Trump Take LEGO

0:00Protect your digital life from phishing attacks with the YubiKey. We found over the years that Yubico's small, sturdy, physical security key is the best way for us to secure our accounts from takeovers and AI-powered cyber attacks. What I like best about the YubiKey is that unlike basic MFA like text message codes or authenticator apps, you just do a quick physical tap to verify your login. That means hackers can't get in, even if they have your password. because my YubiKey is always on me. Logging in is easy and I feel secure in knowing I have it and hackers don't. YubiKey's protect over a thousand accounts individuals and businesses rely on every day, including email, social media accounts, password managers, productivity tools, developer tools, and more.

0:44Still undefeated, YubiKey is the original passkey. For a limited time, get$10 off your order of exactly two keys from the YubiKey 5 series or security key series using the code 404media10 at checkout. Visit ubico.com slash 404media to redeem this exclusive offer and to learn more.

1:09Hello, welcome to the 404media podcast, where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL. 404media is a journalist-founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404media.co. I'm your host, Joseph, and with me are 404 Media co-founders, Sam Cole. Hey. Emmanuel Mayberg. Hello. And Jason Kebler. Hello, hello. So later this week, we will be uploading a recording we did in Los Angeles.

1:51We've sort of been a bit stacked up with bonus recordings. I feel like every week we've published something. We had the New York one, then we had a comment show for paying subscribers as well. Now we have this LA podcast. Jason, just briefly, do you just want to remind people what that event was and what we spoke about and maybe what they can hear in that bonus pod coming later in the week? Yeah, it was about the technology that ICE uses for its raids and mass deportation campaign. It pulled together a lot of our reporting over the last few months. And we did this, it's now been a month somehow, but it just took us a minute to get it edited and out.

2:33And as Joseph said, we've been stacked. But I remember what we talked about and it's still totally relevant today. So please check it out. Yeah. And one thing I'll add, just on ICE technology. So today, I went to go check the ICE procurement records, which I very regularly do. And I saw that ICE can carry on with its purchase of$2 million worth of spyware. They bought this in 2014. It was blocked by the Biden administration. I think after reporting from Wired and there was concerns about it being used, I checked that and it says that the stop work order has been lifted. So Ice now or soon will have access to very, very powerful cell phone spyware technology.

3:23Paragon, the company's also been implicated in a scandal in Italy, I believe. Jack Paulson, the independent journalist, was first to report this yesterday the stop work order was actually lifted i think on friday and it's like the one weekend i don't check the procurement records it gets lifted but that makes i think our conversation in la even more timely so definitely go check it out and we'll be keeping an eye on that and then just find a bit of housekeeping for the podcast next week it's probably just going to be jason and Emmanuel, because I'm away for something. Sam's away on a reporting trip as well.

4:02So look forward to that listeners and look forward to Jason and Emmanuel doing all of the work. Thank you. I'm going to find other people to put on. That's fine. We're going to grab people off the street. Do it. Sure. Why not? All right. For this week, we're still here. So let's do this first story. It's a couple of stories written by Jason and our regular contributor, Matthew Galt, as well. The first one is Trump Take Lego. And I'm just going to read out the second headline as well, even though we'll talk about it in a bit, because the context is the tariffs. Trump tariffs cause chaos on eBay as every hobby becomes logistical minefield.

4:42Well, let's go back to Lego, first of all. Jason, what's your first Lego memory? I'm not a Lego guy, to be honest. My brother and my sister are super into Lego, and they're both younger than me. I find Lego to be Lego brand bricks, to be pretty difficult to put together. It doesn't work very well with my brain. And so I never got into it other than I just remember my brother and my sister always asked for Lego stuff for Christmas and for their birthdays and things like that. Whereas I asked for, I don't know, cool sports stuff, video games, things of this nature. I will say another core memory for me, though, is at my very first journalism job, where I was an intern fact checker.

