Episode 113 - The Dark Side of Innovation

Hi-tech and innovation have brought many good things to the world. Social media connected us to one another and in doing so gave power to the citizens of the world. Search engines gave us access to knowledge and the day may come when autonomous cars will rid us of accidents on the road and save millions of lives. But start-ups may also have dark sides. Facebook helped, unwittingly, spread fake news and foreign governments used it to intervene in the democratic process in America. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used for drug and weapon trafficking, far from the eyes of law enforcement. And then there’s privacy. It’s that thing we used to have, and maybe never will again. So innovation goes both ways. That we know. But what happens when companies innovate to provide tools for governments to intercept their citizens’ activities, extract information about them and maybe ultimately - prosecute them and violate their basic human rights? In recent years more and more Israeli companies are blamed for doing exactly that. In a huge investigative report on Haaretz - one of Israel’s leading newspapers, reporters Hagar Shizaf and Yonathan Yakobzon, delved into the dark pasts of a few of these companies. What they found was alarming. Hagar Sheizaf of Haaretz, joins us today to talk about the investigation and the piece she co-wrote.