Techdirt

Check out Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike Masnick's brand new podcast with Ben Whitelaw, creator of the Everything in Moderation newsletter. In this teaser excerpt from last week's episode, Ben and guest h...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ctrl-alt-speech-facebooks-new-ai-content-policy-teaser

Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing all about Section 230, in which they didn't even attempt to find a witness pointing out its benefits. Among the many organizations...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/abolishing-section-230-would-abolish-wikipedia

One very important thing to understand in the conversation about online speech is that there are many different kinds of online communities, big and small, and they all have their own needs when ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/democratic-design-for-online-spaces

Check out Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike Masnick's brand new podcast with Ben Whitelaw, creator of the Everything in Moderation newsletter. In this teaser excerpt from last week's episode, Mike and Ben di...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ctrl-alt-speech-the-most-moderated-word-on-meta-teaser

We've written a lot about the Murthy case at the Supreme Court, and especially how poor of a job the states did in making their argument. Now, as we await the ruling, there are a lot of questions...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-important-will-the-murthy-case-be

Check out Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike Masnick's brand new podcast with Ben Whitelaw, creator of the Everything in Moderation newsletter. In this teaser excerpt from last week's episode, Mike and Ben di...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ctrl-alt-speech-elon-musk-stonetoss-teaser

Last year in September, we released a cross-post episode of Mike's appearance on the DWeb Decoded podcast with Danny O'Brien. If you listened to that episode, you know that Mike and Danny go way ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/cognitive-liberty-is-the-end-goal-of-decentralization

Check out Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike Masnick's brand new podcast with Ben Whitelaw, creator of the Everything in Moderation newsletter. In this teaser excerpt from the debut episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ctrl-alt-speech-the-tiktok-ban-teaser

As is tradition, now that we've announced the winners of our latest public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1928, it's time for a special episode of the podcast taking a closer look at them. Jus...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/gaming-like-its-1928

Anyone who follows Techdirt knows we're very interested in the progress of Bluesky, the decentralized social network that embraces our concept of protocols over platforms. Bluesky recently ended ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/checking-in-on-bluesky-with-jay-graber

In our coverage of the problems with KOSA and other legislative pushes to "protect the children" online, we usually (for obvious reasons) come at the subject from the technology side, and look at...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/kosa-isnt-just-wrong-about-the-internet-its-wrong-about-child-safety

As we've written about repeatedly, efforts to protect kids online and improve their mental health at the moment all seem to be focused on taking social media away from them, even though all the e...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-to-actually-help-kids-online

A couple weeks ago, we released the 2024 edition of our Sky Is Rising report about the state of the entertainment industries. Last week, Mike and I joined Corbin Barthold on Techfreedom's Tech Po...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-the-internet-killing-culture-no-dont-be-stupid

Back in April, we were joined on the podcast by Chris Riley, the Executive Director of the new nonprofit Data Transfer Initiative that aimed to promote data portability and empower users to trans...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-data-transfer-initiative-after-one-year

We've got a nice fresh live recording for you today! Just yesterday, Mike was at the Knight Foundation's INFORMED Conference to participate in a panel discussion with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, mode...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/protocols-not-platforms

Last month, we wrote about Apple's nonsensical attack on Beeper, a universal messaging app that exemplifies many of the things we talk about here on Techdirt, like adversarial interoperability an...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/beeper-and-the-power-of-protocols

We're back from the holidays, and it's time for a new episode of the Techdirt Podcast! This week, we're joined by Ravi Iyer, Research Director for the USC Marshall School's Neely Center and Manag...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/could-a-design-code-help-social-media-serve-society-better

Many of you might know Andrew "K'Tetch" Norton as a Techdirt commenter, or from his work at TorrentFreak or for the Pirate Party, and some of you might know that he also runs his own podcast, Tet...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/content-moderation-games

There's plenty of discussion right now about what approach, regulatory or otherwise, could rein in the potential harms of AI systems. This week, we're joined by professor and researcher Chinmayi ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/could-engineer-licensing-make-ai-safer

We've got another cross-post episode this week! Recently, Mike joined the debut episode of the new Dot Social podcast from Flipboard CEO Mike McCue for a discussion about decentralized social med...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/decentralizing-innovation

The world of generative AI has been changing rapidly, and that's not something that's going to stop any time soon. Today, we're joined on the podcast by Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (no...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ai-is-going-to-change-more-than-you-realize

As you hopefully know, we recently launched (and then released a podcast about) our new game, Trust & Safety Tycoon, which we created in association with the Atlantic Council's Task Force for a T...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/trust-safety-in-wartime

We've written plenty about facial recognition here on Techdirt, and especially the infamous Clearview AI. Now, journalist Kashmir Hill, who wrote the original New York Times story that told the s...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/your-face-belongs-to-us-with-kashmir-hill

As you hopefully know by now, earlier this week we launched our new game, Trust & Safety Tycoon. It's a free, browser-based game (playable on desktop or mobile, though we recommend desktop for th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/trust-safety-tycoon

The trust and safety conversation tends to focus on the huge platforms, and the millions of smaller websites (some still quite big!) get ignored. But those websites have trust and safety needs to...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/open-sourcing-the-trust-safety-toolkit

We've got a slightly unusual (at first glace) crosspost episode for you this week! Recently, Mike joined Dave Cooper, CEO and Founder of brand protection agency IPSecure, on the company's Owning ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/liability-speech-marketplaces

Earlier this year, we had an episode looking at Canada's proposed social media link tax and the many ways it would be terrible. Since then, that link tax has become law (though not yet come into ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/link-taxes-are-still-bad

We've got a another cross-post episode for you this week, on a subject near and dear to our hearts: protocols over platforms, and restoring decentralization online. Mike recently joined Danny O'B...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/thinking-about-decentralization

Social media isn't the first phenomenon to spark a moral panic about its impact on people's (and especially young people's) mental health, and it surely won't be the last — but for now, it's th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/social-media-mental-health

If you didn't know who Gigi Sohn was before her stalled-out FCC nomination and the ridiculous smear campaign that came with it, you surely do by now. And if you read Techdirt, you know she's one ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/gigi-sohn-on-community-broadband

As you may recall, we weren't fans of The Social Dilemma, the documentary manipulated people with misinformation in the course of complaining about that exact practice. But now there's a much bet...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-youtube-effect-with-alex-winter

We've long believed in the power of online platform interoperability and the power it gives to users to curate their own experiences. One of the prime examples of this is Block Party, created by ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-interoperability-be-mandated

Okay, now we're getting back to the plan. Two weeks ago we featured an excerpt from the audiobook of Red Team Blues, Cory Doctorow's new (and excellent) novel, and promised that we'd soon be join...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/red-team-blues-part-two-with-cory-doctorow

Last week, we promised an upcoming episode featuring a conversation with Cory Doctorow — and that conversation has been recorded and is arriving next week! But we decided to take a brief interm...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/social-media-in-chaos

If you're a Techdirt reader, you're surely familiar with Cory Doctorow: we've written about him often, he's appeared on the podcast several times and, of course, he's a prolific science fiction a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/red-team-blues-part-one

Recently, we announced our latest game project: FutureCast, created in partnership with the United Nations' Global Pulse group. It's a highly adaptable strategic forecasting tool that aims to exp...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/futurecast

If you're a Techdirt reader, a Reddit user, or both, then you probably know all about the chaos engulfing the site as users and moderators of popular subreddits protest CEO Steve Huffman's recent...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-reddit-meltdown

When talking about content moderation, it's easy to focus entirely on centralized platforms. But now, with the rise of more federated and decentralized systems like ActivityPub and Bluesky (and m...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/decentralizing-content-moderation

Play Moderator Mayhem: https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/ Last month, in partnership with Engine, we launched our new browser game that puts you in the shoes of a frontline content moderation wor...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/moderator-mayhem

We've been swamped with some big projects lately, and that put a bit of a dent in our podcast schedule. We've got a whole bunch of fresh new episodes lined up to record, so you can expect lots of...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/utahs-war-on-porn

We've featured lots of coverage of the frankly insane deluge of "protect the children" type social media laws popping up in several states, and recently Mike was a guest on TechFreedom's Tech Pol...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/save-the-children-from-state-social-media-laws

Data portability is an important front in the war for an open internet. A few years ago, it seemed like some major movement was coming, with the joint announcement of the Data Transfer Project fr...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-data-transfer-initiative