5:32I fact checked an article about Legos and specifically about Afols, which are adult fans of Lego. And I believe the article was published and called them Legos as opposed to Lego brand bricks. and we got many, many, many letters to the editor. It was at a magazine, so it was printed in a magazine. And you're not supposed to call them Legos. Like the company gets mad about it. The fandom gets mad about it. They are... Lego is the brand. So they're Lego brand bricks. Lego brand blocks. Don't call them Legos. People will be mad. And you were also mad because, not to throw them under the bus, but completely to throw him under the bus.

6:23When Matthew Gould filed this, didn't he refer to it as Legos, plural? And then you were like, oh my God, you can't do that. We're going to die. Well, so I was like, Matt, you know about Lego, right? You know about Legos. You're an adult fan of Legos. Because it seems like something that he would know about. And he was like, yeah, death, definitely. And then the second word of the article was Legos. And I was like, I was trying to get us killed out here. Yeah. my first was the Star Wars Episode 1 kits that you could get in a Lego kit. That was awesome. Anyway, we should probably talk about the story.

7:00Hang on. Before we get super defamation Matthew Galt says he is not an adult fan of Legos. Thank you very much. Did you just message him? Well, that much is clear. That much is clear because he didn't know this. The last thing I'll say is that Lego, the brand, which is Danish, has a page about how to properly refer to their brand of blocks. And it's very serious. It's like Nintendo level of like, do not mess this up or we'll be very mad. We must protect our intellectual property, etc. So kind of interesting. And Jason, what does Lego mean? Dude, I have no idea. It means play well. Okay, on to actually talking about the story.

7:45I did a lot of Lego when I was a kid. um so headline trump take lego what is happening with lego here what are they stopping exactly and then we'll get into the reasons why so what's actually changing here so lego has this uh program called pick a brick uh and it is basically a website where you can buy lego bricks but you can buy them individually so you can buy like the different heads of the minifigs which are the little characters. You can buy different connectors. You can buy regular blocks. You can buy different feet and things like this. And as I understand, it's a relatively new feature as in from the last several years because for many, many years, there were third-party companies that were assembling little sets of 10 square blocks, like 10 arms for minifigs and things and sending it because there was no like really good way to buy individual Lego bricks.

8:49And then eventually Lego launched this program called Pick a Brick where you can buy them individually. And last week they announced that if you're in the United States or Canada, you won't be able to buy a huge number of the bricks from this program. Let's see, they more than 2 ,500 different types of BRICS are no longer available in the United States. And that is because of this thing that we're going to talk a lot about called De Minimis, which is this tariff waiver program that has been around for a long time in the United States, where if something costs less than$800, you don't need to pay tariffs on it.

9:36and so this made things really easy for people who had different hobbies or who were into fashion or who just liked to buy things from overseas you could buy a shirt from a British clothes company and you wouldn't have to worry about tariffs and that is now over that ended on August 28th it ended on Friday Friday was the last day and so announced a long time ago of course and we all knew this was coming. And I feel like some people were like, oh, the tariffs already happened and things aren't that bad. It's like, well, no. Now it's happening for these sorts of purchases. So people are going to actually notice.

10:15Now it's happening for individual people because it was happening for companies for a while where it's like, oh, I'm importing tons of raw material to sell at my store or to do something in the US. And I'm going to maybe pass that cost on to consumers. But now it's like if you're buying individual items from a store overseas, this is something that you will encounter. And crucially, Trump ended this for China back in, I think, March. A few months ago, he ended it for China, but it was still a thing for other countries where you didn't have to pay this. And there's a few reasons why De Minimis has ended.

10:58I think one, it's just part of Trump's vindictiveness and anger about international trade. But companies like Timu and Xi 'an in China were abusing this system. So they were selling huge amounts of products to the United States. And rather than shipping them over on big container ships, they were sending lots of small shipments of less than$800. And so they weren't paying tariffs. And that was a problem, sort of. Like, you know, I guess people like some, some people had a problem with it. Yeah. Some people had a problem with it. I mean, it led to like lower priced goods in the United States, but basically like they were, they were, uh, abusing a loophole in the system to do this.

