How to Fix the Internet

The bots that try to moderate speech online are doing a terrible job, and the humans in charge of the biggest tech companies aren’t doing any better. The internet’s promise was as a space where everyone could have their say. But today, just a few platforms get to decide what billions of people see and say online. 

What’s a better way forward? How can we get back to a world where communities and people decide what’s best for content moderation, rather than tech billionaires or government dictates?  

Join Daphne Keller, from Stanford’s Centre for the Internet and Society, in conversation with  EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien about a better way to moderate speech online. 

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod103 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

— Why giant platforms do a poor job of moderating content

—What competitive compatibility (ComCom) is, and how it’s a vital part of the solution to our content moderation puzzle

— Why machine learning algorithms won’t be able to figure out who or what a “terrorist” is, and who it’s likely to catch instead

— What is the debate over “amplification” of speech, and is it any different than our debate over speech itself? 

—Why international voices need to be included in discussion about content moderation—and the problems that occur when they’re not

—How we could shift towards “bottom-up” content moderation rather than a concentration of power 

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

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 :

Come Inside by Zep Hurme (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/zep_hurme/59681 Ft: snowflake

Perspectives *** by J.Lang (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/60335 Ft: Sackjo22 and Admiral Bob

Kalte Ohren by Alex (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/AlexBeroza/59612 Ft: starfrosch & Jerry Spoon

Warm Vacuum Tube by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Homesick (2021) by Siobhan Dakay (c) copyright 2021 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/SiobhanD/63858 Ft: Kizzy Lotus

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721

Open source software touches every piece of technology that touches our lives- in other words, it’s everywhere. Free software and collaboration is at the heart of every device we rely on, and much of the internet is built from the hard work of people dedicated to the open source dream: ideals that all software should be licenced to be free, modified, distributed and copied without penalty. The movement is growing, and that growth is creating pressure: from too many projects, and not enough resources. The culture is shifting, too, as new people around the world join in and bring different ideas and different dreams for an open source future. James Vasile has been working in open source software for decades, and he joins Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to talk about the challenges that growth is creating, and the opportunities it presents to make open source, and the Internet, even better. 

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod102 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.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional music is used under creative commons license from CCMixter includes:

Warm Vacuum Tube  by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Come Inside by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba

Xena's Kiss / Medea's Kiss by mwic (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/mwic/58883

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721

Your phone is a window to your soul - and that window has been left open to law enforcement. Today, even small-town police departments have powerful tools that can easily access the most intimate information on your cell phone. Upturn’s Executive Director Harlan Yu joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to talk about a better way for law enforcement to treat our data. 

When Upturn researchers surveyed police departments on the mobile device forensic tools they were using on mobile phones, they discovered that the tools are being used by police departments large and small across America. There are few rules on what law enforcement can do with the data they download, and not very many policies on how the information should be stored, shared, or destroyed.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs) that are used by police to download data from your phone, even when it’s locked
• How court cases such as Riley v. California powerfully protect our digital privacy-- but those protections are evaded when police get verbal consent to search a phone
• How widespread the use of MDFTs are by law enforcement departments across the country, including small-town police departments investigating minor infractions
• The roles that phone manufacturers and mobile device forensic tool vendors can play in protecting user data
• How re-envisioning our approaches to phone surveillance helps address issues of systemic targeting of marginalized communities by police agencies
• The role of warrants in protecting our digital data.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod101 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.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional music is used under creative commons license from CCMixter includes:

Warm Vacuum Tube  by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Come Inside by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba

Xena's Kiss / Medea's Kiss by mwic (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/mwic/58883

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721

How to Fix the Internet from the Electronic Frontier Foundation brings you ideas, solutions, and pathways to a better digital future for all. 

