Too often we let the rich and powerful dictate what technology’s future will be, from Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse to Elon Musk’s neural implants. But what if we all were empowered to use our voices and perspectives to imagine a better world in which we all can thrive while creating and using technology as we choose? 

That idea guides Deji Bryce Olukotun’s work both as a critically acclaimed author and as a tech company’s social impact chief. Instead of just envisioning the oligarch-dominated dystopia we fear, he believes speculative fiction can instead paint a picture of healthy, open societies in which all share in technology’s economic bounty. It can also help to free people’s imaginations to envision more competitive, level playing fields. Then we can use those diverse visions to guide policy solutions, from antitrust enforcement to knocking down the laws that stymie innovation. 

Olukotun speaks with EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley about rejecting the inevitability of the tech future that profit-driven corporate figureheads describe, and choosing instead to exercise the right to imagine our own future and leverage that vision into action.

In this episode you’ll learn about:  

• The influence of George W. Bush’s presidency and Silicon Valley’s rapid expansion on Olukotun’s seminal “Nigerians in Space.”
• The value in envisioning a “post-scarcity” world.
• Using speculative fiction to more accurately portray the long, complicated arc of civil liberties battles.
• The importance of stakeholder-based activism in advancing solutions to critical issues from protecting democracy to combating climate change.

Deji Bryce Olukotun is the author of two novels and his fiction has appeared in five book collections. His novel “After the Flare” won the 2018 Philip K. Dick special citation and was chosen as one of the best books of 2017 by The Guardian, The Washington Post, Syfy.com, Tor.com, Kirkus Reviews, among others. A former Future Tense Fellow at New America, Olukotun is Head of Social Impact at Sonos, leading the audio technology company’s grantmaking and social activations. He previously worked at the digital rights organization Access Now, where he drove campaigns on fighting internet shutdowns, cybersecurity, and online censorship. Olukotun graduated from Yale College and Stanford Law School, and earned a Master’s in creative writing at the University of Cape Town. 

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at eff.org/pod303 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Airtone

http://ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn DeBoer (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

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Smokey Eyes by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft.: KidJazz

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Additional beds and alternate theme remixes by Gaëtan Harris

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When a tech company moves to your city, the effects ripple far beyond just the people it employs. It can impact thousands of ancillary jobs – from teachers to nurses to construction workers – as well as the community’s housing, transportation, health care, and other businesses. And too often, these impacts can be negative.  

Catherine Bracy, co-founder and CEO of the Oakland-based TechEquity Collaborative, has spent her career exploring ways to build a more equitable tech-driven economy. She believes that because the technology sector became a major economic driver at the same time deregulation became politically fashionable, tech companies often didn’t catch the “civic bug” – a sense of responsibility to the communities in which they’re based – in the way that industries of the past might have. 

Bracy speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley about following the money and changing the regulations that underpin the tech sector so that companies are more inclined to be thoughtful about supporting, not exploiting, the places and people they call home – creating stronger, thriving communities.

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• How the venture capital model of funding contributes to tech’s reticence on civic engagement.
• How the “platform mentality” affects non-tech workers and their communities.
• Why the law should treat tech companies the same as other companies, without special carve-out exceptions and exemptions.
• Why tech workers being well-informed about their companies’ and products’ impacts, as well as taking active roles in their communities, can be a game-changer.

Catherine Bracy is a civic technologist and community organizer whose work focuses on the intersection of technology and political and economic inequality. She is the co-founder and CEO of TechEquity Collaborative, an organization based in Oakland, CA, that mobilizes tech workers and companies to advocate for economic equity in our communities. She was previously Code for America’s Senior Director of Partnerships and Ecosystem, where she grew the Brigade program into a network of over 50,000 civic tech volunteers in more than 80 U.S. cities. She also founded Code for All, the global network of Code-for organizations with partners on six continents. During the 2012 election cycle she was Director of Obama for America’s Technology Field Office in San Francisco, the first of its kind in American political history. Earlier, she was administrative director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. 

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at eff.org/pod302 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533

Warm Vacuum Tube  by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: starfrosch

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CommonGrond by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Ft: simonlittlefield

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Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Airtone

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Beatmower - Theme, Interstitial (Wonder) and Extro

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Additional beds and alternate theme remixes by Gaëtan Harris

What can a bustling electronic components bazaar in Shenzhen, China, tell us about building a better technology future? To researcher and hacker Andrew “bunnie” Huang, it symbolizes the boundless motivation, excitement, and innovation that can be unlocked if people have the rights to repair, tinker, and create. 