11:48And so that's why it ended in China first. Also, there's like a lot of people in the Trump administration and just like people who are very hawkish about this sort of thing, saying that these small packages have been abused to import fentanyl into the United States. And it's like, don't think that is the main mechanism, but that was some of the political narrative that was used to close this loophole. So anyways, it's like you can go on Lego and buy a brick for a dollar, buy just a single piece. But now, because of the end of De Minimis, importing that to the US to an individual customer is like a gigantic pain in the ass.

12:30And so Lego is like, we're just not going to do it. And people even had bricks in their shopping carts. And then I think according to posts on social media, they saw them removed from those shopping carts as well. So they were planning to buy their Lego bricks and oh, no, sorry, you can't do that anymore. As you said, it's not just the US, but Canada as well. Any idea why the Canadians were implicated as well? Because the tariff stuff doesn't apply there. Yeah, I mean, because they were shipping to a warehouse, like a logistics center in the United States is sort of like my understanding of why Canada was cut off as well, because there was not like a direct from Denmark shipping situation to Canada.

13:20They were running it through a logistics center in the US. And so those were impacted as well. I will say that Lego has been talking a lot about how they're trying to build more manufacturing centers in the United States, which is the stated purpose of a lot of these tariffs. And who knows how long that takes, but building Lego bricks is not as complicated as building an iPhone. And so I would imagine that eventually, maybe they'll relaunch this program. Well, you can still buy some of the bricks from this program. The most popular bricks, they said, you can still buy because they're already based in the US.

14:02They're shipping them to the US at such a large quantity that they're coming in through more normal means versus being shipped directly from Denmark to individual people in the US. yeah and as you say making lego bricks probably less complicated than making an iphone so why doesn't tim cook just produce the iphone out of lego in the u.s with lego and then that would solve all the problems and then he doesn't really have to go give trump like a gold carrot trophy or statue or whatever it was but i think that would solve everyone's problems so if we zoom out slightly, that's kind of all of the, you know, the big mess that's happening with one hobby, a big hobby, you know, Lego's popular, but one singular hobby.

14:49But this other piece that I mentioned, Trump tariffs cause chaos on eBay as every hobby becomes a logistical minefield, obviously implicates everything. And the deck, sort of the sub-headline of the article, says, quote, buying cameras, retro games, board games, skincare, flashlights, sex toys, watches and anything else from overseas just became far more complicated, slow and expensive. I think we understand the more expensive. Can you just explain the complicated and slow? Yeah, it's because it's not just, hey, you have to pay this tariff. There's like a logistical aspect to paying the tariff.

15:31And so, you know, it's hard to say how this will play out in the long run. And a few readers have said, well, this has basically been the system in Europe for a long time, because Europe doesn't have de minimis in most countries. I believe in probably none, but I'm not sure. Don't check me on that. But basically, when I send shirts from my apartment in LA to our readers in Germany, for example, they have to go pick it up from the post office often and pay a tariff there. And it's like, that is a process. And so what is happening is, one, a lot of the national mail carriers have stopped shipping to the United States for a minute because they don't have the logistical infrastructure set up to deal with the US customs system.

16:27And so like Japan Post has said they're not going to send packages to the United States, like DHL said, they're going to restrict some things. There's just like a bunch of individual international post offices that are like, we're not going to ship to the US until further notice. So you now have to ship through FedEx and UPS. Those are the ones that still are doing it, which are both American companies. And one, like in my experience, FedEx is good. Like they're pretty fast, but they're really expensive. They're quite expensive. and so there's that price but now when you get a package internationally the package is not just going to come directly to your house it's going to clear customs at the border and like who knows how long that will take like it could be quick it could take days according to some ebay sellers i talked to and some people who are are posting about this and small companies that like packages are getting held up for days at the border but then when it goes through it's like you have to log on to FedEx's website to go pay the tariff before it will get delivered to your house.

