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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

29:56

Celebrating 100 Episodes & Launching Our Patreon

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/04/23

In this special episode, Mike and Ben reflect on 100 episodes of the podcast, followed by an important announcement: we’re launching a Patreon and making some changes to Ctrl-Alt-Speech! Starting on May 28th, Patreon members will get early access to extended weekly episodes with in-depth coverage of an extra major story. The free episodes will continue here on this feed, just slightly shorter and released one day later. You can become a member now at one of two levels: Supporters get ea...

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52:27

The Silence of the LLMs

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/04/16

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: The Darkest Web (BBC)Federal agencies skirt Trump’s Anthropic ban to test its advanced AI model (Politico)Anthropic Opposes the Extreme AI Liability Bill That OpenAI Backed (Wired)Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says (Politico EU)Statement by President von der Leyen with Executive Vice-President Virkkunen on the digital...

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51:12

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ Internet

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/04/09

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Fadza Madzingira, a digital policy expert with a decade of experience at Meta, Salesforce, Ofcom and currently Twitch, where she leads the policy, outreach and education teams. Together, they discuss: Exclusive: Meta has discussed ending funding to the Oversight Board (Platformer)Spotlight: Five Years of the Oversight Board, from Experiment to Essential Institution (Ctrl-Al...

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50:31

Age Old Questions

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/04/02

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: It's official: Australia's teen social media ban isn't working, yet (Crikey)Social Media Minimum Age - Compliance update (eSafety Commision)Blunder from Down Under (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)April 3 could create a dangerous gap in child safety across Europe (Thorn)Commissioners pile pressure on Parliament to pass child sexual abuse bill (POLITICO)Weeks After Denouncing Government...

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53:09

For Meta or Worse

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/03/26

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: How London become a T&S hub (Everything in Moderation) Everyone Cheering The Social Media Addiction Verdicts Against Meta Should Understand What They’re Actually Cheering For (Techdirt)Supreme Court Sides With Internet Provider in Copyright Fight Over Pirated Music (New York Times)US settles social media censorship case, bars agencies from threatening penalties...

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52:08

Money for Nothing and Clicks for a Fee

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/03/19

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story (Times of Israel)Maybe Turning War Into a Casino Was a Bad Idea? (The Atlantic)French music streamer Deezer battles deluge of AI fraud (Financial Times)I hacked ChatGPT and Google's AI - and it only took 20 minutes (BBC)US to Receive $10 Billion Fee for TikTok Deal,...

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52:29

Writing Some Wrongs

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/03/12

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Grammarly turned me into an AI editor against my will and I hate it (Platformer)Grammarly has disabled its tool offering generative-AI feedback credited to real writers (Engadget)Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature (Wired)Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz. (NY Times)Molly vs the Machines review – a powerful s...

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52:59

The (Content Moderation) Eras Tour

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/03/05

In a special episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Ben and Mike discuss (with apologies to Tay-Tay) the three eras of content moderation in the media and what comes next. Their conversation builds on Ben’s essay in the soon-to-be-published Trust, Safety, and the Internet We Share Multistakeholder Insights, a new book looking at the evolution of the Trust & Safety industry and how platform policies decisions are made. The pre-print is available online. Together, they unpack three distinct phas...

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47:09

Let Fly the Claudes of War, with Casey Newton

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/02/26

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, a podcast that makes sense of the rapidly changing world of tech. Together, they discuss: After a deadly raid, an AI power struggle erupts at the Pentagon (Washington Post)Following: Anthropic vs. The Pentagon (Platformer)Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge (TIME)Hackers Expose Age-Verification Soft...

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47:42

Panic! At The Discord

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/02/12

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Dr Blake Hallinan, Professor of Platform Studies in the Department of Media & Journalism Studies at Aarhus University. Together, they discuss: On Section 230’s 30th Birthday, A Look Back At Why It’s Such A Good Law And Why Messing With It Would Be Bad (Techdirt)An 18-Million-Subscriber YouTuber Just Explained Section 230 Better Than Every Politician In Washington (Techd...

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53:20

FAFO: Claude Goes High Brow With Its Super Bowl Ad &...