Legacy media operations really, really want tech companies that send them traffic to pay them as well. From Rupert Murdoch's link tax in Australia to the very bad JCPA in America, these requireme...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/link-taxes-are-bad-canada-edition

Science fiction has always served as a source of inspiration for real technological progress. Sometimes that's great, but other times it enables abuse or leads people to make terrible assumptions...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/sci-fi-silicon-valley

Misunderstandings (honest or otherwise) about Section 230 abound — across the political spectrum and, of course, in Congress. Each side believes weakening or eliminating the law will achieve it...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-is-congress-so-wrong-about-section-230

Last week, we announced the winners of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1927! We strongly encourage everyone to go check out all the submissions, but as in past years, I ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/gaming-like-its-1927

After all these years, the Supreme Court is finally weighing in on Section 230 in the Gonzalez and Taamneh cases, and the outcome could have a very significant impact. Our organization, the Copia...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-supreme-court-takes-on-230

If you've been reading Techdirt recently, you probably know all about supposed "AI Lawyer" service DoNotPay and the tireless investigation of the company undertaken by Kathryn Tewson, who has wri...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-donotpay-story-with-kathryn-tewson

We've got a double-header of cross-post episodes for you this week! Recently, Mike joined two different podcasts to discuss Congress's response to the Twitter Files and the dumpster fire of a hea...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/congress-v-twitter

For a brief and interesting time, the New York Times employed a Public Editor to serve as a liaison with its readers. One of the most interesting of these was the fifth, Margaret Sullivan, who wo...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/margaret-sullivan-on-the-future-of-media

There have long been attacks on the global, open nature of the internet. Traditionally these came from authoritarian regimes looking to wall off portions of the internet and exert greater control...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/in-defense-of-the-global-open-internet

It seems the madness just never stops on Elon Musk's Twitter, and it's almost impossible to keep up. Recently, Mike joined the Daily Beast's podcast, The New Abnormal, for a discussion with host ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-new-abnormal-on-twitter

It's been a little over a year since we learned about Meta's "X-Check" program for whitelisting high-profile Facebook accounts from various content moderation efforts. Now, after a long wait, the...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/understanding-metas-special-whitelist-program

Last Friday evening, Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi dropped a non-bombshell on everyone, with the revelation of internal Twitter documents about the content moderation around Hunter Biden's laptop tha...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/scrutinizing-the-twitter-files

This week, we have a special joint episode with The Neoliberal Podcast, discussing the question on a lot of minds: just what the hell is going on at Twitter now that Elon Musk is in charge? He's ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/will-elon-kill-twitter

There are big internet regulatory changes coming in the EU, with the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. Each is a huge bundle of new rules that could drastically change the future ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-dsa-is-a-mess-but-will-now-rule-the-internet

We've often talked about the importance of distinguishing content moderation at the infrastructure layer of the internet stack from that which happens on platforms at the edge, and this issue was...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-an-oversight-board-solve-infrastructure-moderation-questions

Amidst all the conversation around regulating social media, algorithmic amplification, and disinformation, one idea that tends to get a lot of broad support is mandating editorial transparency. A...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-you-mandate-editorial-transparency

One of the oldest and most important topics on Techdirt is copyright, and the many problems with the law both here and abroad. One of the best voices on the subject, here and in many other public...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/walled-culture

As you probably already know, Techdirt recently marked its 25th anniversary and celebrated the occasion with an online party for our Insider subscribers. At the event, Mike was joined by Techdirt...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/celebrating-25-years-of-techdirt

When Mike wrote a post digging into some of the complex questions surrounding Cloudflare banning Kiwi Farms, there was plenty of backlash and disagreement — much of it thoughtful and well worth...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/kiwi-farms-cloudflare-and-infrastructure-content-moderation

When the Elon Musk/Twitter drama landed in the Delaware Court Of Chancery, it thrust specialist publication The Chancery Daily into the spotlight, and they began offering up excellent explainers ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/elon-musk-takes-his-chances-in-the-court-of-chancery

The explosion of AI-generated art has taken the internet by storm, and is poised to continue growing for a long time. In turn, that's sparked a lot of conversation (and a lot of backlash) about t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-ai-art-the-end-for-artists

We've got one more cross-post episode this week. If you've been following Techdirt recently, you've surely heard about California's recently-passed bill, the Age Appropriate Design Code, and all ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-problems-with-the-california-kids-code

We've got a cross-post episode for you this week! Recently, Mike appeared on the Walled Culture podcast to discuss a wide range of topics including reflections on the SOPA/PIPA fight, ways to sup...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/walled-culture-interview

Read the report: https://copia.is/library/just-a-click-away/ Yesterday, we released a new report from the Copia Institute, written by Karl Bode, about the state of broadband competition and the g...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/broadband-competition-is-just-a-click-away

As advocates of decentralization and a protocols-not-platforms approach to the web, there's a lot about the concept of Web3 that sounds appealing to us at Techdirt — but the details usually lea...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-is-web5

We've got some great new discussions for the Techdirt Podcast... coming in a few weeks. But at the moment, amidst a very busy schedule on a variety of fronts, we're taking a short break to look b...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/revisiting-the-question-of-proprietary-platforms-for-media-companies

This week is Engine's second annual Patent Quality Week, focused on the many ways that the patent system allows low-quality patents to get through, the problems this causes, and what can be done ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-patent-quality-matters

In discussions about content moderation, it's easy to get stuck in the mindset that there are only a few simple ways it could possibly work — but in fact there is plenty of room for exploring c...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-is-platform-democracy

The problems with copyright have been a subject of coverage here at Techdirt since the beginning, and for most of that time it has been largely a non-partisan subject. At the moment, however, tha...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/there-are-both-smart-dumb-ways-to-improve-copyright

It's no secret that Elon Musk's statements about his plans for Twitter have been confused to say the least. It has become abundantly clear that he doesn't know much at all about how a service lik...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/elon-musk-doesnt-understand-twitter

PLAY THE GAME: https://startuptrail.engine.is/ Last week, in partnership with Engine, we launched our startup policy simulator game Startup Trail. The game puts you in the shoes of a founder tryi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-startup-trail

So much of the debate about Section 230 is based on an incorrect understanding of its procedural benefits, and the completely false idea that it's a special gift to "big tech". A new paper (which...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-real-beneficiaries-of-section-230

People often talk about some kind of "right to deletion" as an approach to fixing online privacy issues. This construct can create problems, as we've seen with Europe's version, but newer proposa...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/algorithmic-destruction

Recently, Mike joined Jason Feifer on the Build for Tomorrow podcast for a discussion about predicting the future — and specifically about a prediction that Mike got very wrong. The episode inc...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/predicting-the-future

Five years ago, we were joined on the podcast by author and law professor Aaron Perzanowski to discuss his book about the impact of copyright on property in the digital age, The End of Ownership....

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-right-to-repair

It took a little longer than usual, but we've finally announced the winners of the fourth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1926! In this episode, Mike and I are joined by Randy Lub...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/gaming-like-its-1926

Nearly three years ago, we were joined by Professor Jeff Kosseff to discuss his then-new book about Section 230, The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet. Now, Jeff has a new book coming ou...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-united-states-of-anonymous

We've got another cross-post this week: Mike was recently a guest on the new Internet of Humans podcast by Jillian York and Konstantinos Komaitis, for a wide-ranging discussion about internet reg...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/regulating-the-internet

More than a year and a half ago we were joined on the podcast by Riana Pfefferkorn, then the Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/earn-it-is-still-bad

We talk a lot about free speech in different countries, and about the history of free speech in the US — but what about the global history of this fundamental concept? A new book released today...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-global-history-of-free-speech

As many of you know, last week we hosted an online event for the latest Techdirt Greenhouse edition, all about looking back on the lessons learned from the 2012 protests against SOPA and PIPA. Ou...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/remembering-the-sopa-fight-with-rep-zoe-lofgren

Our lives are lived at the intersection of vast systems (economic, technological, and beyond) that are incredibly complex and often chaotic, and it's hard to understand and embrace what author Ne...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/getting-out-of-control

In last week's episode, we had a conversation with the creators and curators of the Knight Foundation's virtual symposium on Lessons From The First Internet Ages. This week, we've got the audio f...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/evolving-norms-in-the-governance-of-online-communities

