What if the internet that promised liberation ended up centralizing control over what we see, share, and believe? We sit down with Jake Siegel—journalist, former Army intelligence officer, and author of The Information State—to trace how a tool built for openness became the backbone of a new information order. Starting with the Internet Freedom Agenda and moving through 9/11’s surveillance shift, we connect the dots between national security priorities, platform consolidation, and the collapse of the traditional press.

Jake explains why tech has never been just another private industry; it’s a strategic one, born from wartime research and guided for decades by government direction. That origin story matters when assessing how Google, Facebook, and other platforms became the de facto publishers of our time. We talk through programs like Total Information Awareness, the rebranding of surveillance power under progressive aims, and the moment distribution power slipped from newsrooms to feeds. The Hunter Biden laptop saga becomes more than a controversy—it’s a case study in how quickly platforms can narrow the public square.

The conversation turns to first principles. If algorithms optimize for niches rather than a shared audience, polarization isn’t a bug—it’s the business model. Add generative AI and the volume, velocity, and personalization of influence campaigns explode, while the provenance of speech grows murkier. Jake argues that anti-censorship alone can’t solve a system tuned to turn speech into noise. We weigh remedies: reining in information monopolies, rebuilding local journalism, demanding transparency in ranking systems, and developing verifiable provenance for synthetic media.

If you care about free speech, election integrity, and the future of democratic debate, this is a candid map of how we got here and what needs to change. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves media history and tech policy, and leave a review with your take on the toughest fix we discussed.

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This show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.