the institution of timely ongoing and agile oversight of the dominant digital companies.

Even if antitrust enforcement results in structural reform of the marketplace, it does not establish broad behavioral expectations in that marketplace. Breaking a big company into smaller parts does not ensure against the smaller companies developing their own abusive behaviors. Antitrust, for instance, cannot reach consumer-protection issues such as forced consent to the use of your personal information, or require that consumers receive basic information about how their personal data is being used. Most important, antitrust decisions do not have the flexibility to respond to companies’ ever-changing use of ever-evolving technology.

The digital-oversight cocktail, therefore, needs to include the ability to establish industry-wide behavioral rules in addition to antitrust enforcement. Historically, the federal government has established a specialized agency to deal with new and specialized circumstances created by new technology, from the regulation of nuclear safety to highway safety to financial markets. The Federal Communications Commission, for instance, was established to oversee the new technology of broadcasting.

While the House report encourages expansion of the FTC’s authority, we have reached the point in our digital trajectory where we need a new regulatory agency with digital DNA. This is not to cast aspersions on the dedicated professionals in existing agencies, but those agencies were created to deal with industrial-era issues. To ask an agency such as the FTC to oversee issues as diverse as funeral-home practices, McDonald’s franchises and robocalls, and then add to that the continuing oversight of the fast-paced digital platforms is to create false expectations.

The regulatory muscle memory of old agencies was developed in a time when relatively stable technology produced relatively stable markets. The new digital agency must have new procedures designed to keep up with the accelerated pace of change.

The old regulatory ideal in which government micromanaged companies is similarly out of date in markets driven by digital dynamism. Thus, the question “how to regulate” becomes as important as “what to regulate.” Rigid, top-down, bureaucratic policies that often required prior approval for innovation has been sabotaged by the fast pace of the digital era. Digital oversight must be built around risk management rather than micromanagement. Such a new approach would identify specific harms – such as the siphoning of personal information, or the hoarding of data to prevent new competition – and target policies to address such behavior.

The federal government has become proficient at doing again what it did yesterday. These policies and procedures, however, have been ambushed by the future. Yes, antitrust reform and enforcement is important. But if we’re really serious about returning competition and consumer protect to the digital economy, it’s simply not enough to look backward and redress a harm that has already occurred. We need to couple antitrust with a new vehicle for public-interest oversight to prevent abuses in the first place.

 

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Lawmakers hail DOJ antitrust lawsuit against Google as 'long overdue'

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Trump accuses Biden family of 'tremendous corruption,' says attorney general must 'act'

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To mute or not? The Presidential Debate Commission just adopted a new rule

10/19/20 5:05 PM

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SCOTUS leaves in place ruling that extends mail-in ballot deadline in Pennsylvania three days after election

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Senate Judiciary Committee considers subpoenas for Twitter, Facebook bosses over censoring NY Post's Hunter Biden stories

10/19/20 3:28 PM

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Parts of Alaska under tsunami warning after reported 7.4 earthquake

10/19/20 2:37 PM

New story in Technology from Time: Star Wars: Squadrons Crams Tons of Fun in a Tiny Cockpit

I’m flying through the Nadiri Dockyards, where the New Republic constructs warships to take on the ever-expanding Galactic Empire. In my X-Wing starfighter, I’m being followed by an enemy TIE Bomber set on turning me into space dust. Hit after hit knocks out my shield until I decide to hide behind an asteroid, kill the engine, and watch as they zoom by, landing right in my sights. “You’re a galactic pain in my ass!” I scream to my silent squadmates when the shot connects, leaving only a shower of sparks and debris as evidence of my deft maneuver. It’s my fifth kill in a row, the final kill of the match, and the last one needed to win the dogfight by a single point. I realize I’m on the edge of my seat and slump back into my chair, basking in the feeling of a job well done, and itching to tell everyone that Star Wars: Squadrons is the most fun you’ll have in a virtual cockpit.

But, like a backyard barbecue or round of paintball in the woods, it’s better with friends.

Squadrons, EA’s multiplayer-focused space combat game (developed by Motive Studios), is one in a long line of Star Wars tie-ins that put you in the pilot’s seat of your own nostalgia-fueled fantasy vehicle. This time, you play as two green pilots on either side of the war between good and evil: the Jedi-loving New Republic Navy’s Anvil Squad, and the Galactic Empire’s Titan Squad. During the game’s single-player campaign you bounce between sides, flying up to eight different ships for both sides.

The game’s story, ostensibly about a turncoat Galactic Empire officer being hunted by the team who trusted him, is short enough to be filled with incredibly exciting set pieces, but long enough to frustrate you with predictable and boring out-of-cockpit scenes. At times I found myself laughing at the bland dialogue, and once audibly groaned when a character’s last ditch effort to take down the Galactic Empire involved—you guessed it—flying through a tiny corridor to shoot some missiles into a hole. Sound familiar?

Also, not a single Jedi or Force user? Come on!

But once you’re in the cockpit, Squadrons does a fantastic job of making you feel like you’re actually, well, flying. To manage your energy levels for systems like weapons and engines, check your radar for enemies, or figure out how many proton torpedos you have left, you’ll have to look at those flight instruments, friend—hard to do when you’re dodging giant rocks, lasers, and bombs.

