This week, Jon Stewart devoted his edition of The Daily Show to tackling a topic that he claims his former bosses at Apple barred him from exploring. “I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it,” the late-night host said to his guest Monday night, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, referencing the companion podcast to his former series, The Problem with Jon Stewart that ended last October. “They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her.’”

Stewart’s remarks arrive less than two weeks after the U.S. Justice Department sued Apple for exploiting its monopoly in the tech market and violating antitrust laws. The lawsuit highlights Apple’s “power over content creators and newspapers” and notes that the company’s conduct “even affects the flow of speech,” adding, “Apple is rapidly expanding its role as a TV and movie producer and has exercised that role to control content.”

After joking that Apple killed Khan’s potential appearance on the podcast because “I didn’t think they cared for you,” Stewart alleged that Apple also told him not to discuss artificial intelligence. “They wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI,” he said, referring to a segment earlier in that episode on the “false promise” of that technology. Stewart then asked Khan: “What is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”

Khan replied, “I think it just shows the danger of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies.”

  • Geobloke@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    Lena Khan is amazing and taught me the word monopsylony. Absolutely stoked that Biden chose her and the fact that she is going so hard on creating a competitive environment

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      ·
      7 months ago

      I want people to understand that when they vote for a president they’re also voting for all the administrative appointments as well. The stakes of who is president is already high enough, but if you want people like Lena Khan in charge, that also comes from your presidential vote.

      • Geobloke@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        7 months ago

        As I’m Australian, I can’t do much haha. But I do know that the vibe on corporations and monoplane monopolies is being imported into Australia from the US particularly around our supermarkets and airlines

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      7 months ago

      and taught me the word monopsylony

      mo·nop·so·ny
      noun.
      ECONOMICS.
      a market situation in which there is only one buyer. Definitions from Oxford