The Spon-Con Video That Accidentally Captures the State of Tech

Earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was rebranding to become Meta, shifting the company’s focus away from the single social media platform to some sort of amorphous, “embodied internet” concept. Khabane Lame, TikTok’s second biggest star right now, got tapped to do some spon-con for the rebrand, appearing in a video alongside Zuckerberg on Instagram. On today’s episode, Rachelle and Madison discuss who Lame’s rise to TikTok fame, why Facebook grabbed him for their publicity campaign, and how this might all just be a distraction from some rather unsavory news inside the Facebook Papers.

If you would like to learn more about the Facebook Papers, check out:

”The Nationalism of Facebook,” by Siva Vaidhyanathan in Slate

The What Next TBD episode, “Will the Facebook Whistleblower Make a Difference?”

The What Next episode, “How Long Can Mark Zuckerberg Be King?”

Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.

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