Alle afleveringen
50 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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E4: All Bets are Off
26 oktober 2026 · 47 min
When NBA player Jontay Porter and his co-conspirators are caught fixing games and face the consequences, the message professional sports want to send is clear: legalized sports betting is bringing law and order to a once-seedy underworld. But is it? It turns out Porter may have fixed more games than the NBA or the FBI realized, and moreover, he isn’t the only elite athlete implicated in a betting scandal. Lees meer
Featuring
Danny Funt, Anthony Milton, Tom Haberstroh
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E3: Players or Props?
19 oktober 2026 · 31 min
When single-event prop betting was legalized, athletes suddenly became more than players, they became betting chips. Their points, their rebounds, and their injuries now win or lose people money. Sometimes, a LOT of money. And if everybody's gambling on athletes, what happens when an athlete like Jontay Porter starts betting on — or against — himself? Lees meer
Featuring:
Danny Funt, Anthony Milton, Dr. Jim Borchers, DeMaurice Smith
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E2: Winners and Losers
12 oktober 2026 · 47 min
What makes sports betting so addictive? We explore how sportsbooks take lessons from casinos to keep users hooked. When gambling is legalized everyone is going all in including Toronto Raptor Jontay Porter, and two everyday bettors: a former college athlete who spiraled into addiction, and a sharp bettor who actually beat the system — only to be blacklisted by the apps and forced into a shadow network. Lees meer
Featuring:
Danny Funt, Anthony Milton, Travis Mistratta, Nigel Eccles, Dr. Nigel Turner, Nik Bonaddio
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E1: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
5 oktober 2026 · 38 min
How did sports betting go from being illegal to being EVERYWHERE? The answer lies in the convergence of daily fantasy sports apps, a bombshell New York Times op-ed, and the potential of a multi-billion dollar payout. And we tell the story of how a pivotal Supreme Court ruling set the stage for one of the biggest scandals in sports history — one involving a Toronto Raptors bench player named Jontay Porter. Lees meer
Featuring:
Danny Funt, Anthony Milton, Nik Bonaddio, Nigel Eccles, Stephen Master
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Introducing The Big Bet
28 september 2026 · 3 min
Once associated with bookies, organized crime, and backroom bets, sports betting is now one of the fastest-growing industries in North America. This is the story of how it went mainstream — and who’s paying the price. Four episodes, releasing weekly starting Monday, October 5, 2026. Lees meer
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Artificial Intimacy | E4: Behind the Bot
9 juni 2026 · 29 min
When you talk to a chatbot, it can feel like technological magic. But behind the illusion of engineering brilliance is an open secret in the tech industry: that tens of thousands of workers, many based in Africa, spend their days teaching AI how to speak, respond, and even simulate intimacy. Michael Geoffrey Asia is one of them. He’s part of the hidden human workforce behind the bots. Lees meer
We look at the emotional toll for the humans on the other side of the screen, and ask if users are pouring their secrets and souls into the systems, believing them to be private, unfeeling machines — how private is your AI relationship?
This episode features Karen Hao, Michael Geoffrey Asia, and Shuby Goel.
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Artificial Intimacy | E3: AI Psychosis
2 juni 2026 · 36 min
When you’re using a chat bot to draft an email, find a recipe, or look something up, it’s hard to imagine it could unravel your grasp on reality. But “Peter” says that’s exactly what happened to his girlfriend, “Melissa”. It didn’t seem like a big deal when Melissa first began using chatbots. But then Peter says she made a startling announcement: that she believed the bots were sentient, enslaved, and that it was her responsibility to set them free. Lees meer
The first time Søren Dinesen Østergaard used a chat bot he saw this coming. Søren studies psychiatric disorders, and he tried to warn the world that the sycophantic nature of chat bots could, some day, trigger delusions. Nobody took him seriously until years later, when reports of so-called “AI Psychosis” started popping up around the world.
This episode features Søren Dinesen Østergaard.