17:36And it's just adding all this friction and it's annoying. It's like crazy additional steps that lots of people aren't used to. Lots of people aren't used to. And this article, it's affecting eBay sellers, Etsy sellers, really small businesses, people who do this on the side. And I've heard from a lot of people saying like, I have a metal band in Norway and some of our customers are in the United States. And it's like, I don't have the time or energy to jump through these hoops to send two vinyl records to the United States occasionally. So I'm just not going to do it. And so it's cutting off a lot of people who want to buy things from overseas.

18:21And it's like, maybe it's American exceptionalism or just like how I was raised, but I'm like, I'm not used to that. Like this is not the capitalism and commerce that I was promised growing up. It's like, I'm very used to, oh, you can buy anything from anywhere and they'll send it to you. And like now that is simply not the case. And there's like all these small businesses that won't do it. You know, I first became aware of this because I'm into film photography and almost all, not almost all, but many, many, I would say like 50 % or more of the vintage film cameras that are on eBay are shipped from Japan.

19:00And that's because Canon and Nikon and Pentax and all of these big camera companies are Japanese companies. And so there's just more stock there. And also, film photography remained popular in Japan longer than it remained popular in the United States. And so there's a lot more businesses that have the cameras, that refurbish them, that have stayed in this business. And so I bought several of my cameras from eBay, from Japanese sellers. And it used to be really simple. I just bought it and then I paid usually$20 shipping and it came and I didn't have to think about it. And I messaged a bunch of Japanese eBay sellers and I was like, what is the process going to be?

19:49Am I going to have to pay tariffs? Am I not? And it's all over the place because some of the sellers are doing what's known as duty paid shipping. So they're paying the tariffs beforehand and they're including that in the overall price. So the overall price is going up. Others are saying, well, we're going to sell it for cheaper, but you're going to have to do the importing side of things. And so it becomes like, if you're a price conscious person, which I am for a lot of these hobbies, I'm like, I want to get a good deal. If you're buying stuff on eBay, you probably want to get a good deal. You're having to calculate which one of these cameras is going to be easy to get.

20:36Am I going to have to go to FedEx to pick it up? Am I going to have to pay the tariff there? what is the tariff going to be and eBay has a page to help you with this and the advice they give is look up all this information that you don't have and aren't used to looking up. It's called harmonization tax code. It's basically a tool that they're offering, right? Or they point people to what? They point it to a US government tool and that's just a list of millions of different types of products and they all have a tariff code and you have to put it in there to figure out what rate this product is tariffed at.

21:13And that website sucks. And it's broken half the time. It's just very difficult to use because it's like a US government website. And then it's like, then eBay says literally, quote, apply some math. And it's like, I love to apply some math. Like, what math am I applying? And then it's like, buy it. And then the advice they're giving to sellers is like, expect negative feedback from buyers who can't figure this out and blame you. Wow. And if you've ever sold anything on eBay, bought anything on eBay, it's like feedback is how that entire website runs. Like if you start getting negative feedback, you get dinged in the algorithm.

21:50People stop buying from you. Like it's a real nightmare. And so this is like, it's just a shit show. And it's for every hobby. Like after I wrote this, like people who are into anime figurines were like, I cannot get my waifus anymore. Like I can't buy yarn. I can't buy like all this stuff that's just made elsewhere. Like all of these hobbies, if you're into vintage anything, it's not like we're making new vintage film cameras in the United States. And so it's just a mess. yeah i guess just the last thing i'll say is if the intent if the intention of the tariffs is to move manufacturing from overseas to the u.s what so do they want do they want norwegian heavy metal bands to become american heavy metal bands and then produce their vinyls in the states or something i mean it's just ridiculous in the face of it and it is obviously stupid for globalization and free trade i guess just super last thing what are you keeping an eye on just like people contacting you with those stories and that sort of thing like you mentioned or yeah i mean it feels like thus far american businesses have like jumped through many many hoops to uh make the tariffs look to consumers like they're not impacting prices like they're not impacting people in any way.

