Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat

Helen Lewis Has Left The Chat

BBC Radio 4 FM

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Influenced: Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat: Left the Chat: No 5. Thug Shaker Central

From WhatsApp leaks to group chat nightmares, how instant messaging changed the world.

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From WhatsApp leaks to school group chat nightmares, via war propaganda on Telegram and Slack meltdowns at work, how instant messaging took over our lives.

Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat. Have you ever been trapped in a group chat nightmare, either grabbing the popcorn or wondering how to leave without causing a scene? Who's the admin in your family group, and do they wield that power responsibly? Do you ever wonder if it's appropriate to use emojis when talking to your boss? The rise of instant messaging has made our social and professional lives faster, more casual — and more chaotic. But amid all the discussion of the effects of public social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been relatively little attention paid to private social networks—the direct message and the group chat — and how they are shaping our relationships and our world. In this series, Helen Lewis looks at the secret world of instant messaging, meeting a woman who married a chatbot, discovering how Russian dissidents are fighting a propaganda war, and hearing the inside story of how Britain ended up governed from a single WhatsApp group. It's a strange new world where workplace rebellions are conducted through duelling emojis and military secrets are traded on chat forums about a children's cartoon. It's also a world where you can never be quite sure who you're talking to—and who's eavesdropping on you.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Influenced: Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat

Have you ever been trapped in a group chat nightmare, either grabbing the popcorn or wondering how to leave without causing a scene? Who's the admin in your family group, and do they wield that power responsibly? Do you ever wonder if it's appropriate to use emojis when talking to your boss? 

The rise of instant messaging has made our social and professional lives faster, more casual — and more chaotic. But amid all the discussion of the effects of public social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been relatively little attention paid to private social networks—the direct message and the group chat — and how they are shaping our relationships and our world. 

In this series, Helen Lewis looks at the secret world of instant messaging, meeting a woman who married a chatbot, discovering how Russian dissidents are fighting a propaganda war, and hearing the inside story of how Britain ended up governed from a single WhatsApp group. It's a strange new world where workplace rebellions are conducted through duelling emojis and military secrets are traded on chat forums about a children's cartoon. It's also a world where you can never be quite sure who you're talking to—and who's eavesdropping on you.

Left the Chat: No 5. Thug Shaker Central

BBC Radio 4 - Influenced, Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat, Left the Chat: No 5. Thug Shaker Central

How one journalist uncovered the most unlikely leaker of military secrets in US history.

SpongeBob forums. Edgy memes. Video games about zombies. Helen goes down the rabbit hole to discover the source of a classified document leak.

When investigative journalist Aric Toler saw a handful of supposedly fake classified documents online, he had a hunch - what if they were real? The only way to find out was to hunt for the original source. 

It was a journey that took him through the deep internet, beyond the reach of search engines. He scoured through chat forums about SpongeBob SquarePants, infiltrated servers named after edgy memes, and found a vital clue in screenshots of a video game about zombies. Eventually, Toler got his man - and his identity was not at all what you might expect. 

At the heart of this story is the chat service Discord - a casual, conversational space without which, Toler thinks, his unlikely leaker would never have posted classified documents online.

A Tempo & Talker production for BBC Radio 4

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Left the Chat: No 5. Thug Shaker Central

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