Chris Lewis joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how our access to knowledge is increasingly governed by "click-wrap" agreements that prevent users from ever owning things like books and music, and how this undermines the legal doctrine of “first sale” – which states that once you buy a copyrighted work, it’s yours to resell or give it away as you choose. They talk through the ramifications of this shift on society, and also start to paint a brighter future for how the digital world would thrive if we safeguard digital first sale.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• The legal doctrine of first sale—in which owners of a copyrighted work can resell it or give it away as they choose—and why copyright maximalists have fought it for so long;
• The Redigi case, in which a federal court held that the Redigi music service, which allows music fans to store and resell music they buy from iTunes, violated copyright law—and why that set us down the wrong path;
• The need for a movement that can help champion digital first sale and access to knowledge more generally;
• How digital first sale connects to issues of access to knowledge, and how this provides a nexus to issues of societal equity;
• Why the shift to using terms of service to govern access to content such as music and books has meant that our access to knowledge is intermediated by contract law, which is often impenetrable to average users;
• How not having a strong right of digital first sale undermines libraries, which have long benefited from bequests and donations;
• How getting first sale right in the digital world will help to promote equitable access to knowledge and create a more accessible digital world.

Christopher Lewis is President and CEO at Public Knowledge. Prior to being elevated to President and CEO, Chris served for as PK's Vice President from 2012 to 2019 where he led the organization's day-to-day advocacy and political strategy on Capitol Hill and at government agencies. During that time he also served as a local elected official, serving two terms on the Alexandria City Public School Board. Chris serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Local Self Reliance and represents Public Knowledge on the Board of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG). Before joining Public Knowledge, Chris worked in the Federal Communications Commission Office of Legislative Affairs, including as its Deputy Director. He is a former U.S. Senate staffer for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and has over 18 years of political organizing and advocacy experience, including serving as Virginia State Director at GenerationEngage, and working as the North Carolina Field Director for Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign and other roles throughout the campaign. Chris graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelors degree in Government and lives in Alexandria, VA where he continues to volunteer and advocate on local civic issues. You can find Chris on Twitter at @ChrisJ_Lewis

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast player of choice. You can also find the Mp3 of this episode on the Internet Archive.  If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected].

You’ll find legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – as well a full transcript of the audio at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/podcast-episode-you-bought-it-do-you-own-it.

Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com.

Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abi Hassen joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss the rise of facial recognition technology, how this increasingly powerful identification tool is ending up in the hands of law enforcement, and what that means for the future of public protest and the right to assemble and associate in public places.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• The Black Movement Law Project, which Abi co-founded, and how it has evolved over time to meet the needs of protesters;
• Why the presumption that people don’t have any right to privacy in public spaces is challenged by increasingly powerful identification technologies;
• Why we may need to think big when it comes to updating the U.S. law to protect privacy;
• How face recognition technology can have a chilling effect on public participation, even when the technology isn’t  accurate;
• How face recognition technology is already leading to the wrongful arrest of innocent people, as seen in a recent case of a man in Detroit;
• How gang laws and anti-terrorism laws have been the foundation of a legal tools that can now be deployed against political activists;
• Understanding face recognition technology within the context of a range of powerful surveillance tools in the hands of law enforcement;
• How we can start to fix the problems caused by facial recognition through increased transparency, community control, and hard limits on law enforcement use of face recognition technology,
• How Abi sees the further goal is to move beyond restricting or regulating specific technologies to a world where public protests are not so necessary, as part of reimagining the role of law enforcement.

Abi is a political philosophy student, attorney, technologist, co-founder of the Black Movement-Law Project, a legal support rapid response group that grew out of the uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. He is also a partner (currently on leave) at O’Neill and Hassen LLP, a law practice focused on indigent criminal defense. Prior to this current positions, he was the Mass Defense Coordinator at the National Lawyers Guild. Abi has also worked as a political campaign manager and strategist, union organizer, and community organizer. He conducts trainings, speaks, and writes on topics of race, technology, (in)justice, and the law. Abi is particularly interested in exploring the dynamic nature of institutions, political movements, and their interactions from the perspective of complex systems theory. You can find Abi on Twitter at @AbiHassen, and his website is https://AbiHassen.com

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast player of choice. You can also find the Mp3 of this episode on the Internet Archive.  If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected].

You’ll find legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – as well a full transcript of the audio at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-your-face-their-database.

Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com.

Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Cory Doctorow joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how large, established tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook can block interoperability in order to squelch competition and control their users, and how we can fix this by taking away big companies' legal right to block new tools that connect to their platforms – tools that would let users control their digital lives.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• How the power to leave a platform is one of the most fundamental checks users have on abusive practices by tech companies—and how tech companies have made it harder for their users to leave their services while still participating in our increasingly digital society;
• How the lack of interoperability in modern tech platforms is often a set of technical choices that are backed by a legal infrastructure for enforcement, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This means that attempting to overcome interoperability barriers can come with legal risks as well as financial risks, making it especially unlikely for new entrants to attempt interoperating with existing technology;
• How online platforms block interoperability in order to silence their critics, which can have real free speech implications;
• The “kill zone” that exists around existing tech products, where investors will not back tech startups challenging existing tech monopolies, and even startups that can get a foothold may find themselves bought out by companies like Facebook and Google;
• How we can fix it: The role of “competitive compatibility,” also known as “adversarial interoperability”  in reviving stagnant tech marketplaces;
• How we can fix it by amending or interpreting the DMCA, CFAA and contract law to support interoperability rather than threaten it.
• How we can fix it by supporting the role of free and open source communities as champions of interoperability and offering alternatives to existing technical giants.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently ATTACK SURFACE, RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults, IN REAL LIFE, a graphic novel; INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE, a book about earning a living in the Internet age, and HOMELAND, a YA sequel to LITTLE BROTHER. His latest book is POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER, a picture book for young readers.

Cory maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. You can find Cory on Twitter at @doctorow.

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast player of choice. You can also find the Mp3 of this episode on the Internet Archive.  If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected].

A transcript of the episode, as well as legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – is available at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-control-over-users-competitors-and-critics.

Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com.

Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jumana Musa joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how the third-party doctrine is undermining our Fourth Amendment right to privacy when we use digital services, and how recent court victories are a hopeful sign that we may reclaim these privacy rights in the future.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• How the third-party doctrine is a judge-created legal doctrine that impacts your business records held by companies, including metadata such as what websites you visit, who you talk to, your location information, and much more;
• The Jones case, a vital Supreme Court case that found that law enforcement can’t use continuous location tracking with a GPS device without a warrant;
• The Carpenter case, which found that the police must get a warrant before accessing cell site location information from a cell phone company over time;
• How law enforcement uses geofence warrants to scoop up the location data collected by companies from every device that happens to be in a geographic area during a specific period of time in the past;
• How getting the Fourth Amendment right is especially important because it is part of combatting racism: communities of color are more frequently surveilled and targeted by law enforcement, and thus slipshod legal standards for accessing data has a disproportionate impact on communities of color;
• Why even a warrant may not be an adequate legal standard sometimes, and that there are circumstances in which accessing business records should require a “super warrant” – meaning law enforcement could only access the data for investigating a limited number of crimes, and only if the data would be important for the crime.

Jumana Musa is a human rights attorney and racial justice activist. She is currently the Director of the Fourth Amendment Center at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. As director, Ms. Musa oversees NACDL's initiative to build a new, more durable Fourth Amendment legal doctrine for the digital age. The Fourth Amendment Center educates the defense bar on privacy challenges in the digital age, provides a dynamic toolkit of resources to help lawyers identify opportunities to challenge government surveillance, and establishes a tactical litigation support network to assist in key cases. Ms. Musa previously served as NACDL's Sr. Privacy and National Security Counsel.

Prior to joining NACDL, Ms. Musa served as a policy consultant for the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a coalition of over 60 groups across the southwest that address militarization and brutality by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in border communities. Previously, she served as Deputy Director for the Rights Working Group, a national coalition of civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, and immigrant rights advocates where she coordinated the “Face the Truth” campaign against racial profiling. She was also the Advocacy Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice at Amnesty International USA, where she addressed the domestic and international impact of U.S. counterterrorism efforts on human rights. She was one of the first human rights attorneys allowed to travel to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and served as Amnesty International's legal observer at military commission proceedings on the base. You can find Jumana on Twitter at @musajumana.