Earlier this month Mike participated in a content series and virtual symposium on Lessons From The First Internet Ages, hosted by the Knight Foundation, alongside several important figures from t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/lessons-from-the-first-internet-ages

We've got a crossposted episode for you this week: Mike recently joined The Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb O. Brown for a discussion about the "hacking" fiasco in Missouri and the state's treatmen...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/missouri-hasnt-really-learned-its-lesson

Facebook is under a lot of scrutiny lately, and for very good reasons! But the anger surrounding Facebook has also resulted in plenty of criticism that is misleading or downright inaccurate in it...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-facebook

The documents revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen are full of important information — but the media hasn't been doing the best job of covering that information and all its nuances...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-facebook-papers-the-media

It's another crossposted episode this week! Mike recently joined the Tech Policy Press podcast alongside Block Party founder Tracy Chou for a conversation about using middleware and interoperabil...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/creating-a-new-social-media-ecosystem-with-middleware

We've got a cross-posted podcast for you this week! Recently, Mike appeared on the Ipse Dixit podcast with host Professor Brian L. Frye — the inspiration for our Plagiarism Collection of NFTs a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/scarcity-abundance-nfts

Last week, we celebrated 300 episodes of the Techdirt Podcast with a live stream, for which we brought back original co-hosts Dennis Yang and Hersh Reddy. You can watch the stream on YouTube, but...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-our-views-have-changed-over-300-episodes

Disinformation continues to be a major topic of discussion across many fields, but a lot of what people believe about the subject is... questionable at best. One of the more thoughtful writers on...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-misinformation-about-disinformation

The concept of "shadowbanning" comes up a lot in content moderation discussions — often from people who are spreading nonsense. But various means of deprioritizing content have been employed by...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-impact-of-shadowbanning

The notion that if libraries didn't exist already, the publishing industry wouldn't allow them to exist at all is both a grim joke and a depressing truth, as continually evidenced by the oppositi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-future-of-libraries

Canada is barreling towards a federal election, and if recent legislative proposals are any indication, the outcome will have huge implications for the future of the internet in the country. Betw...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/internet-policy-the-canadian-election

We've written a lot about the Oracle/Google case over API copyrights as it wound its way through the courts, but the Supreme Court ruling has such widespread implications that there is still plen...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-oraclegoogle-means-for-copyright-and-interoperability

We're continually amazed that so many companies still think they can get away with abusing the law to take down parodies, satire, and criticism without invoking the Streisand Effect and making th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/when-your-art-projects-keep-getting-cease-desist-letters

The pandemic has brought us face to face with important questions about (among many things) the roles of technology and government in our lives, and especially the intersection of the two. One in...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/understanding-californias-digital-vaccine-records

Most people are pretty clear on the fact that the First Amendment prevents the government from making rules about speech — but what about when government officials make informal demands or thre...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-problem-of-jawboning

Freedom of speech sits at the intersection of so many of the topics we write about here on Techdirt, and some of our favorite podcast guests are true experts on the subject. One such guest is UCI...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/free-speech-elections-vaccines-and-social-media

Although it's taken a bit of a back seat lately, the topic of patents has long been important here at Techdirt. Now that we're in the first ever Patent Quality Week, it's time to dig back in and ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/patent-quality-week

If you've been following our coverage of Florida's recent law about social media content moderation, you know it hasn't been going well — it was an insane bill that was quickly shut down by an ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/floridas-social-media-bill-fiasco-with-state-rep-anna-eskamani

We've been talking a lot about the huge effort in Congress to pass new antitrust laws targeting big tech companies, and all the issues these proposals have. This week, we've got an insider perspe...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/rep-zoe-lofgren-sees-problems-on-every-page-of-these-antitrust-bills

Even among people who recognize the problems with holding platforms liable for user speech, there's an understandable temptation to treat the act of content amplification and recommendation diffe...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/regulating-amplification-is-a-lot-harder-than-you-think

It's no secret that the tech industry has lost much of the diversity that was present in its early days and grown into a male-dominated field rife with sexism and gender disparity. Today, many pe...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-girlcon-is-fighting-to-empower-women-in-tech

Earlier today, we announced the release of an open source playkit for Money City, our new game about the future of money that was designed and run for MozFest 2021. For this week's episode of the...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/welcome-to-money-city

The recent ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline has brought renewed public attention to cybersecurity issues. The field is always evolving, and the attack serves as a great starting point f...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-to-think-about-cybersecurity

It's no secret that we were not at all impressed with WIRED's recent cover story about Section 230. The resulting conversation sparked a Twitter debate with the story's author, Gilad Edelman, and...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/debating-section-230-with-wireds-gilad-edelman

Last week, the Oversight Board made its highest-profile decision yet: upholding Facebook's suspension of Donald Trump, though with the caveat that it needs clearer policy reasons to make the susp...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-facebook-oversight-boards-trump-decision

The past several years have done a lot to expose the failings of the "marketplace of ideas", as disinformation and harassment campaigns have shown an ability to spread and flourish despite ample ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/twitter-free-speech-and-mob-behavior

The way a lot of people talk about content moderation is disappointingly uncreative — most of all in the way they boil every decision down to the binary decision of "leave it up or take it down...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/beyond-blocking-thinking-creatively-about-content-moderation

After a few cross-post episodes, we're back with a brand new conversation, and it's all about a big subject that intersects with the majority of what we cover here at Techdirt: rights. In his boo...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-rights-went-wrong

It's one more podcast cross-post this week! A recent episode of the Institute for Justice's Short Circuit podcast dug into two very interesting legal cases: one that explores one of the more rare...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/two-curious-cases

We've got another podcast cross-post for you this week! Mike recently joined the Cato Institute Daily Podcast to discuss the PACT Act — the more "serious" proposal for Section 230 reform that i...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/section-230-the-pact-act

Despite all the nonsense that dominates so much of the public discussion on the subject, free speech in the age of big social media platforms is a vital topic with a lot of nuances, and there are...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/silicon-values-with-jillian-york

For some reason, a lot of people who get involved in the debate about content moderation still insist that online platforms are "doing nothing" to address problems — but that's simply not true....

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-state-of-trust-safety

Textiles have been around for such a long time that we barely think about them. The making of fabric is one of the oldest crafts, and has played a major role in human civilization for thousands o...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/lessons-in-innovation-from-the-history-of-fabric

There was a time not too long ago when tech companies enjoyed broad public support and adulation. Now they face widespread opposition and criticism from almost all corners. The shift from one to ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-the-techlash-happened

Last week, we hosted Section 230 Matters, a virtual Techdirt fundraiser featuring a panel discussion with the two lawmakers who wrote the all-important text and got it passed 25 years ago: Chris ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/section-230-matters-with-ron-wyden-chris-cox

We recently announced the winners of our third annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925. Now, just like last year, we're dedicating an episode of the podcast to looking at each of the...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/gaming-like-its-1925

Questions of content moderation and intermediary liability have seeped into just about everything these days, and not just with regards to Section 230 but also a whole host of laws in the US and ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/regulating-the-internet-wont-fix-a-broken-government

The first batch of decisions about Facebook's content moderation from the recently-established Oversight Board has garnered lots of reactions, including many kneejerk ones — but there's plenty ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-oversight-board-starts-overseeing-facebook

The most important point we've repeatedly made about content moderation is that it's not simple, and there are always trade-offs — but this doesn't mean "do nothing" is a viable option. There a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-new-approach-to-fighting-online-harassment

We've got one more cross-post from another podcast this week, and the subject is still the law that's dominating the tech policy discourse: Section 230. Mike recently joined R Street's Shoshana W...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-section-230-roundtable

The podcast went on pause over the holidays and amidst the deluge of... events — but now we're back! And to kick things off, we've got a cross-post from Nick Gillespie's Reason podcast. Mike re...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/in-defense-of-section-230-a-decentralized-internet

The pandemic and associated lockdowns have underlined the incredible importance of broadband, and the many problems with it in America. This week, we're joined by Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic — Mi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-future-of-us-broadband

This week, we're having another conversation about how more decentralized, interoperable, and competitive systems could help restore the original promise of the open web — and this time around ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-more-competitive-web-with-cory-doctorow-daphne-keller

This week, we've got another panel discussion for you, with Mike joining Georgetown Law fellow Gigi Sohn and panel moderator Zach Graves of the Lincoln Network (both also former podcast guests) a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-the-techlash-over

