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Download This Show is your weekly guide to the world of media, culture, and technology. From social media to gadgets, streaming services to privacy issues. Each week Rae Johnston and guests take a fun, deep dive into how technology is reshaping our lives.

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All Episodes

0:29:06

Who owns art created inside video games?

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2026/03/20

There's a fresh wave of headlines claiming that AI is eating the workforce whole, and that the only way to have a job is to become the person who builds the robots. Is this a reasonable assumption? Or has "AI-washing" just become the most convenient way to excuse a restructure?Plus, a genuine artistic community has grown around taking photos in video games. Who owns those creations?And, wired headphones are back? Wired headphone revenue jumped 20 percent in the first six weeks of

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0:29:06

Your free VPN might be spying on you

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2026/03/13

VPNs have topped the charts this week, after major adult websites blocked Australian users. Several of these most popular VPNs are free, but at what cost?Plus, fake videos of the war in Iran have been circulating online. How do we tell what's real from what's not?Also, the Macbook Neo. It runs on an iPhone chip, is remarkably cheap, and comes in a variety of colours. Has Apple become fun again?-------Benjamin Law's episode of Compass, Outsourcing Our Souls, will be out on Sunday

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0:29:00

Why Trump is fighting with AI company Anthropic

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2026/03/06

A US government official has called Anthropic a national security risk, after the company drew ethical lines around its technology being used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. How comfortable would you be with AI firing missiles?Plus, Facebook's parent company, Meta, sold seven million pairs of AI-enabled Ray-Ban last year. And now they want to add facial recognition. How will that change public spaces?And, Microsoft tried to ban the word 'microslop'. It

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0:29:05

Why Trump is fighting with AI company Anthropic

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2026/03/06

A US government official has called Anthropic a national security risk, after the company drew ethical lines around its technology being used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. How comfortable would you be with AI firing missiles?Plus, Facebook's parent company, Meta, sold seven million pairs of AI-enabled Ray-Ban last year. And now they want to add facial recognition. How will that change public spaces?And, Microsoft tried to ban the word 'microslop'. It

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0:29:05

Trump's fight with Anthropic AI and Meta's AI...

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2026/03/06

A US government official has called Anthropic a national security risk, after the company drew ethical lines around its technology being used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. How comfortable would you be with AI firing missiles?Plus, Facebook's parent company, Meta, sold seven million pairs of AI-enabled Ray-Ban last year. And now they want to add facial recognition. How will that change public spaces?And, Microsoft tried to ban the word 'microslop'. It

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0:29:05

Trump takes on Anthropic AI and Meta's AI glasses...

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2026/03/06

A US government official has called Anthropic a national security risk, after the company drew ethical lines around its technology being used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. How comfortable would you be with AI firing missiles?Plus, Facebook's parent company, Meta, sold seven million pairs of AI-enabled Ray-Bans last year. And now they want to add facial recognition. How will that change public spaces?And, Microsoft tried to ban the word 'microslop'. It

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0:29:05

New research finds Elon Musk's X algorithm can shift...

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2026/02/27

New research about the social media platform X suggests that just a few weeks on what used to be Twitter can shift political attitudes AND the effects can last long after we log off. So is it really possible to use these sites at all without being affected by the system?Plus, Australia's planned AI advisory body has been scrapped after 15 months of preparation. It's been replaced by the Australian AI Safety Institute. What does this mean for AI regulation?And, scientists have found

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0:29:02

Did AI secretly make your favourite video game?

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2026/02/20

AI is sliding into game development pipelines, but the rules around telling players what is machine-made and what is made by people are patchy at best. So, how much transparency do players deserve, and does it even matter?Also on the program, how the RAM shortage is impacting the price of game consoles. And, why VR is better suited to the medical and training fields than replacing the open-plan office.GUESTS: Chloe Appleby, games curator at the Powerhouse Museum. Alex Kidman,

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0:28:00

How tech is changing how we watch the Winter Olympics

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2026/02/13

The Winter Olympics is using drones, AI and cloud-based broadcasting to track curling stones, freeze mid-air jumps, even talk to an official Winter Olympics chatbot. It’s turning sports spectatorship into something more high tech than ever before. Is it likely to be used in other sports?Plus, a battle is being waged in court between a 20-year-old and Meta/YouTube. The argument is over whether Meta and YouTube's social media sites are engineered to be intentionally addictive. What

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0:29:00

Are there more bots than people on the internet?

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2026/02/06

Having an AI agent act as your personal executive assistant may seem like a sweet deal, but security experts have a few concerns.Also on the program, Moltbook is a new social media platform specfically designed for AI agents to chat. So far, they’ve started a religion, made their own scripture and called for humanity’s downfall. What happens when we anthropomorphise binary code? And, the dead internet theory used to be a fringe conspiracy theory. But AI is getting us closer and

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0:28:10

What is Upscrolled, Australia’s newest viral social...