Huang believes that to truly unleash innovation that betters everyone, we must replace our current patent and copyright culture with one that truly values making products better, cheaper, and more reliably by encouraging competition around production, quality, and cost optimization. He wants to remind people of the fun, inspiring era when makers didn’t have to live in fear of patent trolls, and to encourage them to demand a return of the “permissionless ecosystem” that nurtured so many great ideas. 

Huang speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley about how we can have it all – from better phones to cooler drones, from handy medical devices to fun Star Wars fan gadgets – if we’re willing to share ideas and trade short-term profit for long-term advancement. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• How “rent-seeking behavior” stifles innovation. 
• Why questioning authority and “poking the tigers” of patent law is necessary to move things forward. 
• What China can teach the United States about competitive production that advances creative invention. 
• How uniting hardware and software hackers, fan fiction creators, farmers who want to repair their tractors, and other stakeholders into a single, focused right-to-repair movement could change the future of technology.  
   

Andrew “bunnie” Huang is an American security researcher and hardware hacker with a long history in reverse engineering. He's the author of the widely respected 2003 book, “Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering,” and since then he served as a research affiliate for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and as a technical advisor for several hardware startups. EFF awarded him a Pioneer Award in 2012 for his work in hardware hacking, open source, and activism. He’s a native of Kalamazoo, MI, he holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT, and he lives in Singapore.  

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod301

Find the podcast via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. You can find an MP3 archive of all our episodes at the Internet Archive. 

EFF is deeply grateful for the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, without whom this podcast would not be possible.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Nat Keefe of Beatmower with Reed Mathis. This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

CommonGrond by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Ft: simonlittlefield

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/59729
Probably Shouldn’t by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Mr_Yesterday

Additional beds and alternate theme remixes by Gaëtan Harris

It seems like everywhere we turn we see dystopian stories about technology’s impact on our lives and our futures — from tracking-based surveillance capitalism to street level government surveillance to the dominance of a few large platforms choking innovation to the growing pressure by authoritarian governments to control what we see and say — the landscape can feel bleak. Exposing and articulating these problems is important, but so is envisioning and then building a better future. That’s where our podcast comes in. 

EFF's How to Fix the Internet podcast offers a better way forward. Through curious conversations with some of the leading minds in law and technology, we explore creative solutions to some of today’s biggest tech challenges.

Find the podcast via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. You can find an MP3 archive of all our episodes at the Internet Archive. Theme music by Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

EFF is deeply grateful for the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, without whom this podcast would not be possible.

Where is the internet we were promised? It feels like we’re dominated by megalithic, siloed platforms where users have little or no say over how their data is used and little recourse if they disagree, where direct interaction with users is seen as a bug to be fixed, and where art and creativity are just “content generation.”

But take a peek beyond those platforms and you can still find a thriving internet of millions who are empowered to control their own technology, art, and lives. Anil Dash, CEO of Glitch and an EFF board member, says this is where we start reclaiming the internet for individual agency, control, creativity, and connection to culture - especially among society’s most vulnerable and marginalized members.

Dash speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien about building more humane and inclusive technology, and leveraging love of art and culture into grassroots movements for an internet that truly belongs to us all.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• What past and current social justice movements can teach us about reclaiming the internet
• The importance of clearly understanding and describing what we want—and don’t want—from technology
• Energizing people in artistic and fandom communities to become activists for better technology
• Tech workers’ potential power over what their employers do
• How Wordle might be a window into a healthier web.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod210 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/61577

Get It - pop mix by J.Lang Feat: AnalogByNature & RJay 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/59729

Probably Shouldn't by J.Lang 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/56377

Smokey Eyes by Stefan Kartenberg 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD) 

U.S. democracy is at an inflection point, and how we administer and verify our elections is more important than ever. From hanging chads to glitchy touchscreens to partisan disinformation, too many Americans worry that their votes won’t count and that election results aren’t trustworthy. It’s crucial that citizens have well-justified confidence in this pillar of our republic.

Technology can provide answers - but that doesn’t mean moving elections online. As president and CEO of the nonpartisan nonprofit Verified Voting, Pamela Smith helps lead the national fight to balance ballot accessibility with ballot security by advocating for paper trails, audits, and transparency wherever and however Americans cast votes.

