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PODCAST

The Tech Policy Press Podcast

Tech Policy Press

Tech Policy Press is a nonprofit media and community venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. You can find us at https://techpolicy.press/, where you can join the newsletter.

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All Episodes

39:29

Contending with Spyware and Oppression in Thailand

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/16

Earlier this year, an investigation published in the New Yorker by Ronan Farrow suggested that commercial spyware called Pegasus, developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is being used by governments in at least 45 countries around the world, including by U.S. and European intelligence and law enforcement services. The technology permits government agents to gain access to the contents of cell phones by exploiting flaws in device operating systems and software.In this episode, we hear from three

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32:05

Model Suggests Digital Media Contributing to...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/13

Regular users of social media platforms are well aware that they often produce toxic discourse. Scholars continue to produce results that bring clarity to the mechanisms by which digital and social media exacerbate partisan and identity-based conflict. A better understanding is crucial for keying in on what platforms should be held responsible for, devising better policy, and potentially designing solutions.A new peer-reviewed paper from Petter Törnberg, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam

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49:09

Unpacking the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/11

Last week, President Joe Biden’s White House published a 73-page document produced by the Office of Science and Technology Policy titled Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work for the American People. The White House says that “among the great challenges posed to democracy today is the use of technology, data, and automated systems in ways that threaten the rights of the American public.“ The Blueprint, then, is “a guide for a society that protects all people from these

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46:10

Debate Over Content Moderation Heads to the Supreme...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/09

Some of the most controversial debates over speech and content moderation on social media platforms are now due for consideration in the Supreme Court. Last month, Florida’s attorney general asked the Court to decide whether states have the right to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their services, after Florida and Texas passed laws that challenge practices of tech firms that lawmakers there regard as anti-democratic. And this month, the Supreme Court decided to hear two cases

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47:06

Digital Governance and the State of Democracy: Why...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/08

On September 21, Justin Hendrix moderated a panel discussion for the McCourt Institute at a pre-conference spotlight session on digital governance ahead of Unfinished Live, a conference on tech and society issues hosted at The Shed in New York City.The topic given by the organizers was Digital Governance and the State of Democracy: Why Does it Matter?Panelist included: Erik Brynjolfsson, the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) and

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28:24

The Supreme Court Takes Up Two Cases That Could...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/04

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that concern whether tech platforms can be held liable for user generated content, as well as for content that users see because of a platform’s algorithmic systems.In deciding to hear Gonzalez et al vs. Google and Taamneh, Mehier et al vs Twitter et al, the Court will broach the question of whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be narrowed, and whether it still immunizes the owners of websites when that

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50:01

Election Misinformation Thrives on Major Social Media...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/10/02

The former President and his supporters continue to sow doubt in the outcome of the 2020 election, and in the election system more generally. Now, with the the 2022 midterm elections just a month away, a number of observers are perplexed at the posture of large social media platforms, where false claims continue to fester and efforts to mitigate misinformation always seem puny compared to the scale of the problem. This week we hear from three experts who are following these issues closely:Nora

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46:59

Contemplating the "Uselessness" of AI Ethics

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/27

In a new paper-- "The uselessness of AI Ethics," published in the online edition of the journal AI and Ethics, Luke Munn, points to over 80 lists of AI ethical principles produced by governments, corporations, research groups and professional societies. In is paper, he expresses concern that most of these ethics statements deal in vague terms and lack any kind of actual enforcement. But in critiquing attempts at defining an ethical code for AI, he is not suggesting we let the technology develop in a

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50:01

Trust and Safety Comes of Age?

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/25

As content moderation and other trust and safety issues have been, to put it mildly, at the fore of tech concerns over the last few years, it’s interesting to take a step back and look at the various conferences, professional organizations and research communities that have emerged to address this broad and challenging set of subjects. To get a sense of where trust and safety is as a field at this moment in time, Tech Policy Press spoke to three individuals involved in it, each coming from different

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44:56

Can Big Tech Platforms Operate Responsibly on a...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/18

A series of reports published this summer by Article 19- working with UNESCO and with funding from the European Union- take an in-depth look at how social media platforms operate in a global context, documenting a lack of understanding of cultural nuances and local languages, insufficient mechanisms for users and civil society groups to engage on moderation, a lack of transparency, and a power asymmetry that leaves local actors feeling powerless.To learn more about the project and its