Recently, Techdirt began a new monetization experiment with Coil. It's a system for making payments on the web, but it's not just another micropayment service layered on top of existing technolog...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/an-open-protocol-for-web-monetization

There are countless debates raging over every aspect of internet regulation — questions of social media moderation, net neutrality, antitrust, copyright, privacy, and plenty more — and the el...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-would-you-regulate-the-internet

With the pandemic spurring a mass switch to remote working for many people, especially those at tech companies that were among the earliest adopters of the trend, discussions about the uncertain ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-future-of-silicon-valley

The origins of Techdirt lie in a newsletter that Mike started over 20 years ago, and in all that time, the business models for online journalism have never stopped evolving and changing, especial...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-new-model-for-independent-journalism-with-casey-newton

We've got another cross-post episode for you this week, featuring Mike's recent appearance on Robert Amsterdam's Departures podcast. The conversation touches on many aspects of internet regulatio...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-tiktok-order-and-what-it-means-for-innovation

This week, we're featuring another panel discussion that Mike participated in. At the recent DWeb Meetup, Mai Ishikawa Sutton moderated a discussion with Mike, Cory Doctorow, Jay Graber, and Aman...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/making-a-better-internet

The third book in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother series is coming soon — but as usual, Cory is doing something different as part of the release. Fans and Techdirt readers know he's an outspoken...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/little-brother-vs-big-audiobook-with-cory-doctorow

Late last year, we designed Threatcast 2020: a brainstorming game for groups of people trying to predict the new, innovative, and worrying forms of misinformation and disinformation that might co...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/threatcasting-the-election

There's a lot of talk about tech companies and antitrust these days, and a great deal of the focus falls on Amazon. But is antitrust law really the right approach, or even capable of achieving th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/does-amazon-really-have-a-data-advantage

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, and as it rages on we're learning a lot about technology's role in a situation like this — but it's also worth looking forward, and thinking about how te...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/post-pandemic-tech

This week we've got another cross-post, with the latest episode of The Neoliberal Podcast from the Progressive Policy Institute. Host Jeremiah Johnson invited Mike, along with PPI's Alec Stapp, t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-key-to-encryption

The standard operating procedure for most companies is to freak out about copycat products, and usually to use intellectual property laws to fight them tooth and nail — even at the expense of o...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/dont-sweat-the-copycats

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, nobody really knows what's going to happen — especially if kids start going back to school. Statistical models of the possibilities abound, but this week ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/modeling-the-pandemic

At the end of May, we launched the Techdirt Greenhouse — a new project to foster long-form conversations with a wide variety of experts about the most challenging and nuanced tech policy questi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-greenhouse-privacy-wrapup

Attacks on Section 230 are relentless and coming from all sides — so we've got another podcast all about the attempts to ruin the most important law on the internet. This week, we're joined by ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-most-serious-threat-to-section-230

As the debates about content moderation rage on, it is becoming increasingly clear that most people don't know a whole lot about how large internet platforms actually handle these decisions — n...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/trust-safety-has-a-posse

Last week, the attacks on Section 230 kicked into high gear with Senator Hawley's bill and the DOJ recommendations both coming out on the same day. As usual, the content of the bill and recommend...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-latest-attacks-on-section-230

COVID-19 has thrust old questions about privacy into the spotlight, often with new and different framing, and raised the big question of whether our conception of privacy needs to change entirely...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/pandemic-privacy

This week, we've got a special cross-post from 16 Minutes On The News — an excellent tech podcast by a16z that's well worth subscribing to. For the latest episode, host Sonal Chokshi interviewe...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/section-230-trumps-executive-order

We're back! It's been a while since the last podcast, for obvious reasons, but today we've got a new episode following up on something we discussed with Mike Godwin in January: the Internet Socie...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-org-deal-post-mortem-with-mike-godwin

Last week, we featured the first half of a panel discussion organized by Lincoln Network, all about the concept of open internet protocols versus proprietary walled-garden platforms. The panel is...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/protocols-versus-platforms-part-2

Today on the podcast, we've got the first part of a panel discussion organized by Lincoln Network on a subject we've been talking more and more about around here: a return to an internet based on...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/protocols-versus-platforms-part-one

Remember HQ Trivia? A couple years ago it was taking the world by storm and raising a lot of interest, and not without reason: it looked like it was resurrecting a shared live experience that see...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-fate-of-hq-trivia

Last week, we announced the winners of our second annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1924. The entries were so great this year that they deserve a close look, so this week myself and...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/gaming-like-its-1924

Last month I wrote a long post explaining why I could not support Larry Lessig's new lawsuit against journalists and the New York Times for what he referred to as "Clickbait Defamation." Lessig a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/larry-lessig-defends-his-clickbait-defamation-lawsuit

Privacy laws are often well-intentioned, but rarely without terrible unintended consequences. And some of these fly right under the radar, like the fact that various privacy laws have made it har...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-privacy-laws-harm-criminal-defendants

If you're a baseball fan, you've probably heard of Jomboy (aka Jim O'Brien) by now. And if you're not, you still might have — because he's been getting attention by building a successful new me...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/talkin-jomboy-new-media-copyright

Once again, it's time for the CES post-mortem! Unlike past years, Mike didn't make it to the 2020 show, but our regular guest and unrivaled CES veteran Rob Pegoraro is back with all the important...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-ces-2020-post-mortem

We're back! It's been a lull over the holidays and we've gone a while without new podcast episodes, but now we've got several lined up for the coming weeks — and today we kick things off with a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/mike-godwin-defends-selling-org

When Kashmir Hill last joined us on the podcast, it was to discuss her experiment with cutting big tech companies out of her life. This week she's back to discuss something even harder to escape,...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/your-secret-consumer-score

We've said it before (and even put it on a t-shirt) and we'll say it again: copying is not theft, and intellectual "property" is anything but. In September, the Niskanen Center published an excel...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/copying-is-not-theft

GET YOUR COPY OF THE ANTHOLOGY AT https://workingfutur.es/ A few weeks ago, we sat down with some of the authors from Working Futures, our new anthology of short stories about the future of work....

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/working-futures-part-two

We've written a lot about Backpage ever since it replaced Craigslist as the favorite target of grandstanding prosecutors, and especially since it was used to help pass FOSTA. Now history's being ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/backpage-v-the-feds

A couple of months ago, we were surprised when a WIPO employee showed up in our comments to defend the organization's new database of supposedly infringing sites against our many criticisms. In t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/pirate-shaming-lists-dont-work

GET THE BOOK: http://workingfutur.es/ As we hope you know by now, last week we released Working Futures, an anthology of short stories about the future of work in our world of rapidly advancing t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/working-futures

With all the misconceptions, political projects, and flat-out panics about tech in Congress these days, it sometimes feels like any positive legislative progress regarding technology is impossibl...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/rep-mark-takano-on-tech-in-congress

The latest big news in the ongoing discussion about social media moderation is the release of Facebook's official plans for its independent oversight board, which will review content moderation d...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-facebook-supreme-court

"Dynamic pricing" is an idea that sounds efficient and effective in economic theory, but often collapses under the weight of customer anger when put into practice. But while that is true of some ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/does-dynamic-pricing-deserve-the-hate

The future of the internet is... uncertain. We've always been optimistic about what technology and innovation can achieve, and that hasn't changed, but right now it often feels like we're facing ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/trying-to-be-optimistic-about-the-internet

By now, you likely all know the story of David Karpf's mild "bedbugs" joke that drew the personal, professional and journalistic ire of the New York Times' Bret Stephens. As it turned out, Karpf ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/bedbugs-beyond-with-david-karpf

We've talked a lot about how many of the controversial, challenging problems that exist online could be addressed by refocusing on making the internet what it was always supposed to be: a network...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/bringing-back-the-internets-true-promise

Last week, we featured part one of our discussion with lawyer Joshua de Larios-Heiman, about the details of the FCC's Facebook settlement, beyond the headline-grabbing fine. It was a long convers...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/whats-really-in-the-fccs-facebook-settlement-part-two

Ever since the FCC announced its proposed settlement with Facebook, the headlines have focused on the largest-ever privacy fine that came with it — but few people paid attention to the many, ma...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/whats-really-in-the-ftcs-facebook-settlement-part-one

There's a new but growing desire, both within the tech industry and among onlookers, for more technologists to get involved in public policy and doing work to serve the public interest. Various p...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-policy-bootcamp-for-technologists

Moral panics are nothing new, but they've taken on many new forms in the internet era, and their patterns have rubbed off on other kinds of techno-panics. This week, I join Mike on the podcast to...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/dont-panic

Bruce Schneier is a name most Techdirt readers are very familiar with — he's a famous computer security expert who most recently has taken up the mantle of Public Interest Technologist, and bee...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/public-interest-tech-with-bruce-schneier

Josh Hawley's bill that aims to force "political neutrality" on social media platforms has caused a lot of stir for something so obviously unconstitutional and doomed to failure. There are so man...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/hawleys-bill-sucks-let-us-count-the-ways

Live streaming is here to stay, and it seems to be getting more popular by the minute — but for many people, it still seems like a foreign land and evokes a cliched "I feel old" response. This ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/experimenting-with-twitch

In all the attempts to understand just what happened with the 2016 election, a lot of blame has fallen on the internet and especially on Facebook. The attention, which often focuses on the Cambri...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/blame-fox-news-before-facebook

Once upon a time, there was something called the Office of Technology Assessment, charged with the critical if unenviable task of educating members of congress about issues related to technology....