23:12Amazon was going to add a line item for tariffs back when they were first announced and then Trump got mad and they're like, nevermind, we're not going to do it. We're going to make this all invisible to the consumer. A lot of companies have... Some have raised prices, but a lot of them have held their prices down as long as they possibly can because I think they are scared of invoking the wrath of the Trump administration. And I think that this is something that can't really be hidden because the people who are impacted are like small businesses in other countries that are then passing that information on to American consumers.

23:56And so I'm very curious as to whether this is going to be like, I don't think it's going to be the thing that finally turns people against Trump, but I think it is going to be something that will be hard to hide. And if you have a hobby of any sort, this is probably going to be annoying for you. And so yeah, if it's affected you, if it's affected your business, I would love to hear from you. My email is jason.404media.co. And my signal is jason.404 because I'm collecting stories from small businesses and people who are into hobbies and stuff where like, I can't get my stuff anymore. So whatever that thing is, like, let me know.

24:39Yeah, the more obscure, the better. The more obscure and expensive, the better. All right, we'll leave that there. When we come back, we're going to talk about one of Emmanuel's stories. And for a moment, we were kind of part of the story as well, in a weird way. We'll be right back after this.

25:11This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Do you ever catch yourself opening up to your barista or asking a hairdresser for advice? It happens. Sometimes we just need to talk and vent, and the person that's closest becomes our pseudo-therapist. But when it comes to things like relationships and anxiety or stress, it makes a difference to talk to someone who's actually trained to help. That's where BetterHelp comes in. With over 30 ,000 therapists, they've served over 5 million people globally. And they use a quick questionnaire to help you find someone who fits your needs and preferences. And if it's not quite right, you can switch therapists at any time.

25:50No pressure. It's all online, and you can join a session with just a click of a button. Fitting therapy into your life instead of the other way around. Find one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at betterhelp.com slash 404media. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash 404media. When I was young, I used to dream about being a professional baseball player. As I got older, my dreams have changed. And now my dream is to be a small business owner of a journalist-owned tech publication. Really. Instead of dreaming of going to space, being a pro athlete, or living in a castle, maybe, like me, you start dreaming of owning your own business?

26:34You'll need a website, a payment system, a logo, and a way to advertise to new customers. It can all be overwhelming and confusing, but thankfully, that's where today's sponsor, Shopify, comes in. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the United States. from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that want to be household names like 404 Media. Shopify also makes it easy to find new customers so you'll feel like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns to find new customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling.

27:10Turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash media. Go to shopify.com slash media. Shopify.com slash media.

27:42All right, and we are back. This is one that Emmanuel wrote. how OnlyFans piracy is ruining the internet for everyone. Emmanuel, obviously, we'll get into the specifics here and the broader points, but maybe let's just go right to the beginning of how did you first come across this? And it somehow involves us and our website in a weird way. How did you first come across this? So I was editing a piece by Matthew Galt, who we just talked about, about the Swedish Prime Minister launching an AI bot to speak for him and it kind of going haywire, as you might expect. And I did what we often do, which towards the end of the story, we kind of link to other relevant stories that we published recently.

28:34And I thought about a story that Sam did about Facebook's AI therapists also going haywire and lying to users and things like this. So sadly, sometimes the fastest way to find a story is to just go to Google and type in some keywords plus 404 Media. I do it literally every day for all of my own coverage, even for when we worked at Motherboard. It's subject, Joseph Cox, Motherboard Vice. Okay, I found my article. Right. So I was doing that again. Yeah, I also do the same thing every day. And it just wouldn't come up. And I was pretty surprised because I knew I was using the right search terms and I was sure that we published it because it's a story that did well.

29:23And I was confused. But then I scrolled down to the bottom of the Google search results And I saw the notice that Google puts on pages when it removes search results because of copyright takedown requests. And you can click that to follow the link to something called the Lumen database, which keeps a record of takedown requests, meaning there is the copyright holder. They file a claim against a website that they think has violated their copyrights. They say what the original content is, what the offending content is, who filed the claim, and when. And when I clicked that, I saw that a company called Takedowns AI filed a claim on behalf of an influencer whose name is, sorry, I had it in front of me and I lost it.