Ctrl-Alt-Speech

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

By Mike Masnick & Ben WhitelawBusinessNewsTechnologyTech News
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Ctrl-Alt-Speech episodes

  • Moderating Politics & Politicizing Moderation

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • Meta says it won’t support suit against major child safety law (Washington Post)
    • Obstacles to Autonomy: Post-Roe Removal of Abortion Information Online (Amnesty International)
    • Abortion Groups Say Tech Companies Suppress Posts and Accounts (NY Times)
    • The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled (Platformer)
    • How Politics Broke Content Moderation (Columbia Journalism Review)
    • Propagandists are using AI too—and companies need to be open about it (MIT Tech Review)
    • The rise and fall of Koo, India’s once-thriving Twitter alternative (Rest of World)
    • An Anonymous-Messaging App Upended This High School (WSJ)

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund. 

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    50 min
  • The Internet is (Still) for Porn, with Yoel Roth

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Yoel Roth, former head of trust & safety at Twitter and now head of trust & safety at Match Group. Together they cover:

    • X tweaks rules to formally allow adult content (TechCrunch)
    • Temu joins Shein in facing stricter regulation in the EU (The Verge)
    • Facebook’s Taylor Swift Fan Pages Taken Over by Animal Abuse, Porn, and Scams (404 Media)
    • Post-January 6th deplatforming reduced the reach of misinformation on Twitter (Nature)
    • Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation (Nature)
    • Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War (NY Times)
    • Twitch terminates all members of its Safety Advisory Council (CNBC)

     This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    53 min
  • Won't Someone Please Think of the Adults?

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • EU Explores Whether Telegram Falls Under Strict New Content Law (Bloomberg)
    • Too Small to Police, Too Big to Ignore: Telegram Is the App Dividing Europe (Bloomberg) 
    • NIST Reports First Results From Age Estimation Software Evaluation (NIST) 
    • Supersharers of fake news on Twitter (Science) 
    • Digital town square? Nextdoor's offline contexts and online discourse (JQD:DM) 
    • The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing (CNN) 
    • TikTok offered an extraordinary deal. The U.S. government took a pass. (Washington Post) 
    • Q&A: Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator On 100 Days of the DSA (Tech Policy Press)

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    54 min
  • Deepfake It Till You Make It

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • Meta and Coinbase link up with Match to fight pig-butchering, romance scams (Fortune)
    • Indian Voters Are Being Bombarded With Millions of Deepfakes. Political Candidates Approve (Wired)
    • Meta says AI-generated election content is not happening at a “systemic level” (MIT Technology Review)
    • How Bluesky is thinking about spam (Bluesky)
    • French TikTok block in overseas territory sets ‘dangerous precedent,’ critics warn (Politico)
    • How a Chinese Influence Operation Is Targeting Pro-Trump Communities Online (Lawfare)
    • X CEO Linda Yaccarino accuses Australia of ‘overreach’ after judge lifts ban on stabbing video (CNBC)

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor TaskUs, a leading company in the trust and safety field providing a range of platform integrity and digital safety solutions. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, TaskUs SVP of Global Offerings Phil Tomlinson tells us about his time at the Trust and Safety Professional Association summit in Dublin, his key takeaways from the event, and the trust and safety lessons learned from well-designed conference lanyards.

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    58 min
  • Do You Really Want the Government in Your DMs?

