The Tech Policy Press Podcast

The first segment in this episode is a conversation with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat representing Illinois’ 9th district. Representative Schakowsky serves as Senior Chief Deputy Whip and Chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has called the tech CEOs to testify in recent months and introduced proposed legislation. 

The second is a discussion on the threat of big tech and disinformation to social movements that took place recently at NetRootsNation, conference for progressive organizers. It is hosted by Melissa Ryan, a Tech Policy Press masthead member and author of the Ctrl Alt-Right Delete, a newsletter that covers extremism that has grown to more than 15,000 weekly readers. Melissa uses her expertise to help people, policymakers and institutions combat online extremism and toxicity as the CEO of her firm, CARD Strategies. At NetRoots Nation, Melissa organized a panel of activists to discuss how platform power and disinformation affected their communities in 2020, and how they plan to fight it in 2021 and beyond. They include Bridget Todd, who drives feminist cultural & political change at UltraViolet; Brennan Suen, a senior strategist at Media Matters, which tracks right wing disinformation; and Michael Khoo, the Co-chair of the Climate Disinformation Coalition at Friends of the Earth and CO-CEO of Upshift strategies.

This is Part 3 of three special episodes focused on Facebook in the wake of the revelations in what has come to be known as the Facebook Papers, reports based on a trove of documents brought forward by whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On Thursday- the same day Facebook announced its name change to Meta- Tech Policy Press had the chance to speak with two members of the Oversight Board, the entity the company set up to provide external oversight to its content moderation decisions and to help it make policy. John Samples and Julie Owono- two Oversight Board members who have a deep expertise in questions of internet governance, tech policy, human rights and free expression- spoke to Tech Policy Press editor Justin Hendrix and contributor and board member Courtney Radsch about the Oversight Board's recent transparency report, and the role of the Oversight Board in the post-whistleblower period.

This is Part 2 of four special episodes focused on the revelations in what has come to be known as the Facebook papers, reports based on a trove of documents brought forward by whistleblower Frances Haugen. In the first part, we heard from the Executive Editor of The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance, who wrote about the challenge Facebook poses to democracy.

In this episode, I had a chance to catch up with two people- first, Jeff Horwitz, a technology reporter at the Wall Street Journal and one of the leaders of the team reporting on the documents first brought forward by the Journal. And, I spoke to Dia Kayyali, the associate director for advocacy at Mnemonic, for reactions to the revelations in the whistleblower documents, and a point of view on what it means for the Oversight Board, the entity the company set up to provide external oversight to its content moderation decisions and to help it make policy.

This week’s revelations in what has come to be known as the Facebook papers- reports based on a trove of documents brought forward by whistleblower Frances Haugen- are keeping Facebook and its senior executives at the top of news feeds around the world. In the avalanche of coverage, one particular piece stood out to me-one written by Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic, and a writer and observer that I regard has having a keen insight into issues at the intersection of technology and democracy. The piece is titled ‘HISTORY WILL NOT JUDGE US KINDLY’: Thousands of pages of internal documents offer the clearest picture yet of how Facebook endangers American democracy—and show that the company’s own employees know it. Tech Policy Press had the opportunity to speak with her about the piece and pose additional questions about the company and its response to these leaks.

Earlier this month, Evan Selinger, a professor of philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, published a paper with co-author Darrin Durant in the journal Science as Culture titled Amazon’s Ring: Surveillance as a Slippery Slope. Last month, a must-read profile of Chris Gilliard by Will Oremus for The Washington Post also started out with concerns about Ring, before detailing Gilliard’s perspective and background. I invited Evan and Chris to join me to discuss their writings on Ring, and how it fits into their broader views on tech and society. 

This is a two part show- first, a discussion about how to make sure independent researchers have access to the data from technology platforms; and second, a book talk with the author of How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News: Exploring the Impacts of Social Media, Deepfakes, GPT-3 and More.

In the wake of the revelations brought forward by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, there is a great deal of focus among lawmakers and regulators in many capitals to figure out how to see inside the platforms. Last week, Nathaniel Persily, a professor of law at Stanford Law School and co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, put forward a draft of potential legislation, announcing what he calls the "Platform Transparency and Accountability Act" in a Washington Post column.

We took the opportunity to invite Nate and two other experts on this subject- Rebekah Tromble, Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics and Associate Professor at George Washington University, and Brandie Nonnecke, the Director of the Citris Policy Lab at UC Berkeley and a fellow at the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy- to talk about how best to get researchers access to the vast troves of data the platforms hold on us.

Noah Giansiracusa is a mathematician and data scientist who is Assistant Professor at Bentley University near Boston. Most of his papers are on things like algebraic geometry or machine learning. But recently, he wrote a book that looks at how algorithms are shaping our understanding of the world on social media. The book is called, How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News: Exploring the Impacts of Social Media, Deepfakes, GPT-3 and More. We spoke to Noah about the challenges of our algorithmically driven information environment, and whether AI might help us fix it.

On October 7th, Tech Policy Press hosted a mini-conference, Reconciling Social Media and Democracy. While various solutions to problems at the intersection of social media and democracy are under consideration, from regulation to antitrust action, some experts are enthusiastic about the opportunity to create a new social media ecosystem that relies less on centrally managed platforms like Facebook and more on decentralized, interoperable services and components. 

This fifth features Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor in the UCLA Department of Information Studies, and Director of UC Digital Cultures Lab, who with Dipayan Ghosh was the author of the article Reining in Big Tech in the Journal of Democracy series on the future of platform power that served as the basis for some of the discussion at the event. At the end of the session, you will hear Dr. Nathalie Maréchal and Richard Reisman, two participants in the first session of the day, offer thoughts in reply, along with Bryan Jones, who is chairman and cofounder of Tech Policy Press.

On October 7th, Tech Policy Press hosted a mini-conference called Reconciling Social Media and Democracy. While various solutions to problems at the intersection of social media and democracy are under consideration, from regulation to antitrust action, some experts are enthusiastic about the opportunity to create a new social media ecosystem that relies less on centrally managed platforms like Facebook and more on decentralized, interoperable services and components. 

The fourth segment of the event focused on the opportunities and challenges to building middleware solutions that may thrive in a more decentralized social media ecosystem. The two panelists for this session were Tracy Chou, founder and CEO of Block Party, a company that builds anti-harassment tools against online abuse, and Michael Masnick, the editor of Techdirt and the author of Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech, a paper we discussed during the event.

On October 7th, Tech Policy Press hosted a mini-conference called Reconciling Social Media and Democracy. While various solutions to problems at the intersection of social media and democracy are under consideration, from regulation to antitrust action, some experts are enthusiastic about the opportunity to create a new social media ecosystem that relies less on centrally managed platforms like Facebook and more on decentralized, interoperable services and components. The third segment features Cory Doctorow on the topic of competitive compatibility. 

On October 7th, Tech Policy Press hosted a mini-conference called Reconciling Social Media and Democracy.

While various solutions to problems at the intersection of social media and democracy are under consideration, from regulation to antitrust action, some experts are enthusiastic about the opportunity to create a new social media ecosystem that relies less on centrally managed platforms like Facebook and more on decentralized, interoperable services and components. The first discussion at the event took on the notion of ‘middleware’ for content moderation, and featured Francis Fukuyama, Nathalie Marechal, Daphne Keller and Richard Reisman.

This second session focuses on ideas put forward by Joan Donovan and Robert Faris, researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, in a Journal of Democracy article titled Quaranting Misinformation that is itself a response and critique of the idea of decentralization and middleware.