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.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(460)

How to Dim the Sun, from Marketplace's How We Survive

How to Dim the Sun, from Marketplace's How We Survive

The climate crisis is escalating. We have to decarbonize our economy, but we’re moving too slowly. So, what’s the backup plan? This season of How We Survive is about engineering nature: large-scale in...

17 Heinä 37min

Socials for Sale

Socials for Sale

Most of us know the internet isn't a particularly private place. Yet there's a certain feeling of anonymity that comes with sharing online — our words and stories mixed in with millions of others. It'...

10 Heinä 31min

Encore: Adrián and the Whale

Encore: Adrián and the Whale

This episode was originally published on March 21, 2025.  There are moments that define each of our lives. Some we can predict: graduations, marriages, births, deaths. Others? Not so much. And in th...

3 Heinä 24min

Comfort maxxing on the interwebs

Comfort maxxing on the interwebs

Sit back, relax and get cozy. As a matter of fact, why not put on your baggiest of clothes and burrow down in your snuggiest of blankets?  This week on Endless Thread, Ben and Amory are comfy-maxxing....

26 Kesä 25min

Back to the Backrooms!

Back to the Backrooms!

Once upon a dimly lit hallway, Ben and Amory stumbled onto a beloved brainchild of the internet: Backrooms. It began as a "creepypasta"— a horror story or concept that originates online and often beco...

19 Kesä 22min

Endless Thread on OnlyFans

Endless Thread on OnlyFans

Journalist Leon Neyfakh — known for the podcasts Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Backfired — wanted to know more about the massively popular and sprawling online ecosystem of OnlyFans. What are its nearly 400...

11 Kesä 36min

Leave a message after the beep

Leave a message after the beep

Jeremy Rellosa used to watch TV shows and movies from the '90s and revel in how the characters walked around untethered to a smartphone, with no expectations of constant connectivity. So he decided to...

4 Kesä 25min

The Church of Speedrun!

The Church of Speedrun!

Try reading this description as fast as you can: Ben and Amory zoom through two internet stories connected to speed running, including a look at a mysterious object on Reddit and an online trend direc...

29 Touko 25min