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast player of choice. You can also find this episode on the Internet Archive. If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected].

A transcript of the episode, as well as legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – is available at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-fixing-digital-loophole-fourth-amendment.

Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com.

Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Gigi Sohn joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss broadband access in the United States – or the lack thereof. Gigi explains the choices American policymakers and tech companies made to create a country where there are millions of Americans who lack access to reliable broadband, and what steps we need to take to fix the problem now.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How does the FCC define broadband Internet and why that definition makes no sense in 2020;
• How many other countries adopted policies that either incentivized competition among Internet providers or invested in government infrastructure for Internet services, while the United States did neither, leading to a much of the country having only one or two Internet service providers, high costs, and poor quality Internet service;
• Why companies like AT&T and Verizon aren’t investing in fiber;
• How the FCC uses a law about telephone regulation to assert authority over regulating broadband access, and how the 1996 Telecommunication Act granted the FCC permission to forbear – or not apply – certain parts of that law;
• How 19 states in the U.S. have bans or limitations on municipal broadband, and why repealing those bans is key to increasing broadband access
• How Internet access is connected to issues of equity, upward mobility, and job accessibility, as well as related issues of racial justice, citizen journalism and police accountability;
• Specific suggestions and reforms, including emergency subsidies and a major investment in infrastructure, that could help turn this situation around.

Gigi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate.  She is one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable and democratic communications networks. From 2013-2016, Gigi was Counselor to the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler. She advised the Chairman on a wide range of Internet, telecommunications and media issues, representing him and the FCC in a variety of public forums around the country as well as serving as the primary liaison between the Chairman’s office and outside stakeholders. From 2001-2013, Gigi served as the Co-Founder and CEO of Public Knowledge, a leading telecommunications, media and technology policy advocacy organization. She was previously a Project Specialist in the Ford Foundation’s Media, Arts and Culture unit and Executive Director of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm. You can find Gigi on her own podcast, Tech on the Rocks, or you can find her on Twitter at @GigiBSohn.

A transcript of the episode, as well as legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – is available at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-why-does-my-internet-suck. 

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet using your podcast player of choice. If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected].

Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com.

Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In the inaugural episode of EFF's "How to Fix the Internet" podcast, the Cato Institute’s specialist in surveillance legal policy, Julian Sanchez, joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they delve into the problems with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISC or the FISA Court. Sanchez explains how the FISA Court signs off on surveillance of huge swaths of our digital lives, and how the format and structure of the FISA Court is inherently flawed.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

• How the FISA Court impacts your digital privacy
• The makeup of the FISA Court and how judges are chosen
• How almost all of the key decisions about the legality of America's mass Internet spying projects have been made by the FISC
• How the current system promotes ideological hegemony within the FISA court
• How the FISC’s endless-secrecy-by-default system insulates it from the ecosystem of jurisprudence that could act as a guardrail against poor decisions as well as accountability for them
• How the FISC’s remit has ballooned from approving individual surveillance orders to signing off on broad programmatic types of surveillance
• Why we need a stronger amicus role in the FISC, and especially a bigger role for technical experts to advise the court
• Specific reforms that could be enacted to address these systemic issues and ensure a more fair review of surveillance systems

Julian is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and studies issues at the intersection of technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a particular focus on national security and intelligence surveillance. Before joining Cato, Julian served as the Washington editor for the technology news site Ars Technica, where he covered surveillance, intellectual property, and telecom policy. He has also worked as a writer for The Economist’s blog Democracy in America and as an editor for Reason magazine, where he remains a contributing editor. Sanchez has written on privacy and technology for a wide array of national publications, ranging from the National Review to The Nation, and is a founding editor of the policy blog Just Security. He studied philosophy and political science at New York University. Find him on Twitter at @Normative.

A transcript of the episode, as well as legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – is available at https://eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/secret-court-approving-secret-surveillance.

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet using your podcast player of choice. If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected].

Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com.

Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.