Welcome back to my new series Free Speech Friday! :)

Right now, lawmakers in congress are trying to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a dangerous censorship bill that would give the government unprecedented control over the internet and force platforms to spy on youth.

KOSA claims to make kids "safer" online, but don't let the name fool you. This law would give the government unprecedented power to censor speech across the entire internet in the name of "protecting kids."

From mental health support communities to LGBTQ forums, KOSA endangers the very spaces young people turn to for help, identity, and connection. KOSA isn’t about safety, it's about giving the government unprecedented control over speech.

Ari Cohen is the Lead Counsel for Tech Policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and promoting free speech rights for all Americans. He joined me to break down KOSA and explain the many problems with the proposed law.

If you believe in a free and open internet, please join me in sending a message to your lawmakers right now and tell them to reject KOSA:

https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/censorship-wont-make-kids-safe

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Every week, there’s a new warning: TikTok is poisoning the youth, Facebook is radicalizing your uncle, and the only way to save ourselves is to log off.But what if that’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing? What if this push to disconnect isn’t about protecting us, but instead about disempowering us?

Aidan Walker is a meme researcher and author of the Substack newsletter How to Do Things With Memes. Today, he joins me to talk about why we shouldn't log off and how the internet, for all its flaws, can be a powerful tool for change.

The reality is that the internet—messy, chaotic, and algorithmically manipulated as it may be—is one of the only spaces where everyday people can assemble, communicate, and exert collective power.

Governments, the media, and people in power want you to stay offline, because a public that is fragmented and disengaged is easier to control. People in power want you to believe that social media is nothing more than an addictive distraction, rather than the battleground where narratives are shaped, movements are built, and institutions are held accountable.

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The stated goal of the Take it Down Act is to combat non consensual intimate images (NCII), colloquially known as revenge p**n. This includes things like AI generated nude deep fakes and other explicit imagery shared without a person's consent.

Cracking down on this seems great right? Sadly that's not what this law does. What the Take It Down Act *actually* does is make it so that anyone, at any time, can get content posted about them online that they don't like taken off the internet within 48 hours, no questions asked.

Becca Branum, Deputy Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Free Expression Project has been fighting this law. She joins me to break down exactly how the Take It Down Act will function and the terrifying ways the Trump administration is already planning to weaponize it.

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Students are using ChatGPT for everything. Parents are freaking out and the media is calling it the end of education as we know it. But are students really outsourcing their minds to machines? Are we witnessing the collapse of critical thinking, or are we just afraid of what change actually looks like?

In this episode, I’m joined by journalist Kat Tenbarge to break down the rise of ChatGPT in schools. We talk about whether school still serves the purpose it claims to and what does academic integrity mean in a world where AI can be used for everything?

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Imagine messaging a friend on Snapchat about how to get abortion pills, or tweeting about reproductive rights and getting fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's only part of what a proposed law in Texas that seeks to criminalize discussing abortion online aims to do. It's called HB5510, and it would essentially criminalize speech about abortion in emails, on websites, in social media posts, and even private messages.

Jennifer Pinsof senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non profit that fights for digital civil liberties, and she's been tracking the proposed law. She joined me to talk about how the law will work, why other states might try to replicate it, and how this will affect you even if you don’t live in Texas. 

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Jessica Valenti's piece on the law's other dangers that we mentioned in this episode is here: https://jessica.substack.com/p/texas-sb-2880-abortion-travel

If you’ve had your abortion-related content taken down, shadow-banned, or otherwise suppressed by Big Tech platforms, tell us your story here: https://www.eff.org/pages/stop-censoring-abortion

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For more information on EFF’s work, visit EFF.orgFor digital security and privacy tips for those seeking or providing an abortion, visit https://www.eff.org/issues/reproductive-rights

If you’ve ever wondered why news media obsesses over shoplifting but ignores wage theft, or why media outlets report a "shortage" of prison guards without questioning why we imprison so many people, you've probably encountered copaganda.

In this episode, award-winning civil rights lawyer and author Alec Karakatsanis joins me to discuss his phenomenal new book, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, and to break down all the ways that our news ecosystem is polluted with pro-police PR.

We talk about how copaganda shapes literally every form of media in the U.S. and warps our perceptions of safety and justice. Alec reveals how these fear-driven narratives are fueling the rise of authoritarian policies, mass incarceration, and deepening inequality.

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American police departments are using secretive AI technology to create lifelike AI personas designed to interact with real people online —like protesters and activists— for intelligence gathering.

This tech is becoming more popular amid crackdowns on student protests against the war in Gaza. Leaked presentations reveal AI personas posing as various individuals, from divorced activists to teenage boys, in attempts to infiltrate online communities.

404 Media's Jason Koebler joins me to break down how these AI bots work, how they're being deployed, how to identify them, and what role AI plays in the future of surveillance.

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From middle schoolers riffing on school lunch to kids interviewing political figures, podcasting is no longer just for adults. With high-end mics, massive TikTok followings, and brand deals from major companies, tween podcast hosts are building real media platforms from their bedrooms and local studios.

New York Magazine's EJ Dickson joins me to break down who the major players are in this growing space, including the MD Foodie Boyz, SaltyBoys, GSD Nation, the LOL Pod, and more. These tween stars have loyal fan bases, viral moments, and increasingly, the attention of advertisers looking to reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences.

We examine how kid-led podcasts are mirroring the formats and attitudes of older influencers, from Joe Rogan to the Paul brothers. And how, as more kids turn the mic on themselves and start broadcasting their opinions, jokes, and hot takes to the world, it’s reshaping what media looks like for the next generation.

EJ and I discuss how this trend took off, where it might be going, and what it says about the future of content creation.

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From Ohio to North Dakota, thousands of people have suddenly gotten brand new newspapers delivered to their doorsteps out of the blue. These newspapers are fake news outlets created by the oil and gas industry to influence public opinion in key districts, and they're having a major impact.

Top investigative journalist Miranda Green has been uncovering these schemes. She joins me to talk about how these shady publications are mimicking legitimate local newspapers to spread propaganda and influence public opinion.​

The fake outlets are already playing a major role in influencing public opinion and even jury pools, such as in the recent $666 million judgment against Greenpeace related to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Miranda reveals the oil and gas industry's fake news playbook and how it's eroding our news environment.

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Since Trump took office, the official White House social media accounts have been posting a bit… differently. Drew Harwell, my former colleague at The Washington Post, has been covering the Trump White House's digital strategy.

Today, he joins me to unpack the White House's hyper-online social media cruelty, the inner workings of its digital team, how the Trump administration has transformed its traditional press shop into a rapid-response influencer operation, and how the Democratic Party is responding in the online arena. 

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