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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

41:00

Cindy Cohn on How to Sustain the Fight Against...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/03/08

Today's guest has spent thirty years on the front lines of one of the defining battles at the intersection of technology and democracy: privacy and the fight for who controls your digital life. Cindy Cohn is the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and she has been in the room for some of the most consequential fights over digital rights since the internet became part of everyday life—from fighting for encryption in the 90s, to the NSA mass surveillance revelations, to

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45:45

In Age of Disruption, a Defense of Incrementalism

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/03/01

In their new book, Move Slow and Upgrade: The Power of Incremental Innovation, Evan Selinger, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology and Albert Fox Cahn, founder in residence of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), argue that society is over-fixated on disruptive innovation over the kind of steady incrementalism that can deliver sustainable returns over longer time frames. They argue in favor of more careful deliberation and adopting what

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44:01

How to Think About the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/28

The Pentagon wants AI that can fight wars — without limits. One of the United States’ leading AI companies says there are lines it won't cross. And this week, that standoff turned into an all-out confrontation. To discuss the implications of the dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon, including the determination that the company represents a supply chain risk, Justin Hendrix spoke to two experts:Kat Duffy, senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy at the Council on Foreign Relations,

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29:58

How to Get Paid to Polarize on TikTok

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/22

Concerns about synthetic media and coordinated manipulation of online platforms have moved from theoretical worry to documented reality. Researchers, regulators, and civil society organizations are working to understand how algorithmically driven content recommendation systems can be exploited — not just by ideologically motivated actors, but by ordinary users pursuing financial gain.Fundación Maldita.es is a Spanish nonprofit that has been working on information integrity and fact-checking since

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46:34

How to Become an Algorithmic Problem

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/22

As AI technologies proliferate, a growing number of people are asking what it means to live in a world dominated by algorithms and automated systems—and what gets lost when those systems optimize human behavior at scale. These questions sit at the intersection of political theory, technology policy, and everyday life, and they are drawing scholars from fields well outside computer science into the conversation.José Marichal is a political scientist at California Lutheran University who has been

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30:09

The Digital Services Act is a Lightning Rod for Debate

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/15

This week marks the second DSA and Platform Regulation conference in Amsterdam, where experts will convene to consider the Digital Services Act (DSA) two years after it entered full effect across the European Union. Over that period, the law has been tested by national elections, geopolitical tensions, high-profile enforcement actions, and the rapid rise of generative AI. It has become both a benchmark for platform accountability and a political lightning rod.Ahead of the conference, Tech Policy

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41:03

What Carrie Goldberg Has Learned from Suing Big Tech

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/08

A wave of lawsuits in the Unites States is targeting tech firms for their product design decisions. Lawyer Carrie Goldberg has played a role in establishing the product liability theory that underlies them. As the founder of C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, in 2017, her firm brought a lawsuit that sought to apply product liability theory to a tech platform — Herrick v. Grindr — arguing that a dangerous app design, not just user behavior, was the source of harm. In 2022, Goldberg was appointed to the Plaintiffs’

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37:41

AI, Surveillance and the Siege of Minneapolis

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/05

"Operation Metro Surge" — the massive immigration enforcement operation playing out right now in Minnesota — was billed as a targeted effort to apprehend undocumented immigrants. But what it has exposed goes far beyond immigration enforcement. It has pulled back the curtain on a sprawling surveillance apparatus that incorporates artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and other novel tools — not just to enable the raids that have turned violent and, in some cases, deadly; but also to silence

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44:38

How to Apply the 'Tyrant Test' to Technology

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/02/01

In his forthcoming book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You, George Washington University Law School professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson explores how the rise of sensor-driven technologies, social media monitoring, and artificial intelligence can be weaponized against democratic values and personal freedoms. Smart cars, smart homes, smart watches—these devices track our most private activities, and that data can be accessed by police and prosecutors looking for incriminating clues. What should

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20:09

Documenting Terror on the Streets of Minneapolis

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/01/25

The killing of 37-year old nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis was filmed from multiple angles by residents of the city, and local government officials have implored the public to share evidence of immigration enforcement agents committing acts of violence with investigators. But what are the challenges of using such artifacts in the pursuit of accountability? And what is there to learn from other efforts to use video, including from social media platforms, as evidence when seeking