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-if-congress-actually-understood-technology

The topic of what (if anything) to do with Facebook was hardly fading from public discourse anyway, but it received a bump when co-founder Chris Hughes called for the company to be broken up. Thi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/breaking-facebook-with-mike-godwin-and-david-kaye

The regulation of technology is an extremely important issue that impacts all our lives, but it tends to take a back seat in the world of mainstream politics, and when it does come to the fore, t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/politicians-usually-dont-understand-technology

Whether it's from his novels, or his work for the EFF and others, most of you probably know all about Cory Doctorow. He last joined the podcast two years ago to discuss his book Walkaway, and thi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/cory-doctorow-on-anti-circumvention-and-more

Of all the laws we discuss here at Techdirt, probably none comes up as often or in relation to as many things as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It's not an exaggeration to describ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-past-future-of-section-230

It's time for another special cross-post from a different podcast. Mike was recently a guest on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's So To Speak podcast, for an interview about Tec...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-free-speech-chat-with-fire

Unfortunately, as you know by now, the EU Parliament approved the current (disastrous) version of the EU Copyright Directive, which is now on track to become the law of the land. It's not good, b...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/mep-julia-reda-explains-whats-next-with-the-eu-copyright-directive

We're pretty optimistic about innovation here at Techdirt, but it isn't an automatic good thing all by itself: implementation and intention matters, and that means political entanglements and com...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/charter-cities-innovative-governance

We've been covering surveillance and the intelligence community for a long time here at Techdirt, but if you had to limit yourself to just one source on the subject, even we'd probably recommend ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-surveillance-state-with-marcy-wheeler

Sometimes people ask us why we write so much about the police on Techdirt. Though our coverage has grown somewhat beyond the boundaries of incidents directly involving technology, the reality is ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-failure-of-high-tech-policing

You've heard the uproar — conservatives are being censored on social media! But... are they? The short answer is no. The long answer is this week's podcast, with Lincoln Network policy head Zac...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/crying-wolf-over-conservative-censorship

Lots of people have tried to sum up the differences between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. — but it isn't so easy to hone in on. Nevertheless, it's clear that at least some aspects of the ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/delivery-driven-government

It's no secret that journalism outfits are struggling, and have been for some time. There are lots of competing ideas about why this is the case, and who to blame, but the ultimate question is th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-journalism-survive-a-free-market

We can hardly believe it, but as of this moment we've released 200 episodes of the Techdirt podcast! For this milestone, we've brought the increasingly-rare original team of co-hosts back togethe...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-big-business-of-podcasting

Jon Callas has been at the forefront of computer security issues for a long time, most recently as the head of Apple's team of internal hackers that try to break into the company's own products. ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/from-apple-to-the-aclu-with-jon-callas

One of the most common responses to various complaints about giant tech companies is that you can just not use their products and services. Many people have pointed out just how difficult that wo...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/life-without-the-tech-giants

As our readers surely know by now, 2019 is the first time in a long time that new works have actually entered the public domain in the US! The Internet Archive and Creative Commons hosted a celeb...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-grand-re-opening-of-the-public-domain

It's that time again! Mike spent the week before last at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, checking out all the latest technology that companies are most eager to show off, and now once agai...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-ces-2019-post-mortem

The latest in the EU's string of internet regulatory efforts has a new target: terrorist propaganda. Just as with past regulations, the proposed rules seem onerous and insane, creating huge liabi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-eu-endangers-free-speech-online-again

Today, Mike is at the opening of the Consumer Technology Association's CES 2019 show — which means we'll have one of our CES post-mortem podcasts coming up soon! But before that, for this first...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ninja-future-with-gary-shapiro

Can Anyone Disrupt The Disruptors? by Techdirt

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-anyone-disrupt-the-disruptors

We've got another panel discussion from the Lincoln Network's Reboot conference this week, all about the law on everyone's minds lately: Section 230 of the CDA. The debate includes law professor ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/section-230-and-political-bias

Last week, we published a series of posts by Mike Godwin looking at Our Bipolar Free Speech Disorder And How To Fix It (check out part one, part two, and part three). But with a topic like this, ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/free-speech-disorder-with-mike-godwin

A few weeks ago, we featured a panel discussion with Mike and others at the Lincoln Network's Reboot conference on the podcast. This week we're doing something a little different and featuring an...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/should-we-break-up-big-tech

By now, there's a good chance you've received an invitation to join Initiative Q, and also a good chance that you took one look at it and thought "wow, this seems extremely sketchy." And indeed, ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-the-hell-is-initiative-q

In late September, Mike joined a panel at the Lincoln Network's Reboot conference to tackle the question "will rising activism limit government’s access to Silicon Valley?" along with Trae Step...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/government-activism-silicon-valley

As artificial intelligence technology marches onwards, it's raising a lot of complicated questions about free speech, privacy, and important rights. One person who's been thinking a lot about the...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/ai-free-speech-human-rights

For this week's episode of the podcast, we're featuring a recent panel discussion from Mozilla's Speaker Series. Mike Masnick sat down with Guillaume Chaslot from Algo Transparency, hosted by Moz...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/free-speech-content-moderation-panel-discussion

This week, we've got a special cross-post from Rob Reid's excellent After On podcast. After a conversation between Mike and Rob about the possible end of the world, we pivot to the full episode o...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/building-new-senses-plus-the-possible-end-of-the-world

A major insurance company recently announced that it would offer discounts on life insurance to customers who wear activity trackers and log data showing they live a healthy lifestyle. This under...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/life-insurance-life-surveillance

We've done it — we've solved the challenge of content moderation! (Checks notes). No, wait, sorry: we haven't. But what we have done is invited Kate Klonick, law professor and author of the exc...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/no-easy-answers-for-content-moderation

Anonymity is back in the news in a big way, especially since the New York Times published an explosive opinion piece by an anonymous White House official. Here at Techdirt — proudly one of the ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/anonymity-in-the-media-online

Copyright is a big, complicated monster of a law, composed of patchwork updates and shaped by international agreements — which is, in fact, the source of a lot of its problems. But fixing copyr...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/theres-always-something-new-to-learn-about-copyright

Is the way companies are currently structured and operated conducive to long-term innovation? It's a tough question, but there are plenty of reasons to consider that short-term profit incentives ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/do-short-term-profits-hurt-long-term-innovation

Have you ever thought about the legal issues surrounding emoji? Don't worry, most people haven't. But they are myriad and interesting, with roots nearly two decades ago following the emergence of...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/emoji-the-law

There has long been anxiety around the "permanent record" of the internet, and recent public shamings based on old tweets have brought that fear to the forefront for many people. But the mass del...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/old-tweets-your-permanent-record

The tides of public opinion on economics seem to be shifting, and criticism of the very idea of free markets is on the ride. The conversation is messy, confusing, and transcends many traditional ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-people-dont-trust-capitalism-anymore

We've got a crossover episode this week, all about the EU's disastrous moves on the copyright front. Mike recently joined the Building Tomorrow podcast to discuss the subject with Paul Matzko and...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-eus-copyright-threat-to-the-open-internet

One thing we've talked about for a long time at Techdirt is the importance communities for media outlets, including our own. These days, it feels like a lot of media companies are giving up on th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/building-communities-outside-facebook