Each ship has its own strengths and weaknesses—TIE Bombers deal more damage at the expense of mobility; A-Wing starfighters sacrifice durability for better maneuvering. That adds up to a very interesting combination of ships when it comes to five-on-five multiplayer matches, the game’s main selling point. Ships also offer customizable loadouts, letting you equip different engine types or armaments to suit your tastes, be they speedy flybys or head-on assaults.

What’s particularly exciting about Squadrons is the inclusion of cross-platform play. Players can compete across consoles and computers, providing you with a pool of potential squadmates to team up with or enemies to take down. Unfortunately, you learn pretty quickly you’re not the hot-shot pilot you think you are, and it’s not because you didn’t log enough hours in flight school.

Squadrons allows you to control your ship with either a controller, mouse and keyboard, or HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick), essentially a flight joystick used to control planes in other games like Microsoft’s Flight Simulator or the Ace Combat series of military dogfighting games. You can also use a virtual reality headset to immerse yourself in your cockpit, turning your head to give yourself a better view of the scene compared to others not using VR.

In a game like Squadrons, your controls can mean the difference between mediocrity or believing you’re the most dangerous threat to anyone in the galaxy willing to try their luck against you. Playing with a controller is easy enough, but it’s hard to navigate through a field of asteroids unless you’re logging hours learning the ropes. Making split-second decisions against competitors with a more intuitive setup puts you at a disadvantage, and made me wish I could filter out HOTAS-equipped players.

Multiplayer matches are an exercise in tactics—when you can convince your squadmates to follow directions. Matches take place on up to six different maps, and range from traditional team deathmatch dogfights to Fleet Battles, which have you alternating between attacking enemy capital ships and defending your own from oncoming opponents. These high stakes tug-of-war battles are where the game shines, but also where its biggest weakness lies.

See, in Star Wars films, there’s chatter all over the pilot’s comms. Team leaders direct squadmates to focus on particular enemies or weak points on enemy ships, while squadmates call for backup if they find themselves outgunned. Unfortunately, that only works if you have a squad willing to literally talk the talk. Oftentimes I found myself the only person on my team speaking, directing teammates where to go or asking for a little assistance if someone was on my tail. You can issue commands with your controller of choice, but it lacks the urgency you need in the middle of a heated dogfight. There’s no “I can’t shake ‘em!” button, you know? Sometimes, even on the winning team, it felt a bit lonely out there in space.

If you love Star Wars, you’ll love Star Wars: Squadrons. If you love dogfighting, you’ll also love Squadrons. If you don’t mind being destroyed by someone with a controller setup that makes them a god among mortals on the battlefield, you’ll enjoy Squadrons. But take our advice, and stick to the practice mode first.

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Trump campaign asks Debate Commission to change topics to emphasize foreign policy at Thursday's event

10/19/20 12:42 PM

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DOJ charges 6 Russian military hackers with attacking Olympic Games, unleashing malware, phishing campaigns

10/19/20 10:49 AM

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Supreme Court agrees to hear key cases on Trump immigration policies

10/19/20 6:59 AM

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No intelligence tying Hunter Biden emails to Russian disinformation campaign: DNI Ratcliffe

10/19/20 5:36 AM

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Dodgers beat Braves to advance to World Series

10/18/20 9:02 PM

New story in Technology from Time: Twitter Blocks Post From Trump Science Adviser That Falsely Claimed Masks Don’t Work

(NEW YORK) — Twitter blocked a post Sunday from an adviser to President Donald Trump who suggested that masks do not work to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Scott Atlas, who joined the White House in August as a science adviser, had tweeted “Masks work? NO,” and said widespread use of masks is not supported.

The tweet violated a Twitter policy that prohibits sharing false or misleading misinformation about COVID-19 that could lead to harm, a company spokesperson said. The policy bans statements that have been confirmed to be false or misleading by experts such as public health authorities.

In such cases, Twitter disables the account until its owner deletes the post in question.

Trump has downplayed the importance of masks in reducing the spread of the virus, even after he contracted the disease, which has killed more than 215,000 Americans.

“I don’t understand why the tweets were deleted,” Atlas said in an email, calling Twitter’s actions censorship. He said his tweet was intended to show that “general population masks and mask mandates do not work,” and he clarified that the correct policy is to use masks when one cannot socially distance. Atlas added that infections exploded even with mandates in Los Angeles County, Miami-Dade County, Hawaii, Alabama, the Philippines, Japan and other places.

Researchers have concluded that masks can control the spread of the virus, and public health experts have urged the public to wear them. But Trump and his team often go without masks while campaigning.

Atlas, the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, has no expertise in public health or infectious diseases. He has criticized the coronavirus lockdowns and campaigned for children to return to classrooms. Some scientists view Atlas as promoting dangerous theories around “herd immunity.”

Last week, Twitter and Facebook moved quickly to limit the spread of an unverified political story published by the conservative-leaning New York Post. The story cited unverified emails from Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son, and it has not been confirmed by other publications. There have been no new tweets from the Post since Oct. 14, indicating Twitter may still be blocking the newspaper’s tweets.

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Associated Press Writer Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.