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42:48

Unpacking the Rise of 'Smart Authoritarianism' in China

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/01/25

Today's guest is Jennifer Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth, a fellow at Chatham House London, and the author of the new book Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny, just out from Cornell Press. The book introduces the concept of 'smart authoritarianism,' a strategy that seeks to preserve political dominance while minimizing the economic damage of repression. It’s a sharp and unsettling argument—and one that is worth considering as a wave of autocratization

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54:06

How Trump's AI Policy Promotes Ethnonationalism

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/01/18

In a forthcoming paper, George Washington University Law School scholar Spencer Overton argues that the Trump administration's AI policy is consistent with its broader efforts to advance ethnonationalism. By eliminating policies intended to ensure safeguards against algorithmic bias—and recasting work on such problems as ideological threats to innovation—Trump's policies embed exclusion into the technological infrastructure of the future. As a growing body of research suggests, when AI systems

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48:46

New Book Challenges Assumptions on Digital Governance...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/01/18

A new book titled Governing Digital China offers crucial insights into China's governance ecosystem. Written by Daniela Stockmann, a professor at the Hertie School in Berlin and director of the Center for Digital Governance, and Ting Luo, an associate professor in artificial intelligence and government at the University of Birmingham, the book reveals a more complex reality than simple top-down control.The authors show how massive tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba have become essential

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39:33

What to Expect from US States on Child Online Safety...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/01/11

2026 is poised to be another landmark year for the child online safety debate in the United States.In recent years, states have passed dozens of bills aimed at expanding protections for kids as they navigate risks on social media platforms, AI chatbots and other pools, with more likely on the way. Lawmakers in Washington, meanwhile, are considering a flurry of proposals that could set a national standard on the issue. But many of these efforts are facing legal limbo as industry and some digital

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31:30

The Policy Implications of Grok's 'Mass Digital...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2026/01/04

In what Reuters called a "mass digital undressing spree," Elon Musk is provoking outrage after his Grok chatbot responded to user prompts to remove the clothing from images of women and pose them in bikinis and to create "sexualized images of children" and post them on X. To discuss the controversy and the broader policy implications of generative AI with regard to child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual intimate imagery, Justin Hendrix spoke to Riana Pfefferkorn, a policy fellow at the

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32:54

Through to Thriving: Insights from the Field

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2025/12/21

Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli joined Justin Hendrix to discuss insights from her special 2025 series of podcasts, Through to Thriving. They discussed insights from her interviews over the course of the year with Ellen Pao, Jerrel Peterson, Alice Hunsberger, Vaishnavi J, Desmond Patton, Nora Benavidez, Mimi Ọnụọha, Timnit Gebru, Jasmine McNealy, Naomi Nix, and Chris Gilliard.

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26:25

A Critical Look at Trump's AI Executive Order

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2025/12/14

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump invited reporters into the Oval Office to watch him sign an executive order intended to limit state regulation of artificial intelligence. Trump said AI is a strategic priority for the United States, and that there must be a central source of approval for the companies that develop it. Today's guest is Olivier Sylvain, a professor of law at Fordham Law School and a senior policy research fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

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41:46

Unpacking the Politics of the EU's €120M Fine of...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2025/12/07

On Friday, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X €120 millionfor breaching the Digital Services Act, delivering the first-ever non-compliance decision under the European Union’s flagship tech regulation. By Saturday, Elon Musk was calling for no less than the abolition of the EU. To discuss the enforcement action, the politics surrounding it, and a variety of other issues related to digital regulation in Europe, Justin Hendrix spoke to Joris van Hoboken, a professor at the Institute for

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51:31

Exploring Belief and Belonging in a Fractured Online Age

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2025/12/04

On this podcast, for years we’ve discussed issues such as conspiracy theories, mis- and disinformation, polarization, and the ways in which the design and incentives on today’s technology platforms exacerbate them. Today’s guest is Calum Lister Matheson, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh and a faculty member of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. He's the author of Post-Weird: Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the

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59:27

Considering Trust and Safety's Past, Present, and Future

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2025/11/30

The past few years have seen a great deal of introspection about a professional field which has come to be known as 'trust and safety,' comprised of the people who develop, oversee, and enforce social media policies and community guidelines. Many scholars and advocates describe it as having reached a turning point, mostly for the worst. Joining Tech Policy Press contributing editor Dean Jackson to discuss the evolution of trust and safety—not coincidentally, the title of their forthcoming article In

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410 results

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