One of the most dangerous aspects of SOPA and other copyright proposals is the idea of moving enforcement and liability further down the stack of technology that powers the internet, even all the...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-private-agreements-recreated-sopa

Eliot Peper is a novelist who uses thorough research and creative thinking to produce science fiction that can feel more like eerily-accurate prognostication. Exploring possible futures with real...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/sci-fi-scenario-planning

Between Elon Musk's proposal for a website ranking the credibility of journalists and Tim Draper blaming the collapse of Theranos on the press (not to mention Peter Thiel's attack on Gawker), it ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/are-tech-and-journalism-att-odds-with-each-other

Recently, Valve sent waves through the PC gaming world by announcing an upcoming policy change for its Steam platform: it will no longer enforce specific content rules and will allow all games as...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/debating-steams-new-hands-off-policy

The latest entrant on the decentralized transportation scene is the suddenly-ubiquitous electric scooters that are taking over San Francisco and other cities. Their appearance has triggered the i...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/are-e-scooters-a-problem

As we've noted recently, the current copyright reform proposal being considered by the EU is full of extremely dangerous ideas, from mandated filters to a "link tax". This week, we're joined by E...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/mep-julia-reda-on-eus-dangerous-copyright-proposal

We've talked about author Rob Reid many times on Techdirt, and had him on the podcast once before. Now, in what started as a project to promote his latest novel, Reid is hosting a podcast called ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/rob-reids-mind-bending-podcast

We're nearing the end of the Kickstarter campaign for CIA: Collect It All, our polished and fully-playable version of a formerly top secret card game used by the CIA to train new recruits. In thi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/cia-collect-it-all

The US has been something of a surveillance state since long before the Snowden revelations that showed the full extent of some of the NSA's activities. A lot of this is made possible — often u...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-the-courts-created-the-surveillance-state

In the last few years, a lot of the conversation around technology in general has shifted its focus from excitement about the obvious benefits to concern about its downfalls and side effects. It ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-free-bad

Social media can be an extremely powerful tool for gathering, finding and sharing the news. It can also be... a bit of a disaster. It would be nice if such an important question had a simple answ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/getting-news-without-social-media

Law isn't simple, and truly learning about it takes more than a few short primers or even an in-depth guide or two — which makes it the perfect topic to explore via the medium of podcasts. This...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/teaching-the-law-via-podcasts

After the recent launch of po.et, which aims to use the blockchain to create a new business model for digital media companies, Mike was... unconvinced. This led to a Twitter discussion with CEO J...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-the-blockchain-save-publishers

We've already written about the insanity of the appeals court overturning Google's fair use victory against Oracle — but there's plenty to dig into regarding just how bad the ruling is. This we...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-one-court-just-screwed-up-software-development

Facebook. Cambridge Analytica. Need I say more? There's plenty to discuss. Among them is the question of similarities between what happened and the Obama campaign — which is why we're lucky to ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/overreacting-to-facebooks-mistakes-wont-solve-anything

This isn't the first time we've discussed this on the podcast, and it probably won't be the last — disinformation online is a big and complicated topic, and there are a whole lot of angles to a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-does-it-mean-for-social-media-to-be-held-accountable

The apparent success of MoviePass raises a whole bunch of interesting business model questions — and privacy concerns about the data-harvesting portion of that business model add another layer ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-moviepass-makes-money

It wasn't very long ago that we last discussed SESTA on the podcast, but now that the House has voted to approve its version of the bill with SESTA tacked on, it's unfortunately time to dig into ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-worst-of-both-worlds-sesta-fosta-together

When a tech company is huge and dominant, it can feel like competing with them is impossible. Worse still, it can sometimes feel like innovating is impossible, since they might just step in and t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/disrupting-google

In 2016, mostly out of frustration, I wrote a post about how traffic is fake, audience numbers are garbage, and nobody knows how many people see anything. My feelings haven't changed much, and ne...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/lies-damned-lies-audience-metrics

A couple of weeks ago, Mike was in Washington, DC for the State Of The Net conference, where he participated in a panel called Internet Speech: Truth, Trust, Transparency & Tribalism. For this we...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/truth-trust-transparency-tribalism

When it comes to many of the legislative issues of interest to us here at Techdirt, we've always been able to count on at least one voice of reason amidst the congressional chaos: Representative ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/an-interview-with-rep-zoe-lofgren

Last week, Mike sparked lots of conversation with his post about rethinking the marketplace of ideas without losing sight of the importance of the fundamental principles of free speech. Naturally...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/free-speech-the-marketplace-of-ideas

In the midst of the political chaos in America and the world at large, a whole lot of attention has been turned to Facebook and its role in modern democracy. The social network has responded by a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/facebook-wont-save-democracy

Mike was at CES 2018 last week, and now for the third year in a row we've got our special episode of the podcast dedicated to looking at the best (and worst) innovations on show. As usual, he's j...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-ces-2018-post-mortem

If you've been reading Techdirt for more than five years, you probably remember the conclusion of Mattel v. MGA — and if you've been reading for more than thirteen years, you might even remembe...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/barbies-v-bratz

Even those of us who believe that the internet is overall a tremendous positive force when it comes to discourse and culture can admit that, in many parts of the online world, having constructive...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-lost-art-of-productive-debate

Gaming is changing the nature of storytelling. Video games of course — but also the modern rise of board games, tabletop RPGs and other forms of analog gaming. A good game does more than just a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/games-that-tell-stories

Normally, we wouldn't dedicate a whole episode of the podcast to talking about a single app — but every now and then something small comes along that contains innovations worth exploring. So th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-a-trivia-app-resurrect-appointment-viewing

If you're a Techdirt reader or just a general regular on the ol' internet, our topic this week — the current situation with net neutrality and the FCC — needs little introduction. And we've g...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/tom-wheeler-reacts-to-trumps-fcc

We've been talking about internet platform regulation for a long time, but in the past year these issues have gotten a huge amount of increased focus — for a bunch of fairly obvious reasons. Bu...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-perils-of-internet-platform-regulation

I don't think I need to say much to introduce this week's topic — we're all well aware of the conversation about Facebook's role in the presidential election, including questions of filter bubb...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/no-easy-answers-facebook-the-election

As smartphones and other mobile devices have gotten smarter and smarter, they've taken over more and more of most people's general computing needs, and the importance of the classic personal comp...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/who-still-needs-a-personal-computer

This episode was supposed to come two weeks ago when the news was a little fresher, so by now you almost certainly know all about the copyright claims on Donald Trump's appearances on the Howard ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/donald-trump-howard-stern-and-copyright

The rapid forward march of technology has long bred two leading camps of onlookers: the techno-optimists and the techno-pessimists. Honest people on both sides, however, must admit that technolog...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/wtf-with-tim-oreilly

Facebook is under a lot of scrutiny these days over its advertising and content moderation systems, especially since the high-profile revelation of Russia-backed ads during the election. But are ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-scandalous-are-facebooks-ad-scandals

Last Friday on Techdirt, we posted video from the World Hosting Days, in which Mike Masnick sat down for a talk with Mike Godwin — a.k.a. the originator of "the Streisand Effect" meeting the cr...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/when-godwins-law-met-the-streisand-effect

While the 20th century was defined by mass production, since the digital revolution there has been talk about what might be the main trend of the 21st century: mass customization. Today, we're st...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/customize-everything

Just over a year ago, when Pokémon Go was taking the world by storm, we dedicated an episode of the podcast to discussing what made it so successful, and ended up with some differing predictions...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/pokemon-gone

Can you believe it? Tomorrow is our 20th anniversary! Techdirt has come a long way since Mike started it as a newsletter on August 23rd, 1997, and this week's episode of the podcast is a celebrat...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/20-years-of-techdirt

Recently, we've been writing about SESTA, Congress' latest attack on Section 230 of the CDA, and helping to organize a campaign against it. But there's still a lot of misunderstanding and misinfo...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-problems-with-sesta-and-why-section-230-matters

If you're a fan of the Reply All podcast, then you're probably still processing the story they told in a recent two-part episode about the insane lengths that host Alex Goldman went to track down...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/these-scammers-picked-the-wrong-guy

Smartphones have been one of the most world-changing innovations of our time — and for a long time, smartphone design was a hotbed of innovation. But more recently that innovation seems to have...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-there-any-smartphone-innovation-left