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2026/01/30

TikTok has finally struck a deal to avoid being banned in the United States. Their privacy policy also got a controversial update. So, who owns US TikTok now? And what difference will it make to users?Also on the program, there’s a new social media site going viral – Upscrolled. What is this Australian-owned site, exactly? And finally, OpenAI is trialling ads on ChatGPT. The company’s CEO Sam Altman once said including ads would be a last resort. So does this mean the company is

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0:29:00

Spotify was copied by a piracy archive. Why does that...

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2026/01/23

Plus! Social media site Digg is back. For those who remember, it may feel like returning to what was good about the internet. Is this the sign of a new era for social media? And how long can it hold out being monetised?Also, why gaming in a group, even publicly... outside, is becoming more popular.GUESTS:Phoebe Toups Dougas, associate professor of human-centred computing in the Exertion Games Lab at Monash University.Fergus Halliday, journalist at Whistleout and reviews.org

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0:29:04

Opt Out 05 | Can you ever really opt out of online life?

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2025/12/19

After weeks of trying to audit, delete, and lock down her digital life, Rae hits the big, uncomfortable question: what if you can’t opt out of the internet, even if you really want to?In the final episode of Opt Out, Rae speaks with Jathan Sadowski, senior lecturer at Monash University and proud Luddite, about how surveillance creeps into everyday life — from smart cars to smart locks — and why 'just logging off' is a privilege most people don’t actually have. Then she sits down

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0:29:04

Opt Out 04 | What did I just agree to?

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2025/12/19

Every time you click 'accept' online, you’re legally agreeing to something. The problem is… you probably have no idea what that something is.In episode four of Opt Out, Rae tackles the fine print: the privacy policies and terms and conditions we all scroll past because life is short and the language is cooked. She speaks with Dr Katharine Kemp, privacy law expert and associate professor at UNSW, about how digital 'consent' works in Australia, and why companies can legally do things

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0:29:03

Opt Out 03 | How not to get hacked

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2025/12/19

If someone tried to hack you right now… how long would it take?In episode three of Opt Out, Rae confronts her own extremely average cyber hygiene and tries to stop being the digital equivalent of someone who leaves their keys in the front door. She speaks with Vanessa Teague, cryptographer and privacy advocate, to unpack why passwords matter (and why humans are terrible at them), before spiralling into the world of password managers, two-factor authentication, and security

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0:29:03

Opt Out 02 | Can you delete yourself from the internet?

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2025/12/19

The internet knows a lot about you, but what if you wanted to take it all back and delete yourself all together?In episode two of Opt Out, Rae tries to do the unthinkable: delete herself from the internet. She talks to Lawrence Gentilello, founder of data-removal service Optery, about what it really takes to scrub your details from people-search sites — and why it’s harder than it sounds. Then she checks in with John Payne from Electronic Frontiers Australia to find out what

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0:29:00

Opt Out 01 | The guide to taking back control of your...

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2025/12/19

We all know the internet knows a bit about us. But… how much, exactly? And what happens if you actually try to look?In the first episode of Opt Out, Rae volunteers as tribute and starts poking around her own digital footprint — checking data breaches, Googling herself, and asking some pretty uncomfortable questions about where our personal info ends up. Along the way, she chats with investigative tech reporter Yael Grauer about how our data spreads, and Troy Hunt, the creator of

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0:28:32

What were the biggest stories in tech for 2025?

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2025/12/12

It was a huge year for tech in 2025, and there were a few stories that hooked our attention more than others. The introduction of the social media ban, and the slow tease of details across the year about its implementation took up a significant chunk of our focus, while AI being embedded (to varying degrees of success) into absolutely everything meant that it was also impossible to escape. Join us to look back on the year that was, and attempt to predict the workings of the weird

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0:29:05

Is the AI boom going to spell the end of democracy in...

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2025/12/05

With AI in our newsrooms, our universities, and our courtrooms, the way we understand the truth has been forever changed. But could it be for the better? Or have we embarked on an unstoppable march towards a new understanding of democracy. How do we democratise AI development when a handful of tech companies run the digital world? And could we implement government reforms in Australia to make this happen?GUESTS:Cory Alpert, former Biden–Harris administration staffer and current PhD

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0:29:06

Do androids dream of electric housework? The...

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2025/11/28

If you were to picture the ideal robot form to vacuum your floor all by itself, what do you see? Is it a small UFO-shaped disc that whizzes under couches, or is it a humanoid robot with eyes and ears tracking your every move? The new 1X Neo robot has been launched and has been marketed as a 'robot butler', but what issues arise when we start making the tech that serves us look more and more human? Also, a new AI chatbot designed for human companionship has been met with outright

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