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act related to the protection of minors on Facebook and Instagram (European Commission)
    • Meta, TikTok, other platforms told to expect EU guidelines soon on child protection, age verification (MLex)
    • Got a text that you think is a scam? S’pore’s new centre to fight online harms can help verify it (Straits Times)
    • Bipartisan Bill To Repeal Section 230 Defended In Facts-Optional Op-Ed (Techdirt)
    • Indian journalists turned to YouTube to dodge Modi’s censorship. Some of their channels are now being blocked (Reuters Institute for Journalism)
    • She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all (The Guardian)
    • Commission services sign administrative arrangement with Ofcom to support the enforcement of social media regulations (Pub Affairs Bruxelles)
    • Singapore’s proposed online safety laws look like more censorship in disguise (Rest of World)

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    49 min
  • Between a Rock and a Hard Policy

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership (Tom's Hardware)
    • Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online (Ofcom)
    • Reddit Lays Out Content Policy While Seeking More Licensing Deals (Bloomberg)
    • Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups (Wired)
    • Politicians Scapegoat Social Media While Ignoring Real Solutions (Techdirt)
    • ‘Facebook Tries to Combat Russian Disinformation in Ukraine’ – FB Public Policy Manager (Kyiv Post)
    • TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban (New York Times)
    • Swiss public broadcasters withdraw from X/Twitter (Swissinfo)
    • Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights (Techdirt)

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    52 min
  • This One Weird Trick to Save the Open Internet

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Alex Feerst, former General Counsel and head of trust & safety at Medium, and co-founder of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership. Together they cover:

    • Was There A Trojan Horse Hidden In Section 230 All Along That Could Enable Adversarial Interoperability? (Techdirt)
    • EU Commission opens formal proceedings against Facebook and Instagram under the Digital Services Act (European Commission)
    • OnlyFans Investigated over its duties to protect under-18s from restricted materials (Ofcom)
    • Canadian banks need to do more to stop abusive e-transfers, survivors say (CBC)
    • TikTok And Meta Aren’t Labeling State Propaganda About The War In Gaza (Forbes)
    • How we fought bad apps and bad actors in 2023 (Google security blog)
    • Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers (Washington Post)

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund. 

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    1 hr 5 min
  • The Bell Tolls for TikTok

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • How to Fix the Online Child Exploitation Reporting System (Stanford Internet Observatory)
    • TikTok faces EU Commission’s second probe, potential suspension of reward program (Euronews)
    • Meta Expands Its Mixed Reality Beyond the Quest Headsets (CNet)
    • The biggest AI companies agree to crack down on child abuse images (Thorn)
    • Wattpad has a community problem, so it’s killing DMs (The Verge)
    • Discord CEO Jason Citron makes the case for a smaller, more private internet (The Verge)
    • Stanford Internet Observatory’s CyberTipline Report (Stanford Law School) 

    This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    55 min
  • The Difficulty of Being a Teen Online

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

    • Schools Were Just Supposed To Block Porn. Instead They Sabotaged Homework and Censored Suicide Prevention Sites (The Markup)
    • New Tools to Help Protect Against Sextortion and Intimate Image Abuse (Meta)
    • Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media—and driving some to suicide (Bloomberg)
    • The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet (TIME)
    • Mexican election agency and news organizations leverage Check (Meedan)
    • Benjamin Cohen was falsely accused of the Bondi Junction stabbings. Here's how the lie spread around the world (ABC News)

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    53 min
  • Watch Out, AI is Getting More Persuasive

    In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Alice Hunsberger, VP of Trust and Safety and Content Moderation at Partnerhero and former Global Head of Customer Experience at Grindr. Together they cover: 

    • Measuring the Persuasiveness of Language Models (Anthropic)
    • Our Approach to Labeling AI-Generated Content and Manipulated Media (Meta) 
    • Survey: New Laws Mandate Access To Social Media Data, But Obstacles Remain (Tech Policy Press) 
    • Brazil Might Regulate All Social Media After Clash With Elon Musk (Guardian) 
    • X automatically changed 'Twitter' to 'X' in users' posts, breaking legit URLs (Mashable)
    • LinkedIn starts verifying recruiters to stop scams (Axios) 
    • Content policy is basically astrology? (T&S Insider from Everything in Moderation) 

    Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

    Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

    42 min

About Ctrl-Alt-Speech

From the publisher's feed

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly news podcast co-created by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation’s Ben Whitelaw. Each episode looks at the latest news in online speech, covering issues…

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