Reimagining the Internet

What does Francesca Tripodi have in common with the Evangelical Christians she studied? They both do their own research, and they find lots of propaganda. This week on Reimagining, Francesca gives us a crash course on the sprawling conservative disinformation ecosystem.

Ben Tarnoff has a radical idea: unprivatize the Internet. The writer, Logic Magazine founder, and tech worker activist joins us to talk about his new book outlining what a truly public Internet would look like, from the fiber optic cables to the social media platforms platforms.

Google and Meta have been spending a small fortune to lay undersea cables bringing more broadband to Africa. Journalists Andrew Blum and Carey Baraka join us this week to talk about their years-in-the-making article for Rest of World asking if those companies will control what Africans can and can't access onli

Loads of stimulus, quick hits of dopamine, and no natural light: does this describe a casino or Facebook? The Danish philosopher Vincent F. Hendricks and digital media researcher Camilla Mehlsen join to walk us through their new book The Ministry of Truth, which explore how the attention economy incentivizes social media companies to make products […]

Brandy Zadrozny just made one of our favorite podcasts of the year, NBC's Tiffany Dover is Dead, so we needed to get her on the show to talk about the ins and outs of debunking conspiracy theories with gumshoe reporting.

Bruno Patino thinks the economics of the Internet are set up to give us the attention spans of goldfish. In this week's episode, Bruno tells us why France, a country such good public broadcast media, has so much trouble reigning in corporate social media.

With news that Elon Musk is purchasing Twitter, we recorded a rare hot takes episode. In addition to Ethan sharing his thoughts, we invited Deepti Doshi from New Public and Nathan Schneider on to talk about the need for platforms that bolster democracy.

Brandon Silverman developed a news analytics tool called Crowdtangle that was so good at tracking popular stories on Facebook that the company acquired it. Today on Reimagining the Internet, Brandon tells us how he’s working to regulate his former employer. Transcript Ethan Zuckerman: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Reimagining The Internet. I remain Ethan Zuckerman. […]

What the hell is "adversarial interopability"? Science fiction writer and prolific blogger Cory Doctorow thinks it's going to set you free from Facebook, letting you take your data and pictures wherever you want to go. And he believes surveillance capitalism is standing in your way.

were thrilled by her accounts of how gaming spaces are harbingers of social trends to come, online and off. Sometimes those are real problems like coordinated harassment, but sometimes those are collective solutions like distributed moderation and efforts to forge safe spaces.