Season 4 of Mozilla’s IRL: Online Life is Real Life podcast will premiere on Monday, November 26, and we are so pleased to welcome and introduce IRL’s new host, Manoush Zomorodi.
Manoush is an expert at examining the complexities and paradoxes of modern digital life. She’s a tech journalist who recently went out on her own to start her own media company, Stable Genius, with a mission to help people navigate personal and global change.
In IRL Season 4, Manoush will explore the potential of ethical tech, what drives decision making in tech, and how people everywhere can take the wheel back to enjoy a more citizen-centric web.
Have a listen on why she’s partnering up with Mozilla and what’s to come:
IRL Season 4: Addressing Ethics in Tech
The headlines in 2018 have made it clear: there’s an ethics crisis in tech that’s impacting people everywhere. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg went in front of Congress and apologized for breaching the data and trust of 87 million users; the FCC repealed net neutrality rules in the U.S.; and we’ve watched as tech employees from Google have protested their employers’ handling of sexual misconduct.
So, can ‘ethical tech’ be a thing? We think so. Season 4 of Mozilla’s IRL podcast will explore all the ways tech can have more positive influence on people, communities, and societies at large.
Episodes will be as provocative as they are informative. We’ll feature stories as diverse as the web itself and visit people around the world. Listeners will meet a college student at Brown University who trades her data for a coffee every day; a content moderator who sees a lot of darkness online and cleans up the web for the rest of us; and a person on mission to decentralize power online — with an actual plan to make it happen; and many, many more.
Per Manoush, “We’re gonna get nerdy. We’re gonna get human. And we’re gonna have some fun.”
How to Listen to IRL
You can listen to IRL Season 4 on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or, find IRL on our website, irlpodcast.org.
Better yet? Subscribe now so you don’t miss the premiere episode of IRL’s Season 4. It’ll come out on Cyber Monday. (You can probably guess what it will be about.)
A Bit about Manoush
Manoush Zomorodi is co-founder of Stable Genius Productions. In addition to IRL, Manoush hosts Zig Zag, a podcast about changing the course of capitalism, journalism, and women’s lives. Investigating how technology is transforming humanity is Manoush’s passion and expertise. In 2017, she wrote a book, “Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Creative Self” and gave a TED Talk about surviving information overload and the “Attention Economy.” Before founding StableG, Manoush created, hosted, and was managing editor of the podcast Note to Self at WNYC Studios. She and her team also produced The Privacy Paradox, an interactive digital project about personal data.
Manoush is especially passionate about understanding the intersection of technology and humanity. In an early recording session for IRL, off-script, she said: “My passion has been unpacking the effects technology has on humans, and how we’ve changed as beings because of technology. Right now, we’re at an inflection point, where we need to question some of the ways technology is made and the people making it. We need to look at how they are choosing to build their products, and what effects they are they having on us (some of which are not great).”
She went on to discuss her excitement about joining IRL: “I think IRL is incredibly comprehensive in looking at every single issue that is affecting technology and ethics and society for us consumers, and breaking those issues down into real stories. What IRL is, is essentially a catalog of all of the biggest issues of our time right now.”
A Bit about Mozillians, the People Behind the Podcast
Mozillians are people who believe that tech should put people before profit. They believe that the Web should be open, accessible, and free for all people.
There are a handful of us Mozillians at Mozilla who drive content strategy and audience development for the IRL podcast. And in addition to IRL, we also work on products, like Firefox, that manifest the principles of the Mozilla Foundation, like privacy, security, and transparency.
And, there are also a bunch of of Mozillians at Pacific Content, who so beautifully produce the show. They’ve taken the idea of branded podcasts to a new level, giving organizations like Mozilla a media form to truly articulate the values they hold dear.
Manoush joins us as a Mozillian too, and says this about Mozilla: “It’s really hard as a consumer, as a regular person, to find tech that puts you first. What I have always been so grateful to Mozilla for is that they are creating and building products with us in mind. They are respectful of the people who use their products. And I think that more of us need to be demanding that kind of respect from the big tech companies. I put humans first in my work, and Mozilla does too.”
We so sincerely hope you enjoy Season 4 of IRL. We’re mid-production on our first few episodes now. Wish us luck.
