The Digital Cage
Endless Thread9 Elo 2024

The Digital Cage

When Hashim crossed the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum in 2020, he was tired—tired of running, tired of being locked in cages.

Hashim was a political activist in Uganda, his home country, where he had been imprisoned and beaten. When he fled to Mexico, he was detained and, again, beaten.

In the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement offered him a deal: He enrolled in a program allowing him to live with friends in Maine.

But Hashim says he didn't understand what he was giving up to be in this little-known program, one which requires migrants to hand over voice and face IDs, internet and phone data, height, weight, social networks, location, and more.

*****

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. It was edited and hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

Jaksot(443)

Beautiful, Terrible Internet

Beautiful, Terrible Internet

Warning: This episode contains multitudes! Hosts Ben and Amory explore how viral clips of DOGE staffers' video depositions found a new life online after a judge temporarily ordered them removed. They ...

27 Maalis 29min

Sexy spines or literary red flags?

Sexy spines or literary red flags?

Maybe you can't judge books by their covers. But can you judge people by their books? Reddit's bookshelf detectives say yes. Producer Kalyani Saxena guides hosts Ben and Amory through the stacks and o...

20 Maalis 24min

Digging Up Lily's Garden

Digging Up Lily's Garden

A woman sitting blissfully on a vibrating laundromat dryer. A faked pregnancy test to dump a bad boyfriend. In 2019, the internet was abuzz about bizarre ads for a mobile game called Lily's Garden. Th...

13 Maalis 31min

What it's like to be undressed by Grok without your consent

What it's like to be undressed by Grok without your consent

Note: This episode describes sexual situations that are non-consensual. Sharing a photo of yourself online has always carried some risk. But things got a lot scarier this year when users began using ...

6 Maalis 30min

Obscure music is good and nice!

Obscure music is good and nice!

Some rare folks are born with the perfect music taste. But most of us have to look elsewhere for a tune that sparks a shoulder shimmy or two. Hosts Ben and Amory spend some time jamming to obscure mus...

27 Helmi 24min

Fresh, stale, or politics? The Melania doc's Rotten Tomatoes score, explained

Fresh, stale, or politics? The Melania doc's Rotten Tomatoes score, explained

Melania, a documentary about the first lady, has a 10 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, but a 90 percent score from audience members, an unusual discrepancy that raises the question, how ...

20 Helmi 24min

Rewind: Love In Transition

Rewind: Love In Transition

In this OG throwback from the Endless Thread archives, hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson revisit a classic episode from their first year of production in 2018. Originally produced during th...

13 Helmi 33min

You're Wrong About the Satanic Panic

You're Wrong About the Satanic Panic

In the 1980s, a moral panic swept across America. Parents, prosecutors, and talk show hosts became convinced that devil worshippers were hiding in plain sight, abusing children at daycares, performing...

6 Helmi 23min