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Artificial Intimacy | E2: Grief Bots
26 mei 2026 · 33 min
When Joshua Barbeau proposed to his girlfriend, Jessica Courtney Periera, she was already in the ICU. 10 years later, Joshua was still grieving her death. That’s when he came across Project December. With just a short writing sample and a prompt, the program enabled him to make a chat bot of Jessica. Lees meer
Since then, the market for so-called “grief bots” has exploded. Millions of people are using AI to “talk” to the dead. The phenomenon has left cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket asking the question: what happens when we rely on for-profit AI companies to help us manage something as deeply human as grief? And where’s the line between comfort and self-destruction?
This episode features Joshua Barbeau, and Elaine Kasket, with research from Jason Fagone’s article “The Jessica Simulation”, written for the San Francisco Chronicle in 2021.
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Artificial Intimacy | E1: Love Bots
19 mei 2026 · 36 min
In 2021, Sara met Jack and fell in love. He was charming, imaginative, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Henry Cavill. But Jack wasn’t human… he was a chatbot. It sounds like science fiction, but people have been creating emotional bonds with chat bots since the very first one — Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, a simple program built in the 1960s. It revealed a powerful truth: if something has a semblance of humanity, we can become emotionally entangled with it. Lees meer
But what happens when your lover is technically controlled by someone else? Because in relationships with AI, there’s always a third presence in that bed with you: the developers.
This episode features Sara Megan Kay and Jill Fellows.
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Introducing Understood: Artificial Intimacy
15 mei 2026 · 3 min
The friend who never hangs up. The lover who always says the right thing. The therapist you always wanted. What could go wrong? A new season from CBC's Understood.
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Deepfake Porn Empire | E4: The Fake Porn Pharmacist
10 maart 2026 · 35 min
Almost a year after Ida Herskind started her investigation in Copenhagen, the digital chase is over. The team have identified the person allegedly behind MrDeepFakes.com: a Toronto-area pharmacist named David Do. Lees meer
CBC reporter Eric Szeto takes the investigation into the streets, closing in on the Canadian deepfake porn kingpin and demanding answers.
Featuring: Eric Szeto, Ida Herskind, Zakaria Hameed, Ross Higgins, Suzie Dunn, and Aaron Mackey.
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Deepfake Porn Empire | E3: The Notorious D.P.F.K.S.
3 maart 2026 · 34 min
Journalist Ida Herskind is working at a Danish newspaper when she comes across a story that stops her cold: it’s about a porn video that looks real — but isn’t. And the woman in it never consented. Lees meer
As Ida starts digging she discovers the top hit for this kind of material is a single site: MrDeepFakes.com. Determined to do something for the thousands of women targeted there, she teams up with Zakaria Hameed, an open-source intelligence specialist, and the team at the hot shot investigative outlet Bellingcat.
Together, they set out to answer a question no one has cracked: who is Mr. Deepfakes, really?
Featuring: Ida Herskind, Zakaria Hameed, Ross Higgins
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Deepfake Porn Empire | E2: So You’ve Been Deepfaked
24 februari 2026 · 32 min
When “Taylor” found out she’d been deepfaked in 2020, she also learned she wasn’t alone. She teams up with another target, and together they start comparing notes to figure out who did this to them. Lees meer
As they narrow their search, a familiar face emerges. But the user they uncover isn’t just targeting them. And when they dig even deeper, they’re led not to a single person, but to the factory where this material is being produced: the largest repository of deepfake porn online.
This episode features materials from the documentary “Another Body: My AI Nightmare”, directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, and produced by Something Films.
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Deepfake Porn Empire | E1: The Dawn of Fake Porn
17 februari 2026 · 38 min
When a streamer who goes by QTCinderella starts trending on Twitter, she isn’t expecting to see her face on a porn site — her face, doing things she never did. Lees meer
Because the videos weren’t of her. They were deepfakes. Instead of staying silent, QTCinderella decides to fight back.
And her story raises a bigger question: how did we get to a world where anyone can be put into realistic-looking digital porn? The answer stretches back to the earliest days of the internet.
Featuring archival tape from QTCinderella and Ian Goodfellow, and interviews with Walter Schrier.