The economy is important — very important. But is that because it matters in and of itself, or because it's the engine for achieving the things we really do care about? Here at Techdirt we've a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-the-economy-more-important-than-democracy

You may have heard the joke: the best way to do product design for Facebook is to get a job at Snapchat. We've all seen how, after failing to buy the company, Facebook has wasted little time in b...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-it-bad-if-facebook-copies-everything-snapchat-does

If you read our post yesterday, you know that Techdirt friend Rob Reid is releasing his latest novel, After On by publishing the first near-half of the book for free on Medium ( https://medium.co...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/rob-reid-on-writing-publishing-a-scifi-novel-in-2017

As we reported last month, CDN provider Cloudflare has decided to hit back against patent troll Blackbird Technologies with an aggressive strategy. Leading this charge is Doug Kramer, Cloudflare'...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/patent-trolls-with-cloudflares-general-counsel

This week's episode is all about copyright and culture, with a pair of the best guests you could ask for on the subject. Almost ten years ago, law professors Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/copyright-music-theft

We've made FOIA requests several times over the years, with varying results — but there are others out there who have dedicated their careers to understanding and using the FOIA process. One su...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/talking-freedom-of-information-with-a-foia-terrorist

One of the fundamental strengths of the internet has always been its decentralization, but over time we've seen a bunch of different forces start to distort this setup. This week, we're joined by...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/re-decentralizing-the-web

This week we've got a special crossover episode with our friends at TechFreedom. Mike joined their Tech Policy Podcast recently to discuss notice and takedown systems and the future of internet c...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-future-of-internet-copyright-with-techfreedom

When the "death of the MP3" started being reported, we were among the very few blogs that said umm, no — but the deluge of eulogies for the still-thriving format has been overwhelming and quite...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/no-the-mp3-isnt-dead

Most Techdirt readers are already familiar with Cory Doctorow, whether via his EFF work, the BoingBoing blog, his novels, or all of the above. This week, he joins us on the podcast to discuss his...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/truth-and-fiction-with-cory-doctorow

The current instalment of the crypto wars hit full stride with the clash between Apple and the FBI, but in truth the tension over encryption has been around for a long time — and it doesn't loo...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-crypto-wars-may-never-end

In the post-Snowden era, we don't have to tell you how important it is to stay engaged with (and vigilant about) the surveillance state in America. Jennifer Granick is the Director of Civil Liber...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-surveillance-state

It doesn't take many stories of people suffering due to unaffordable medicine to make you question the state of pharmaceutical patents, but the arguments in their defense are loud and frequent. M...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/does-pharma-really-need-patents

We've talked before about how the very nature of work is changing thanks to technology, with telecommuting being an obvious trend — but despite some early predictions about the death of the phy...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-evolution-of-the-office

Since Congress threw out new privacy rules for ISPs that were supposed to come into effect soon, there's been a renewed uproar on all sides of the debate about internet regulation. While the big ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-this-isp-supports-net-neutrality-privacy-rules-and-more

For a long time now, "use a VPN" has been the default online privacy advice — but is it really so effective? Following the recent VPN boom that came on the tails of Congress scrapping new ISP p...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-truth-about-vpns

The basic impetus behind DRM is obvious: a frantic, misguided desire to make digital products behave like physical ones. But the truth is DRM goes far, far beyond that, restricting all sorts of a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-end-of-ownership

Always-on, voice-operated assistants are on the rise, and most of the industry seems to have agreed that Amazon's Alexa is at the top of the pack. Podcast host Dennis Yang was and is an early ado...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/alexa-play-this-podcast

The rise of drones in both the personal and commercial spheres has happened with stunning speed, and its created a whole bunch of hard-to-answer regulatory questions. This week we're joined by No...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/will-regulations-ground-drone-innovation

From its humble origins as an online bookseller that many people worried might not survive, Amazon has grown into a critical piece of the web's backbone via its Amazon Web Services platform. Last...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/when-a-typo-breaks-the-internet

The finding and booking of flights is a massive and elaborate global mechanism that contains both fascinating technology and useful secrets. This week, we're joined by Adam Fletcher, co-founder o...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-miracle-of-booking-flights

Innovation isn't easy, but success in Silicon Valley involves a bigger dose of luck than a lot of entrepreneurs seem prepared to admit. Chance gets left out of the economic equation all too often...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/luck-in-silicon-valley-with-robert-frank

Net neutrality is at risk. The FCC under Ajit Pai is clearly intent on destroying it, and this is quickly turning into a fight for the future of the internet. This week, we're joined by Gigi Sohn...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-new-fcc

The adoption of self-driving cars is rapidly changing from science fiction to present reality. We had a preliminary discussion on the subject here on the podcast a couple years ago, but today we'...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/autonomous-cars-are-accelerating

For obvious reasons, politics and government are on just about everyone's mind at the moment, prompting a vast range of reactions and opinions. A lot of people who share a desire for change are d...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/changing-government-starts-with-you

After years of working on the go, Mike has the mobile office down to a science — and wherever he sets it up, nearby gadget geeks have plenty of questions and comments. So this week we're joined...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/an-office-in-a-bag

Last year, we got a lot of positive feedback on our episode taking a look at the Consumer Electronics Show with the help of journalist Rob Pegoraro. So this year, we've brought Rob back for anoth...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-ces-2017-post-mortem

On the surface, the idea of "pro and con" debates seems like a good way to ensure an issue is fully explored. But is it truly a productive approach? This week, we debate the nature of debates and...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-pros-and-cons-of-pros-and-cons

The internet of things has been taking plenty of flack ever since the first time someone floated the idea of a connected fridge or some-such in the 90s — but despite the knee-jerk instinct to s...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-the-internet-of-things-the-future-a-total-mess-or-both

Elon Musk got plenty of attention recently for announcing his plans to colonize Mars. But that's not exactly a new idea — so we wondered if it was really a different, exciting and realistic pla...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-we-really-colonize-mars

The news industry has been in an ongoing state of upheaval ever since the dawn of the internet. In addition to the many ways that technology changes reporting and publishing, there has also been ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/where-do-you-get-your-news

It's our 100th episode! And to celebrate, we're not only talking with Patreon founder Jack Conte, we're announcing that the Techdirt Podcast is now on Patreon too!

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/supporting-creators-with-patreon-founder-jack-conte

Though the notion of the Facebook "filter bubble" has been around for a while, it's picked up a huge amount of steam following the election of Donald Trump — perhaps just a little too much stea...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/debating-the-facebook-filter-bubble-with-mathew-ingram

Well, today's the day. By tomorrow there will be a new President of the United States, and a large segment of the population claiming that they were robbed by the system. But immediate anger asid...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-there-a-better-way-to-pick-a-president

Monopolies are one of the areas that even the most staunchly anti-regulation folks often agree there is a role for government intervention. In the world of tech, multiple big antitrust fights hav...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-tech-be-trusted-without-antitrust

Software patents have been dubious since their inception — not just in principle, but legally too. Past rulings have called their validity into serious question, and now an opinion from a promi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/death-knell-for-software-patents

We wanted to do an episode all about examining the tech policy platforms of the 2016 presidential candidates, but that proved impossible since one candidate's is vague and noncommittal while the ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-presidential-tech-policy-wish-list

Yup, we're doing it — we're tackling the much-derided controversy over Apple's decision to remove the analog headphone jack from the iPhone! I join this week's episode myself as a guest host, a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-headphone-jack-apocalypse

Edward Snowden deserves a pardon. We all know it — even if you believe he deserves to stand trial, the only option right now is an unfair trial on Espionage Act charges in which he'd be blocked...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/pardon-snowden

Data breaches that expose passwords are pretty much a fact of life at this point — and the effects are multiplied by the fact that many, many people reuse passwords no matter how much they know...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/passwords-suck-whats-next

Facebook's efforts to moderate content that appears on the social network have run into numerous problems, most recently with a famous war photo and a bunch of blog posts. Some have made absurd d...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-facebook-moderation-a-necessary-evil

As technology ushers more and more things towards the realm of "post-scarcity", an inevitable conversation has arisen around the very roots of capitalism and what this rapid change means for our ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-capitalism-over

Not all Kickstarter campaigns are created equal. Even the mostly-good ones that eventually satisfy their backers are often plagued with delays and poor communication. But once in a while, there's...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/inside-a-really-good-kickstarter-campaign

