Stanford Radio

Evelyn and Alex discuss what should be a massive story about India's orders to platforms to take down content related to a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Modi. They also discuss the UK's Online Safety Bill; ChatGPT content moderation; the Republican battle against Gmail's spam filters; Trump's pending return to mainstream platforms; TikTok "heating" videos; and an update from Courtroom Corner. Thanks to our new sponsor, Guttr.

Our guest on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, Ilan Kroo, is an expert in aircraft design. But when Kroo talks of aircraft, he means a new generation of flying vehicles that could transform our very concept of transportation—like personal flying cars that take off and land vertically or commercial airliners fueled by clean-burning hydrogen.

Kroo says the rapid changes he’s seeing in the industry could lead to safer, less expensive, more efficient—and quieter—air travel. Listen in as he shares more with host Russ Altman on this episode of The Future of Everything podcast.

Alex and Evelyn get Josh Tucker, a professor at New York University, and Solomon Messing, a Visiting Researcher Georgetown University, to talk them through the results of two major studies about the effects of online speech; they also discuss Twitter cutting off API access; public universities cutting off TikTok access; Apple promising more transparency about app store take-downs, and an update from the courtrooms.

Alex and Evelyn kick off 2023 with a rollicking tour through stories about: Meta's $400 million EU fine for privacy violations (cameo by Daphne Keller), Google's new appeals process for users flagged as uploading child sexual abuse material, WhatsApp introducing proxy servers, Twitter reinstating political ads, Meta's struggles to get out of politics, an Oversight Board decision about Iranian protests, information from the Jan 6 Committee about their findings to do with social media, and what's going on in Brazil.

Alex and Evelyn sweat through the holidays to make sure you get your critical trust and safety news, including Congressional action on platform transparency (cameo by Nate Persily); TikTok and LastPass data breaches (yikes!); and, of course, Twitter mayhem (sigh).

Evelyn and Alex talk about news happening in other corners of the trust and safety and platform regulation world: bills are introduced to ban TikTok; Meta released its annual adversarial threats report; a tech industry trade body filed a legal challenge to the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act and asked SCOTUS to review the 5th Circuit ruling upholding Texas' social media law; Trump had thoughts about defunding Stanford. And then, yes, they discuss the ongoing Twitter death spiral.

Helen Blau is a stem cell biologist and expert in why, as we age, our muscles weaken, even if we get exercise and try to stay fit. In an age when humans are living longer, our muscles are critical to living life to the fullest and Blau is helping them keep pace by recruiting stem cells to regenerate youthful muscle in older people.

Join us on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast as Blau and host Russ Altman discuss the science of muscle regeneration.

Evelyn and Alex wonder if this podcast is the propaganda platform that Elon Musk has said Alex runs. Then they discuss Apple’s huge set of announcements about encryption this week and the balance between privacy and safety; their weekly check in on the Twitter files and how things took a dark turn; and the Meta Oversight Board’s long-awaited decision on Meta’s X-Check system.

In the wake of the Buffalo shooting in May, New York passed a law imposing certain obligations on social media networks regarding "hateful conduct" on their services. It went into effect at the start of December and Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA Law who runs a legal blog, is challenging the law as unconstitutional. Evelyn sits down with Eugene and Genevieve Lakier from UChicago Law to discuss.

In this explosive, never-before-heard episode, Evelyn and Alex discuss the trust and safety implications of the AI text-generator ChatGPT, the expansion of a cross-industry database for removing non-consensual intimate images from platforms, a legal challenge to a new online hate speech law in New York, and….. The Twitter Files, of course.