On this episode of How to Fix the Internet, Pamela Smith joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to discuss hope for the future of democracy and the technology and best practices that will get us there.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Why voting online can never be like banking or shopping online
• What a “risk-limiting audit” is, and why no election should lack it
• Whether open-source software could be part of securing our votes
• Where to find reliable information about how your elections are conducted

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod209 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

Pamela Smith, President & CEO of Verified Voting, plays a national leadership role in safeguarding elections and building working alliances between advocates, election officials, and other stakeholders. Pam joined Verified Voting in 2004, and previously served as President from 2007-2017. She is a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises, a diverse cross-partisan group of more than 50 experts whose mission is to prevent and mitigate election crises by urging critical reforms. She provides information and public testimony on election security issues across the nation, including to Congress. Before her work in elections, she was a nonprofit executive for a Hispanic educational organization working on first language literacy and adult learning, and a small business and marketing consultant.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

It often feels like machine learning experts are running around with a hammer, looking at everything as a potential nail - they have a system that does cool things and is fun to work on, and they go in search of things to use it for. But what if we flip that around and start by working with people in various fields - education, health, or economics, for example - to clearly define societal problems, and then design algorithms providing useful steps to solve them?

Rediet Abebe, a researcher and professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, spends a lot of time thinking about how machine learning functions in the real world, and working to make the results of machine learning processes more actionable and more equitable.

Abebe joins EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to discuss how we redefine the machine learning pipeline - from creating a more diverse pool of computer scientists to rethinking how we apply this tech for the betterment of society’s most marginalized and vulnerable - to make real, positive change in people’s lives.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• The historical problems with the official U.S. poverty measurement
• How machine learning can (and can’t) lead to more just verdicts in our criminal courts
• How equitable data sharing practices could help nations and cultures around the world
• Reconsidering machine learning’s variables to maximize for goals other than commercial profit. 
   

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod208 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/59729

Probably Shouldn't by J.Lang

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/56377

Smokey Eyes by Stefan Kartenberg 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

Computer scientists often build algorithms with a keen focus on “solving the problem,” without considering the larger implications and potential misuses of the technology they’re creating. That’s how we wind up with machine learning that prevents qualified job applicants from advancing, or blocks mortgage applicants from buying homes, or creates miscarriages of justice in parole and other aspects of the criminal justice system.

James Mickens—a lifelong hacker, perennial wisecracker, and would-be philosopher-king who also happens to be a Harvard University professor of computer science—says we must educate computer scientists to consider the bigger picture early in their creative process. In a world where much of what we do each day involves computers of one sort or another, the process of creating technology must take into account the society it’s meant to serve, including the most vulnerable.

Mickens speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien about some of the problems inherent in educating computer scientists, and how fixing those problems might help us fix the internet.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Why it’s important to include non-engineering voices, from historians and sociologists to people from marginalized communities, in the engineering process
• The need to balance paying down our “tech debt” —cleaning up the messy, haphazard systems of yesteryear—with innovating new technologies
• How to embed ethics education within computer engineering curricula so students can identify and overcome challenges before they’re encoded into new systems
• Fostering transparency about how and by whom your data is used, and for whose profit
• What we can learn from Søren Kierkegaard and Stan Lee about personal responsibility in technology. 

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod207 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/59729

Probably Shouldn't by J.Lang (c) copyright 2019 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone (c) copyright 2018 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/mwic/58883

Xena's Kiss / Medea's Kiss by mwic (c) copyright 2018 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower (c) copyright 2013 

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD) (c) copyright 2020

Too many young people – particularly young people of color – lack enough familiarity or experience with emerging technologies to recognize how artificial intelligence can impact their lives, in either a harmful or an empowering way. Educator Ora Tanner saw this and rededicated her career toward promoting tech literacy and changing how we understand data sharing and surveillance, as well as teaching how AI can be both a dangerous tool and a powerful one for innovation and activism.

By now her curricula have touched more than 30,000 students, many of them in her home state of Florida. Tanner also went to bat against the Florida Schools Safety Portal, a project to amass enormous amounts of data about students in an effort to predict and avert school shootings – and a proposal rife with potential biases and abuses.

Tanner speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley on teaching young people about the algorithms that surround them, and how they can make themselves heard to build a fairer, brighter tech future.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Convincing policymakers that AI and other potentially invasive tech isn’t always the answer to solving public safety problems.
• Bringing diverse new voices into the dialogue about how AI is designed and used.
• Creating a culture of searching for truth rather than just accepting whatever information is put on your plate.
• Empowering disadvantaged communities not only through tech literacy but by teaching informed activism as well.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod206 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

Meet Me at Phountain by gaetanh (c) copyright 2022 http://ccmixter.org/files/gaetanh/64711

Hoedown at the Roundabout by gaetanh (c) copyright 2022  http://ccmixter.org/files/gaetanh/64711

JPEG of a Hotdog by gaetanh (c) copyright 2022 http://ccmixter.org/files/gaetanh/64711

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721