Leah Feiger: Enough trillions that don’t actually currently exist in that budget.
Katie Drummond: Exactly. So thinking about that very messy, very human business and Elon Musk and Donald Trump in a room making decisions about it, where you’re really not seeing a lot of empathy, you’re not seeing a lot of nuanced thinking about people and what people need. That is very stressful.
Leah Feiger: Absolutely. And on the X point, a slight devil’s advocate there is that it depends on what the goal was. If the goal was to actually keep X as this profitable business communications for the world, et cetera, then yeah, absolutely, he failed. If the goal was to get Trump elected and get himself into a seat of power, then who cares about that money that he lost?
Katie Drummond: Great point.
Leah Feiger: He won that back tenfold over the last week with Tesla’s stock and probably some upcoming government contracts and lack of regulations. Which I guess is into the, are you subsidizing your communications, your media platforms in order to pay the dividends later on? I don’t know, maybe we’ll be having a different conversation in a year from now if Musk is all of a sudden in charge of every US defense contract there is.
Katie Drummond: We certainly will. And that’s a great point. I mean, it’s essentially deficit funding what has become and is increasingly a right wing, conservative echo chamber that serves as a megaphone for the Trump administration and his acolytes, then job well done.
Leah Feiger: Yeah. On another note, Trump has vowed to deport millions, jail his enemies. And to carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. We just published the WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself from Surveillance Under Trump, which has some steps you can take to evade all of this. Check out the link in our show notes, please. But besides reading that very handy guide, what more should individuals and institutions be doing or even just thinking about as they approach cybersecurity in the age of Trump? All of this to me is so related.
Katie Drummond: Wow, that’s a great question. And a lot of it is covered in this guide, which I would also add is published outside of the WIRED paywall. It’s important service journalism and we want to make sure as many people as possible have access to it. So please do go and check that out. I mean, I think this is a moment for individuals, whatever you do for a living, if you don’t work at a government agency, if you’re not a journalist, it doesn’t matter. I would not make any assumptions about your personal safety at this moment in time because the truth is you never know. You never know what circumstance you may find yourself i, where you would have wished you had been better about digital security, better about your online hygiene and your online communications. I think we have seen that play out in other parts of the world that are not the United States as of now, that a single post on a website can put you in prison. So I think it’s really important for everyone to take a minute and think about what they have out there on the internet, how they communicate with people they love, what is being shared to the cloud. The answer is everything on your phone. All of your text messages, all of your photos, your videos, everything you write down in your Notes app, your most personal details, your search history. Everything is out there and so this is a good moment to grapple with that. And even if it’s not because of an incoming Trump administration, it’s just good practice. And so if this serves as a wake-up call or a reminder for someone who has maybe become a little bit too complacent with how they conduct themselves in the context of digital security, this is just a good moment to reassess that. And I think for people and for institutions, I think it’s also an interesting moment to think about what your lines are. And for people, for families, for companies and institutions, I think this is a moment to really think about, again, whatever you do, whatever your institution does, whatever services you offer, what lines will you and won’t you cross? And what risks are you willing to take to protect those red lines that you have drawn? And that could have everything to do with providing access to reproductive healthcare for your employees. It could be about immigration if you employ immigrants on visas. Really thinking about, okay, we need to spend some time with our lawyers and talk about the worst-case scenario. I think everyone right now, the smart thing to do is think about every worst-case scenario that could potentially affect you, your family, the company you run, the company you work for, and be prepared for the worst possible thing to happen and hope that it doesn’t, but know that you’re prepared if it does. I think even internally at WIRED, that’s something that we are talking about is that obviously we intend to continue to do our journalism as we do it, but we all need to be prepared for what are the potential worst-case scenarios of this administration with regards to the media? And what are we going to do about it if that shows up at our parent company’s door?
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