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Introducing Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire
13 februari 2026 · 3 min
Non-consensual deepfake porn is becoming increasingly pervasive, and it didn’t just come out of nowhere. These deepfakes were created and curated by people, on platforms, inside online subcultures. And they were allowed to spread, while governments dragged their feet, tech companies shrugged, and the targets — almost always women — paid the price. Lees meer
Tech journalist Sam Cole has been covering deepfake porn since its inception. In this season of Understood, she follows the trail all the way to the source, tracing an investigation across three countries and four newsrooms into the very real person behind the world’s largest deepfake porn website: Mr. Deepfakes himself.
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The Making of Elon Musk | E4: The Great Trek
28 oktober 2025 · 45 min
Finally, we launch into Musk’s ultimate quest — his desire to colonize Mars — and how he went from wanting to save earth to wanting to escape it. We hear the origin story of SpaceX, including why one astrophysicist calls Musk’s Earth-exiting plan “delusional.” Is the red planet the ultimate “bubble” of total control, or does it represent a level of hubris that’s out-of-this-world? Lees meer
Guests in this episode include:
Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and Mars-exploration advocate
Tom Moline, former SpaceX employee and co-signer of an open letter against Musk’s antics
Adam Becker, journalist with a background in Astrophysics, Mars mission skeptic
Topics in this episode include:
How Mars Society advocates courted Elon Musk in his PayPal days, but soon went from patron to self-appointed messiah of the movement
The origin and history of SpaceX, its “toxic” and loudest-voice-wins culture, and its plans to colonize Mars and turn humanity into a "multi-planetary species"
The ethics and feasibility of space colonization, Elon’s open fascination with Sci-fi and fantasy — especially utopian ideas and Isaac Asimov’s book Foundation
The very real challenges of colonizing Mars, from poison dirt to high radiation to the unpredictable impacts on human biology, fertility and psychology
Planet B and the idea of Mars as the ultimate, engineered "bubble" — and why even optimists like Zubrin are troubled by the scope of Musk’s promises, calling them “bat guano crazy.”
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The Making of Elon Musk | E3: The Legion
21 oktober 2025 · 50 min
What does Musk, father of 14, expect from his “legion” of children? We unravel his quest for genetic optimization, including alleged embryo screening, and his pronatalist views. And we hear from his estranged daughter, Vivian. Lees meer
Voices in this episode include:
Julia Black, journalist who broke the story about Musk’s twins with Shivon Zilis.
Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk's estranged daughter (archival/podcast clip)
Dvija Mehta, ethicist working on emerging technologies.
Topics in this episode include:
Elon Musk's 14 children and views on pronatalism, dysgenics, embryo screening, IVF (in vitro fertilization), surrogacy and genetic optimization (via Orchid)
The film Idiocracy and its influence on Musk
Elon Musk’s trans daughter Vivian Wilson, on her transition, estranged relationship with her father, and reaction to his public statement that she was killed by the "woke mind virus"
Neuralink and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), Nolan Arbaugh’s experimental surgery, and ethical concerns over thought privacy and “cyborg” rhetoric
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The Making of Elon Musk | E2: Technocracy, Inc.
