CYBER

Luddites! It’s a dirty word, right? One that’s become synonymous with anti-technology crusaders that want to return us to an idyllic past where everyone is free from their phones...

This summer, a movie called The Sound of Freedom took America by storm. The hero was Tim Ballard, the founder of an organization called Operation Underground Railroad. The movie depicted Ballard as an avenging hero who rescued trafficked children from a life of slavery. The truth, we’re all finding out, is something more complicated and a lot less heroic.

Ballard left the organization around the time Sound of Freedom premiered, following an investigation into his sexual misconduct...

It’s time for a new history of the internet, one that focuses on the recent revolutions that define the world we all live in. Social media has changed the way many of us live and work. It’s a world defined by a new economy of creators and influencers. The new media is here and it’s Extremely Online.

That’s the title of the new book from Taylor Lorenz, which is the untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet...

The heat is still here, but the summer will soon be over. Here at the precipice of fall I wanted to take a moment to reflect on one of the big stories that Motherboard covered this season: labor, strikes, and unions.

Here to tell us all about it is Motherboard labor reporter Jules Roscoe...

It’s part two of our bittersweet episode of Cyber where we bid farewell to Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. This week we do a deep dive into the Motherboard lore. The stories that broke us, the controversies that made us who we are...

It’s a bittersweet episode of Cyber as we bid farewell to Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. It’s a long episode so we’ve split it into two parts. This week you get some discussions about the topics of the day including Planet of Bass, Oliver Anthony, and the vibes-based economy. After that we start dishing all of Motherboard’s secrets, including how Jason came to work there and what it’s like to walk out of a meeting with 8 missed calls from Disney on your phone...

Room-temperature superconductors are here! Maybe! Look, science is a liar sometimes, especially in the internet age. Motherboard science reporter Becky Ferreira is here to help us parse the truth from fiction of LK-99. It’s either one of the biggest science stories of our entire lives or … just another science hoax.

Later in the show, Joseph Cox is stopping by to tell us about another group of researchers who’ve uncovered a backdoor in police radios...

We’ve got a super sized Cyber for you today that’s all about the two hottest movies in theaters. One is a mythological take on the creation of the modern world and the devastating weapons that ushered it in. The other is about an idol forged from plastic that came to dominate that world.

That’s right. It’s Barbenheimer time...

It’s a brutally hot summer, a great time to cool off in an air conditioned movie theater or to catch up on some of those TV shows you’ve had on your list forever. But did you know the people who make the fine entertainment you know and love are on strike? Both writers and actors are picketing, trying to get a fair shake out of the studios and companies that bet big on streaming and used the shift to screw over the workers who keep us all entertained...

A movie about a Mormon anti-trafficking activist made headlines when it beat Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the box office. But Sound of Freedom’s box office numbers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and the group behind the movie, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) has a long and troubled history.

Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan joins us this week on Cyber to explain OUR and Sound of Freedom...