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PODCAST

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly news podcast co-created by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation’s Ben Whitelaw. Each episode looks at the latest news in online speech, covering issues regarding trust & safety, content moderation, regulation, court rulings, new services & technology, and more.The podcast regularly features expert guests with experience in the trust & safety/online speech worlds, discussing the ins and outs of the news that week and what it may mean for the

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All Episodes

53:02

The TickTock on TikTok

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2025/01/24

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Application Of Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act To TikTok (The White House)Restoring Freedom Of Speech And Ending Federal Censorship (The White House)America Is No Longer the Home of the Free Internet (The Atlantic)Good morning, America: Why India banned TikTok 5 years back (India Today)Facebook, X, YouTube to do more against online...

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54:37

Bullshit in a China Shop

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2025/01/17

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:TikTok Oral Arguments (Supreme Court)Biden administration looks for ways to keep TikTok available in the U.S. (NBC News)Trump considers executive order hoping to ‘save TikTok’ from ban or sale in U.S. law (Washington Post)TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban (Techdirt)Meta employees criticize Zuckerberg decisions to end fact-checkin...

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55:18

Zuck and Cover

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2025/01/11

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Here's why Meta ended fact-checking, according to experts (ABC News)Meta Follows Elon Musk’s Lead, Moves Staffers to Billionaire-Friendly Texas (Wired)Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” (The Intercept)Trust & Safety is how platforms put values into action (T&S Insider from Everything in Moderati...

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52:31

How The Online Regulators Stole Christmas

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/12/20

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Social media platforms have work to do to comply with Online Safety Act, says Ofcom (The Guardian)LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced) (LFGSS)The GamingOnLinux Forum is shutting (GamingOnLinux)Australia leads the world in setting new standards for online child safety (eSafety Commission)How will Australia's ...

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52:56

Sometimes You Have to Whack Some Moles

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/12/13

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:He was suicidal and needed help. A 15-year-old girl pushed him to kill himself on a live stream (Washington Post)Romania’s top court annuls presidential election result (CNN)Continuing to protect the integrity of TikTok during Romanian elections (TikTok)Covert Facebook Network Found Targeting Romanian Voters (Bloomberg)TikTok pushes far right candidate content in Romania...

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63:16

Comply & Demand

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/12/06

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:TikTok Ban Upheld (DC Circuit)TikTok’s Romanian reckoning (Politico)Romania asks EU to investigate TikTok’s election handling after ultranationalist’s stunning win (Politico)TikTok Removes Covert Network Linked to Romanian Candidate (Bloomberg)GOP FTC Commissioners Abuse “Free Speech” Rhetoric To Push For Government Control Over Online Speech (Techdirt)Race to replace FT...

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51:37

Nothing to FCC Here

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/11/22

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host David Sullivan, the Executive Director of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership. They cover:Trump's FCC Pick Wants to Be the Speech Police. That's Not His Job (Wired)Sauce for the Goose: The FCC Lacks Authority to Interpret Section 230 Post-Loper Bright (The Federalist Society)Roblox gives parents more power to protect the safety of young gamers (NBC)Meta s...

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51:41

Locate Your Nearest X-it

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/11/15

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia follows The Guardian in quitting Elon Musk’s X due to disinformation and ‘disturbing content’ (Fortune)Bluesky attracts millions as users leave Musk's X after Trump win (Reuters)Advertisers set to return to X as they seek favour with Elon Musk and Donald Trump (Financial Times) The plan to ban children under 16 from social media (The ...

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45:18

Presidents & Precedents

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/11/08

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Pennsylvania Becomes Hot Spot for Election Disinformation (NY Times)After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent (NY Times)X Is a White-Supremacist Site (The Atlantic)Papers, Please? The Republican Plan to Wall Off the Internet (Tech Policy Press)What Trump's Victory Means for Internet Policy (CNET)The government plans to ban under-16s from social med...

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58:25

Sorry, This Episode Will Not Cheer You Up

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/11/01

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:These look like Harris ads. Trump backers bought them (Washington Post)Facebook Took More Than $1 Million For Ads Sowing Election Lies (Forbes)Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine (CNN)Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way (New York Times)Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebo...