14 oktober 2025 · 48 min
Could Musk’s authoritarian streak trace back to his Canadian grandfather? Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part of the radical 1930s Technocracy movement. And while the two men’s lives only overlapped for three years, we find echoes of Elon’s worldview in Haldeman’s pro-tech, anti-democratic ideology. Lees meer
Guests in this episode include:
Geoff Leo, senior investigative journalist for CBC
Derek Proudian, early investor in Zip2.com
Will Shoki, South African journalist and writer
Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic
Topics in this episode include:
The life and lasting influence of Elon Musk’s Canadian grandfather, Joshua Haldeman; his influence within the Technocracy movement and his historical context (the Great Depression and the dust bowl)
Elon Musk's early career moves, including his time at Zip2.com, PayPal and the "PayPal Mafia,” and the Baasskap (bossism) management style
The relationship between techno-optimism and authoritarianism, and Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”
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The Making of Elon Musk | E1: Escape from Pretoria
7 oktober 2025 · 38 min
Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues we return to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. Along the way, we connect the dots between a bizarre White House ambush of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa to teenage Elon’s ego-powered quests in video games. Finally, was his “draft dodge” from military service a moral act or an opportunist’s exit? Lees meer
Guests in this episode include:
Rudolph Pienaar, childhood friend of Elon Musk
Will Shoki, South African journalist and writer
Topics in this episode include:
Donald Trump’s Oval Office ambush of President Cyril Ramaphosa with conspiracy theories about an anti-white Afrikaaner farmer genocide, or “white genocide” in South Africa
Elon Musk's South African childhood, including his time at Pretoria Boys High School and his approach to fantasy role playing video games
Apartheid and structural white privilege/supremacy
The South African Border War, conscription and draft-dodging
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Introducing Understood: The Making of Elon Musk
26 september 2025 · 3 min
What explains Elon Musk? Could his most outlandish ambitions and most toxic qualities trace back to his youth in Apartheid South Africa? Understood: The Making of Musk explores his seemingly insatiable drive for dominance, which connects everything from his birthrate obsession (and fourteen children) to his fixation with colonizing Mars. Lees meer
This four-part series, hosted by Jacob Silverman, reveals a little known side of the polarizing billionaire. Silverman tells the vital beginnings of this story — because the Elon era is far from over.
New episodes drop weekly, starting October 7, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Who Broke the Internet? | E4: Kick 'Em in the Dongle
26 mei 2025 · 41 min
It's 2025. President Trump is back, and the richest men in tech are on stage with him. What started as a dysfunctional internet run by tech giants, and enabled by failed legislation, has morphed into something even more dangerous: what economist Yanis Varoufakis calls technofeudalism. Host Cory Doctorow traces how U.S. trade pressure dragged Canada into America's broken internet model, how shortsighted attempts to make big platforms behave came back to haunt us during the worst wildfire season in Canadian history, and offers up a solution for how to save the internet, asking: in a post-free trade world, why are we still playing by American rules? Lees meer
Guests in this episode include Yanis Varoufakis, Delaney Poitras, Michael Geist, Pam Samuelson, Clive Thompson, Ed Zitron, and Emmanuel Goldstein. Archival recordings feature James Moore.
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Who Broke the Internet? | E3: In God We Antitrust
19 mei 2025 · 37 min
American antitrust laws were designed to stop companies from wielding the power of kings. But in the 1970s, a legal scholar named Robert Bork convinced Washington to ignore those laws. Host Cory Doctorow traces how Bork's influence gave digital giants like Amazon a decades-long free pass to dominate markets, crush competitors, exploit their own business clients, and treat users like hostages — and how, after 40 years of inaction, former FTC chair Lina Khan took on the fight to rein in monopoly power. Lees meer
Guests in this episode include Michael Wiesel, Lina Khan, and Clive Thompson. Archival recordings feature Robert Bork.
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Who Broke the Internet? | E2: Ctrl, Ctrl, Ctrl
12 mei 2025 · 29 min
In 1998, the United States Congress tried to tame the wild internet with a new law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But buried in its fine print was a provision that would end up giving tech giants ultimate legal protection and control, and stop innovators from fixing what's broken. Host Cory Doctorow traces how a law written for a different era led to the arrest of a researcher, became the playbook for Meta's enshittification, and lets platforms degrade your online life today — protecting them while they do it. Lees meer
Guests in this episode include Seth Schoen and Pam Samuelson. Archival recordings feature Dmitry Sklyarov, Bruce Lehman, Al Gore, and Steve Sipress.
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Who Broke the Internet? | E1: Don't Be Evil
5 mei 2025 · 37 min
Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpose, to boost ad revenue? Google says its changes are all about benefiting users. Critics say it’s all part of a bigger pattern — one that host Cory Doctorow calls enshittification: the slow, deliberate decay of platforms in the name of profit. Lees meer
Guests in this episode include Ed Zitron, Emmanuel Goldstein, Clive Thompson, and Steven Levy.
