There's no doubt that the internet has enabled criminals to share illicit and vile content with ease. The advent of high-quality end-to-end encrypted communications has made sharing this material harder for law enforcement to police. But the solution is not to cripple this technology, which is essential for security, privacy and even democracy. Today I'll discuss this thorny issue with Dhanaraj Thakur from the Center for Democracy and Technology. We'll talk about several dangerous proposals currently being considered in the US and Europe, and some potential solutions that can limit criminal behavior while preserving security and our right to privacy.

Dhanaraj Thakur is Research Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology, where he leads research that advances human rights and civil liberties online.

Further Info

Outside Looking In: Approaches to Content Moderation in End-to-End Encrypted Systems: https://cdt.org/insights/outside-looking-in-approaches-to-content-moderation-in-end-to-end-encrypted-systems/ End Run Around Your Rights: https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2021/12/13/end-run-around-your-rights/ Center for Democracy & Technology: https://cdt.org/ Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/newsletter/new-newsletter/Become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/FirewallsDontStopDragons Would you like me to speak to your group about security and/privacy? http://bit.ly/Firewalls-Speaker

Table of Contents

Use these timestamps to jump to a particular section of the show.

0:01:19: Rebranding rolling out0:02:11: Why is content moderation coming to the fore?0:05:11: What are the types of content we're trying to control?0:08:30: How is automated copyright detection being abused by police?0:09:49: What are the phases of content moderation?0:12:01: How can content moderation scale on huge platforms?0:15:14: How does moderation differ inside vs outside the US?0:18:12: What is the platform liability for content?0:21:33: How good is automated content filtering?0:25:01: When does moderation become censorship?0:27:52: Can social media companies block or allow whatever they want?0:30:53: What does end-to-end encryption really mean?0:34:42: How important is metadata for identifying illicit content?0:37:26: What are the current legislative proposals around content moderation?0:41:13: How can we comply with these orders without losing privacy?0:46:09: So where do we draw the line?0:48:44: How did we police this before the internet?0:49:34: How can I learn more and get involved?0:51:57: Listener mailbag coming soon!0:52:49: Preview of coming shows