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/02/10

In this special bonus for Ctrl-Alt-Speech listeners, we're cross-posting an episode from the Future Around And Find Out podcast hosted by Dan Blumberg with guest Kwaku Aning. This week Dan and Kwaku dig into: The uncanny valley that is AI agents and Moltbook—the "Reddit" that agents built for themselves to complain about humans, create a religion, and behave in ways that freak humans out Anthropic takes aim at OpenAI with a Super Bowl ad that's spicy (for cubs and cougars alik...

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51:25

C'est la Vile Content

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/02/05

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: House Judiciary Releases EU X Fine Details (House Judiciary X Account)New Report Exposes European Commission Decade-Long Campaign to Censor American Speech (House Judiciary Committee)X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok (BBC)Hey Gavin Newsom! Investigating TikTok’s Moderation Is Just As Unconstitutional As When Texas & Florida Tried I...

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55:36

Think Globally, Stack Locally

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/01/29

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by Konstantinos Komaitis, Senior Resident Fellow for Global and Democratic Governance at the Digital Forensics Research Lab (DFRLab) at the Atlantic Council. Together, they discuss: Who Owns TikTok in the U.S. Now? (NY Times)TikTok is investigating why some users can't write 'Epstein' in messages (NPR)TikTok users freak out over app’s ‘immigration status’ collection — here’s ...

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46:30

This Episode is Broadly Safe to Listen To

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/01/23

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: My year with a flip phone (Financial Times)Claude’s Constitution (Anthropic)From the CEO: What’s coming to YouTube in 2026 (Youtube)BBC to show programmes on YouTube in landmark deal (Financial Times)Rand Paul: I’ve changed my mind — Google and YouTube can’t be trusted to do the right thing and must be reined in (NY Post)Rand Paul Only Wants Google To Be The Arbiter Of ...

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51:02

We’ve Hit Grok Bottom

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/01/15

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: UK, Canadian watchdogs press on with probes into Elon Musk's Grok chatbot (Reuters)Musk’s xAI limits Grok’s ability to create sexualized images of real people on X after backlash (CNBC)X claims it has stopped Grok from undressing people, but of course it hasn’t (The Verge)State Department Threatens UK Over Grok Investigation, Because Only The US Is Allowed To Ban Foreig...

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35:31

Spotlight: Five Years of the Oversight Board, from...

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/01/09

In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw talks to Oversight Board co-chair Paolo Carozza (Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana) and Board member Julie Owono (Executive Director of Internet Without Borders and research affiliate at Berkman Klein Centre) about the Board’s five-year journey and its plans for the future. Together, Ben, Paolo and Julie discuss the Board’s recently published report, From Bold Experiment ...

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44:33

Making Our 2026 Bingo Card

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2026/01/08

In the first Ctrl-Alt-Speech episode of 2026, Mike and Ben look forward at the year ahead and begin building a bingo card of things that might happen. They discuss a short list of possible squares, ask for listeners to contribute more ideas, and go few a through suggestions that have already come in. Soon, we’ll release an official Ctrl-Alt-Speech bingo card for listeners to play along throughout the year. Follow Ben at Everything in Moderation and Mike at Techdirt. Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a week...

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53:46

Have Yourself a Very Meta Christmas

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2025/12/18

In the last Ctrl-Alt-Speech of the year, Mike and Ben round up the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation with the following stories: Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content | Global development (The Guardian)Facebook is testing a link-posting limit for professional accounts and pages (Techcrunch)Meta adopts new age-check system to meet global child safety laws (FT)Russian ban on Roblox gaming platform sparks rare protest (...

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63:52

Censors & Sensibility

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2025/12/11

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Resonant Computing Manifesto Support Techdirt’s Uncompromising Coverage, Get Our First Commemorative Coin (Techdirt)US Ambassador Slams EU Tech Rules as Musk’s X Hit With Fine (Bloomberg)Why the X fine is causing so much transatlantic drama (Politico)Tech workers face new H1-B scrutiny as Trump targets ‘censorship’ (Washington Post)H1-B visa advice (LinkedIn - Alic...

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46:23

Stuck in the Middleware with Youth

Ctrl-Alt-Speech ·

2025/12/04

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Vaishnavi J, former head of youth policy at Meta and founder and principal of Vyanams Strategies, a product advisory firm that helps companies, civil society, and governments build safer age appropriate experiences. Prior to founding Vys, she led video policy at Twitter, built its safety team in APAC and was Google's child safety polciy lead in APAC. Together Ben and Vaishn...

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102 results

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