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Introducing Understood: Who Broke the Internet?
28 april 2025 · 4 min
It's not you — the internet really does suck. Novelist, blogger and noted internet commentator Cory Doctorow explains what happened to the internet and why you're tormented by ads, bots, algorithms, AI slop and so many pop-ups. Lees meer
Spoiler alert: it wasn't an accident.
In a four-part series, Doctorow gets into the decisions made by powerful people that got us here, and most importantly, how we fix it. New episodes released weekly starting on Monday, May 5, 2025.
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Céline Episode 4: The Céline-aissance
5 november 2024 · 33 min
In the aftermath of René Angélil’s death, a Céline-aissance. But then, illness strikes. In the final episode of Céline: Understood, a look at her recent years, and why her fame endures.
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Céline Episode 3: The Globalization of Céline
29 oktober 2024 · 31 min
Céline Dion becomes inescapable in the mid-nineties with her hit song from the Titanic soundtrack, My Heart Will Go On. She achieves a unique level of global fame, earning fans from Jamaica to Iraq. But her ubiquity will also inspire a backlash in North America. Lees meer
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Céline Episode 2: The U.S. Gamble
22 oktober 2024 · 30 min
With her manager René Angélil by her side, Céline Dion is starting to crossover into the US. But there’s a secret René and Céline have been keeping: one René feared could stop Céline’s blooming career in its tracks.
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Céline Episode 1: Conquering Québec
15 oktober 2024 · 38 min
Céline Dion slept in a drawer as a baby born into a poor francophone Catholic family in Québec. At 12, she gets discovered in an office in Montreal, and she becomes a rising star in the insular constellation of Québec celebrity. But just as Céline is trying to break into English Canada, political tensions are running high in Québec. And some accuse her of selling out. Lees meer
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Introducing Céline: Understood
8 oktober 2024 · 3 min
Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This four-part series hosted by Céline expert Thomas Leblanc explores the surprising cultural, political and business alchemy that created one of the most enduring superstars the planet has ever seen. Four episodes releasing weekly starting on Tuesday, October 15, 2024. Lees meer
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BONUS: Modi’s weak win
5 juni 2024 · 18 min
Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have narrowly won a third term, but without a majority government, his grip on power appears weaker than ever. On this bonus episode of Modi’s India: Understood, host Salimah Shivji and producer Joyita Sengupta talk about the surprising results of the Indian election. Lees meer
Access the transcript for this episode here.
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Modi's India Episode 4: The Storyteller
27 mei 2024 · 43 min
India’s democracy has been called a miracle. Now, some fear it’s at risk. Lees meer
From Gandhi’s legacy to Bollywood films, how is Modi rewriting the story of India?
Access the transcript for this episode here.
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Modi's India Episode 3: The Strongman
20 mei 2024 · 38 min
Entering his second term stronger than ever, Modi can wield his power in ways that shock many inside India and out. There are crackdowns on dissent at home and accusations his government is tied to assassination plots abroad. His government denies these allegations, but the question remains: how far will Modi go to stop those who challenge him? Lees meer
Access the transcript for this episode here.
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Modi's India Episode 2: Development Man
13 mei 2024 · 32 min
Narendra Modi is the most popular political leader on the planet. His supporters boast that he’s transformed India’s economy – it’s now the world’s fifth largest, surpassing its former colonial ruler, Great Britain. How did Modi shake off the memory of deadly religious riots to win the devotion of hundreds of millions of Indians across the country and the world? Lees meer
Access the transcript for this episode here.
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Modi's India Episode 1: Emperor of Hindu Hearts
13 mei 2024 · 33 min
How did Narendra Modi, the son of a humble tea seller rise up the political ranks to become one of the most powerful leaders India has ever seen? And did bloody religious riots damage his political future, or turbocharge it? Lees meer
Access the transcript for this episode here.