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34:15

Understanding Digital Dragnets: Surveillance in the...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/14

In this episode of the Tech Policy Press podcast, we’re going to explore how law enforcement and other government agencies in the United States acquire data drawn from commercial data brokers for investigative purposes, and the questions raised by these practices.This is an issue that is still at question in the nation’s courts and is under active discussion on Capitol Hill. For instance, this summer the House Judiciary Committee hosted a hearing it titled Digital Dragnets: Examining the

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39:05

Mitigating Election Disinformation in Brazil

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/11

it is well understood that for all the shortcomings of the tech platforms’ approach to elections in this country, it’s much worse abroad, where often language and cultural barriers combine with fewer political and business incentives for firms such as Meta, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok to properly resource elections. Now, just weeks before a general election in Brazil that will decide that country’s next President, there are signs that disinformation is rife on the platforms, with many observers

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43:58

Douglas Ruskhkoff, the Survival of the Richest and......

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/06

A common theme on this podcast is the future, and the visions of the future that a certain set of Silicon Valley tech and venture accelerationists are working hard to advance. Today we’re going to hear from author and scholar Douglas Rushkoff about his latest book-Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires- which lampoons and deflates these characters, offering instead a humanist approach to defining the future by how we comport ourselves in the present.

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49:05

Contemplating YouTube's Rise: A Conversation with...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/09/04

This episode features a conversation with Bloomberg journalist Mark Bergen. He’s the author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination, from Viking.This is a business book, a history, and a contemplation of YouTube’s role in society all in one. Bergen explores how the company evolved into the massive juggernaut it is today, and along the way gives insight into concerning phenomena that we’ve discussed on this podcast in the past, such as the relationship between

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24:14

Facebook's White Supremacist Problem

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/08/30

The Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research initiative of the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability, is focused on holding major tech companies to account– including Meta, the company that operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. For instance, TTP collected what it calls Facebook’s ‘broken promises’ on issues ranging from bullying and harassment to fraud and deception to violence and incitement.A new report released this month, Facebook Profits from White Supremacist Groups, says the company

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26:14

Judging Platform Responses to Election Mis- and...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/08/28

In last Sunday’s podcast, I promised an occasional series of discussions on the relationship between social media, message apps and election mis- and disinformation. In today’s show, I’m joined by two guests who just did a deep dive into the issue, producing a 'score card' that compares the policies and performance of the tech companies on multiple dimensions for New America’s Open Technology Institute:Spandana (Spandi) Singh, a policy analyst at New America's Open Technology Institute, andQuinn

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43:45

Challenge Yields Experimental Interventions to...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/08/24

A little more than a year ago, a coalition of multidisciplinary researchers at Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia set out to crowd source ideas to address the political divide in what was dubbed the Strengthening Democracy Challenge. “Anti-democratic attitudes and support for political violence are at alarming levels in the US," said Robb Willer,Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and Professor of Sociology at Stanford, at the time of the

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23:21

The True Costs of Election Mis- and Disinformation

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/08/21

With the U.S. midterm election cycle about to kick into high gear, social media platforms are announcing updates to their civic integrity policies and approaches to countering election mis- and disinformation.In this week's podcast, we hear from election administrators themselves about the impact of election misinformation. This is the first in an occasional series Tech Policy Press will publish this fall on social media and election integrity. This episode draws audio from a panel discussion hosted

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46:45

Reading the Propagandists' Playbook: A Conversation...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/08/17

When most people think about the problem of mis- and disinformation, they think first of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But how might the affordances of search engines, when used by ideologically motivated individuals, contribute to an unhealthy information ecosystem? Dr. Francesca Tripodi has a new book out on the subject, The Propagandists' Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy, which I had the chance to discuss with her this week.

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31:09

Mexican Loan Apps, Extortion, and the Google Play Store

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2022/08/14

In recent months, press reports have emerged about individuals in multiple countries falling victim to extortion and fraud schemes enabled by often highly rated lending apps downloaded from Google’s Play Store. Last week, Diana Baptista and Avi Asher-Schapiro, journalists at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, told the story of how a man fell prey to one of these apps operating in Mexico. In this podcast episode, Baptista describes the man's experience, the broader phenomenon and the surrounding

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