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25:33

Minisode: The Robots Take Over Ctrl-Alt-Speech

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/10/25

Ben and Mike are technically off this week, but we decided to run an experiment. After discussing Google’s NotebookLM and its ability to create AI-generated podcasts about any content, Mike experimented with how it would handle one of the stories Mike & Ben discussed last week: Daphne Keller’s The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform on Lawfare. Mike explains why we’re running this, some of the work that went into it, as well as his thoughts on the experiment, followed by the AI-generate...

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60:30

Regulate, Rinse, Repeat

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/10/18

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:How Russian disinformation is reaching the U.S. ahead of the 2024 election (NBC News)The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform (Lawfare)ExTwitter Makes It Official: Blocks Are No Longer Blocks (Techdirt)People are flocking to Bluesky as X makes more unwanted changes (The Verge)Instagram blames some moderation issues on human reviewers, not AI (TechCrunch)This episode is ...

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52:12

An Appeal a Day Keeps the Censor Away

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/10/11

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:States sue TikTok over app’s effects on kids’ mental health (CNBC)Risks vs. Harms: Youth & Social Media (Substack)Instagram and Threads moderation is out of control (The Verge)TikTok lays off hundreds in Malaysia in move toward AI moderation (Asia Nikkei)Meta ‘Supreme Court’ expands with European center to handle TikTok, YouTube cases (Washingon Post)The DSA articl...

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60:59

Moderation has a Well-Known Reality Bias

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/10/04

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Professor Kate Klonick, who has studied and written about trust & safety for many years and is currently studying the DSA & DMA in the EU as a Fulbright Scholar. They cover:EU Commission’s Digital Fairness Fitness Check (European Commission)Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions (Nature)Inside Two Years of Turm...

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67:23

Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fakery?

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/09/27

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Cathryn Weems, who has held T&S roles at Yahoo, Google, Dropbox, Twitter and Epic Games. They cover:Google outlines plans to help you sort real images from fake (The Verge)Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out (Ars Technica) We Don't Need Google to Help "Reimagine" Election Misinformation (Tech Policy Press)Social media own...

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51:52

Smells Like Teen Safety

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/09/20

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Breton’s resignation could mark a new chapter for EU digital policy (Euractiv)Finnish horse enthusiast is an EU tech front-runner (Politico)Instagram, Facing Pressure Over Child Safety Online, Unveils Sweeping Changes (New York Times)Instagram to make teenagers’ profiles private by default (Financial Times)AI chatbots might be better at swaying conspiracy theorists than ...

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54:50

Blunder from Down Under

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/09/13

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Riana Pfefferkorn, a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human Centered AI. They cover:Australia threatens fines for social media giants enabling misinformation (Reuters)Social media ban for children to be introduced this year, but age limit undetermined (ABC)ASIO director-general Mike Burgess issues warning to big tech companies they may soon be forced...

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55:20

Judge, Jury and Moderator

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/09/06

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Social networks can’t be forced to filter content for kids, says judge (The Verge)Judge Rejects Yet Another Attempt By Texas To Police Online Speech (Techdirt)Telegram apologizes for handling of deepfake porn content in S. Korea (Yonhap)Brazilian Supreme Court panel upholds X ban (Axios)Elon Musk’s Starlink backtracks to comply with Brazil’s ban on X (The Guardian)With M...

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53:03

The Platform to Prison Pipeline

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/08/30

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:TikTok must face a lawsuit for recommending the viral ‘blackout challenge’ (The Verge)Third Circuit’s Section 230 TikTok Ruling Deliberately Ignores Precedent, Defies Logic (Techdirt)France charges Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, releases him on €5M bail (Politico) Elon Musk’s X could face ban in Brazil after failure to appoint legal representative (The Guardian)Zuckerber...

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61:35

ChatGPT Told Us Not to Say This, but YOLO

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2024/08/23

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Daphne Keller, the Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center. They cover:Ninth Circuit Rules in Favor of NetChoice Over California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (Ninth Circuit)Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta on appellate court decision regarding California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (State of California)R...

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85 results

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