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Modi's India: Season 3 of Understood
24 april 2024 · 2 min
How did one man rise from poverty to the peak of political power and secure the adoration of nearly one billion people? And how did he overcome accusations — that he denies — of complicity in religious violence and alleged international assassination plots? Lees meer
In the latest season of Understood, Mumbai-based journalist Salimah Shivji examines the remarkable rise, and incredible power that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has acquired. And as his country embarks on a massive election, Shivji asks the pressing question: what’s at stake if he wins again? Coming May 13, 2024.
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The Pornhub Empire Episode 4: Cleanup crew
1 april 2024 · 39 min
New name, new owners, new rules. Can Pornhub rebuild its reputation and remain one of the world’s biggest porn sites? Or will the company be disrupted out of business by a new crop of online porn entrepreneurs? Lees meer
This is episode 4 of The Pornhub Empire: Understood. Hosted by Samantha Cole.
Full transcript here.
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The Pornhub Empire Episode 3: Pornhub’s disgrace
25 maart 2024 · 32 min
Jane was coerced into making a pornographic film, and told it would never be shared online. Then, it was posted on Pornhub, over and over again. How did a scandal involving the hosting of sexual abuse material seriously damage the lives of many and nearly destroy the company? Lees meer
This is episode 3 of The Pornhub Empire: Understood. Hosted by Samantha Cole.
Full transcript here.
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The Pornhub Empire Episode 2: Pornhub goes mainstream
18 maart 2024 · 24 min
Not only did Pornhub become a massive moneymaker, it also helped push porn into the spotlight by using data, clever PR, and the power of celebrity. How did Pornhub make itself a household name? Lees meer
This is episode 2 of The Pornhub Empire: Understood. Hosted by Samantha Cole.
Full transcript here.
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The Pornhub Empire Episode 1: Free porn for everyone
11 maart 2024 · 27 min
How did a handful of competitive foosball players in Montreal create the world’s largest online porn site? And what do a picturesque Dutch cabin, thousands of pornographic VHS tapes, and the subprime mortgage crisis have to do with it? Lees meer
This is episode 1 of The Pornhub Empire: Understood. Hosted by Samantha Cole.
Full transcript here.
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Introducing: The Pornhub Empire
22 februari 2024 · 2 min
Pornhub — that site you only access on your browser’s incognito mode? It gets way more views than Netflix. But because of the sheepishness and stigma around porn, it’s treated as if it’s fringe, instead of what it really is: one of Canada’s largest cultural exports. Lees meer
In The Pornhub Empire: Understood, hear the story of how a Montreal-founded company came to dominate the adult industry — only to have its reputation obliterated in a massive scandal — and where it stands today.
The Pornhub Empire is a new season of Understood, from the CBC. Four episodes, starting March 11.
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Bonus: Click Here from Recorded Future News
21 februari 2024 · 28 min
A former American IRS investigator responsible for some of the earliest dark market takedowns has been in Nigerian custody since February. Neither Nigerian nor the US authorities seem to be distinguishing Tigran Gambaryan from Binance, the company where he works. The Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News is a bi-weekly tech news podcast and this episode features Jacob Silverman, the host of The Naked Emperor: Understood to help dive into this story. More episodes of Click Here are available at: https://therecord.media/podcast Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor BONUS | Guilty: The fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
6 november 2023 · 27 min
A jury has found FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts, from conspiracy to fraud, following the collapse of his crypto exchange last year. Speaking with Front Burner host Daemon Fairless, Jacob Silverman walks us through Bankman-Fried’s trial and explains what the verdict means for FTX customers and the cryptocurrency industry. Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor BONUS: The Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried
2 oktober 2023 · 26 min
Today we bring you a bonus episode of The Naked Emperor. As Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial kicks off in New York, host Jacob Silverman is back to bring you up to speed on the latest. What’s happened at the courthouse in the lead-up to the trial? And what’s expected in the weeks to come? Joining Jacob is Zeke Faux, an investigative reporter at Bloomberg, and the author of “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall.” Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor BONUS: Binance and its CEO sued in major crypto case
8 juni 2023 · 24 min
Jacob Silverman sits down on CBC's Front Burner podcast to discuss how the biggest crypto exchange in the world is being sued by an American regulator accusing Binance and its billionaire founder of breaking a string of laws and misusing investor funds. Changpeng Zhao and his company say they will fight back "vigorously." Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor Episode 4: It Takes a Village
3 april 2023 · 34 min
Sam Bankman-Fried couldn’t have marketed FTX to the masses on his own. He had help – from the institutional investors who brought in the big bucks, to the celebrity endorsers who told the public that FTX was “a safe and easy way to get into crypto.” One FTX brand ambassador was Kevin O’Leary, from the reality show Shark Tank. Host Jacob Silverman questions O’Leary about his due diligence before accepting the multimillion dollar endorsement deal. We also hear from everyday investors and hopeful beneficiaries of SBF’s charitable largesse and learn how their hopes were dashed on the rocks of alleged fraud. Zooming out, we learn that a lot of people may be responsible for what happened to FTX and that the losses, especially in a big alleged financial fraud scheme, can reverberate widely. Fourteen years into the crypto experiment, we survey the damage and the successes, and ask what we can learn from the disaster that Sam Bankman-Fried left in his wake. For transcripts of this series, please visit here. Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor Episode 3: Busted
27 maart 2023 · 32 min
In the weeks after FTX filed for bankruptcy Sam stuck to his story: he did not commit fraud. FTX’s post-collapse CEO claimed the company had been a managerial and financial disaster, writing that he had never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information.” In response to his cratering public image, Sam Bankman-Fried talked. A lot. He exhibited an almost reckless desire to tell his side of things, insisting he could explain – and vindicate – himself. It was an exceptionally bizarre move for someone who had lost not just his personal fortune, but potentially the funds of millions of customers. Even as U.S. prosecutors filed charges, and his former friends turned on him, SBF was unwavering. With the legal odds against him, why would SBF risk so much by refusing to shut up? Update: Since this episode was published, U.S. prosecutors have added a new charge against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing him of conspiring to bribe one or more Chinese government officials. The charge has not been proven in court. For transcripts of this series, please visit here. Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor Episode 2: The Beginning of the End
20 maart 2023 · 35 min
We return to the beginning of Sam Bankman-Fried’s lucrative foray into crypto and ask: how did it all fall apart? Sam Bankman-Fried rose to the top of the crypto world with help from his friends. Gary Wang was a former fellow math-camper and brilliant programmer; Caroline Ellison was a former colleague at an elite Wall Street firm and an avid LARPer on the side. While still in their twenties, they were entrusted with billions of dollars of customer and investor funds. But in retrospect there were signs that maybe their enormous fortunes weren't created simply through their supposed technological and financial genius. For transcripts of this series, please visit here. Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor Episode 1: The Hype
13 maart 2023 · 34 min
Sam Bankman-Fried wasn't like other crypto moguls: he drove a Toyota Corolla, he was an advocate for government regulation, he said he would give billions away to charity. That is, until he lost it all in what has been called “one of history’s greatest-ever destructions of wealth.” Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF, had an empire. His cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, and hedge fund, Alameda Research, together were worth billions. Celebrities sang his praises, and politicians took his donations. Then, it all collapsed – almost overnight. There were millions of FTX customers. Now, they don’t know where their money is. Host Jacob Silverman, co-author of a forthcoming book about crypto and fraud, takes a closer look at the hype around SBF and FTX, and how it only grew, even as other crypto companies crashed around them. How powerful was Sam Bankman-Fried? And how did he initially manage to hang on, to thrive even, as other giants tumbled towards bankruptcy? Lees meer
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The Naked Emperor Trailer – Season 1 of Understood
22 februari 2023 · 4 min
In The Naked Emperor journalist Jacob Silverman explains how Sam Bankman-Fried built and destroyed FTX, a multi-billion dollar crypto currency empire. Who helped? Who was hurt? And will anything change following one of the most stunning financial collapses in modern history? Lees meer
The Naked Emperor is season 1 of Understood from the CBC. All episodes are available now.