Gawker's gone, and that's that. And yet, whenever we've expressed concerns over the billionaire vendetta that brought it down, we've faced a huge amount of pushback from people who had problems w...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-gawker-debate

Ira Rothken is on the front lines of many major legal battles relating to copyright and piracy, including defending Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and, most recently, taking up the defense of Kick...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/an-interview-with-kim-dotcoms-lawyer

The internet is built on a solid foundation of open protocols: TCP/IP, HTTP and SMTP especially, plus more modern entrants like RSS and BitTorrent. But even those aren't so new anymore, and it se...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/have-platforms-killed-the-open-internet-by-replacing-protocols

Algorithms have become a powerful force in the world, but for all the impressive good they do, they sometimes show some worrying tendencies. Algorithms that discriminate are a problem that nobody...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-your-algorithm-racist

Pokémon Go is an undeniable phenomenon, and the first mass-appeal hit from the world of augmented reality — a technology people have been expecting would transform gaming for years. That leave...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-it-the-pokemon-or-the-go-that-matters

Silicon Valley has produced lots of disruptive technologies — ways to solve problems by upending entrenched industries and, often enough, routing around protectionist regulations. But not all r...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/disruption-is-not-an-excuse-for-lying

Chatbots have been around for a very long time in some form or another, but now they appear to be making a comeback — or at least attempting one. This week, Mike and regular co-host Dennis (who...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/chatbots-fad-or-the-future

It should surprise nobody that the FBI is seeking even broader digital surveillance powers by changing the warrant requirements and expanding the power of national security letters. If you're a r...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/senator-wyden-on-the-expansion-of-fbi-surveillance

Technology has made "direct democracy" — letting citizens vote on specific, granular issues instead of just electing representatives — more viable than ever, but does that mean it's a good id...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-direct-democracy-work

Net neutrality has a long and complicated history, and despite some recent victories, that story is far from over. This week, Mike is joined by resident broadband expert Karl Bode to discuss what...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/whats-next-for-net-neutrality

Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Twitch — online video is still booming. But it also still struggles under the weight of exclusive deals and content silos, and it feels like there's stil...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/whats-next-for-online-video

Both surveillance and the digitization of money are heavily-discussed topics, but the intersection between the two often goes overlooked. Historically, credit agencies have been trailblazers in t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-link-between-credit-and-surveillance

The conversation around tech policy has traditionally happened at the federal level, but more recently we've seen a change in that trend, and some of the most interesting experiments — both goo...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/tech-policy-goes-local

Over the past few weeks, a jury heard the second round of the copyright fight between Oracle and Google over whether Google's use of the Java APIs in Android constituted copyright infringement, o...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/what-happened-at-the-oracle-google-trial

Consumers looking for an electric car have several options to consider, but the buzz and excitement around Tesla continues to dwarf everything else. It's hardly unfounded, but the scale of the co...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-is-tesla-so-successful

The "gig economy" of on-demand peer-to-peer services like Uber has been gaining traction, but not every company is faring so well. In some areas, the rush of entrants has outstripped demand and l...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-there-enough-demand-for-the-on-demand-economy

Back in March, Mike moderated a panel at RightsCon on the subject of intermediary liability and the delicate balancing act that platform providers have to play on that front, with lawyers from Me...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-tough-choices-platforms-make

Recently, some Facebook staffers raised an interesting question: should the social media giant employ its significant power to stem the rise of Donald Trump? This week, we discuss that notion and...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/should-internet-companies-sway-elections

In a world defined by borders for thousands of years, the global nature of the internet has caused all sorts of confusion and absurdity. Geographically restricted content, fuzzily defined jurisdi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-it-futile-to-draw-borders-on-the-internet

Last week we were joined by Justin Peters, author of the new book The Idealist all about Aaron Swartz, free culture and digital activism. The first half of the discussion focused on that broader ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/free-culture-and-aaron-swartz-part-two

Anyone even remotely interested in free culture, the internet and copyright surely knows the name Aaron Swartz — but only some truly understand what made him tick, and why he was considered so ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/free-culture-and-aaron-swartz-part-one

Anyone who reads Techdirt knows our opinion on encryption: stronger is better, and giving the government (or anyone else) a back door is a dangerous idea. We've decried a lot of the stupid argume...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-great-encryption-debate-should-there-be-backdoors

If you want to send someone a message online today, you've got a hell of a lot of options. Far from the erstwhile IM dominance of ICQ, today there are messaging platforms of every shape and size,...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-are-there-so-many-messaging-companies

The battle for net neutrality seemed like it was over — but the regulations left a loophole open. Unsurprisingly, ISPs quickly started exploiting it, offering "zero rating" services to do an en...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/net-neutrality-zero-rating-the-games-internet-providers-play

I don't think I need to reiterate how important the battle over the future of encryption is. It's not new, but rather the latest clash in a fight that has been raging for years, and the high-prof...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/apple-the-fbi-and-you

We all know the patent system is riddled with problems, and badly in need of reform. But reform comes slow — really, really slow. So some tech companies have been doing what they do best: innov...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/hacking-the-patent-system

There's something notable and odd about the conversation around content creation in the digital age: a stark divide between the camp that believes the sky is falling, and the camp that believes t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-bestworst-time-to-be-a-content-creator

Last week, we shared the first half of Mike's interview with Barry Eisler at the Commonwealth Club of California. This week, we've got the second half of that discussion, which pivots from nation...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/barry-eisler-on-publishing-keanu-reeves-and-more-part-two

Those of you who've heard our previous episodes with Barry Eisler know that he has a unique insight into many of the topics we discuss here at Techdirt, stemming from the wide variety of perspect...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/barry-eisler-on-truth-fiction-and-the-surveillance-state-part-one

The digital world is increasingly giving rise to "winner take all" industries, where a market is all but dominated by one company and, sometimes, a single smaller competitor. Since innovation is ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/does-the-internet-create-more-winner-take-all-companies

There are lots of criticisms of free trade agreements, especially the fact that they go far beyond "free trade" — but the Trans-Pacific Partnership truly takes the cake. This week, we're joined...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/just-how-bad-is-the-tpp

Lately, there's been a lot of talk about cooperation between the government and the technology industry in the fight against terrorism, radicalization and, specifically, ISIS. A lot of this talk ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-silicon-valley-help-disrupt-isis

After a few weeks off for the holidays, we're back! And as anyone on the internet can't ignore, CES 2016 has just wrapped up. Our own Mike Masnick was there, and today he's joined by journalist a...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-ces-post-mortem

Welcome to the last podcast episode of 2015! For the whole year (and since long before that) Techdirt has been speaking out against surveillance and government invasion of privacy, to the point w...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-much-surveillance-is-acceptable

There's been a lot of back-and-forth recently over Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, combining widespread praise with a lot of disappointment in the details and th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/it-aint-easy-to-give-away-45-billion

Last week, we spoke with Daphne Keller of Stanford's Center For Internet And Society about the collision between privacy and free speech in the EU. Much of this discussion involves the question o...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-intermediary-liability-is-the-most-important-question-online

Privacy and free speech aren't fundamentally opposed, but they do have a tendency to come into conflict — and recent developments in Europe surrounding the right to be forgotten have brought th...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-eu-has-set-privacy-free-speech-on-a-collision-course

Ever since the bubble and bust of the 90s, Silicon Valley observers have been wondering if and when history will repeat. Lately, some have been pointing to the trend of "unicorn" companies as evi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/51-bubbles-busts-unicorns

Fifty episodes! Having skipped just two weeks in the past, this marks one whole year of the Techdirt Podcast! In honor of that, we're taking on a very relevant topic that we haven't yet discussed...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/our-podcast-about-podcasts

Today, we've got something a little different: a podcast crossover podcast with the folks from the a16z. Last week, Mike joined Julie Samuels from Engine on the a16z Podcast hosted by Sonal Choks...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/a-whirlwind-tour-of-current-policy-issues-in-tech

If you're a Techdirt regular, you probably know that there are some serious problems with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Drafted in 1986 with extremely broad language, the CFAA has grown into ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/our-hacking-laws-are-a-mess

Trademark law often gets lumped in with patents and copyright under the "intellectual property" banner, but in fact it's a different kind of law with an entirely different heritage. That said, it...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/trademarks-intellectual-property-or-consumer-protection

Over the past 15+ years, Techdirt and its team has made plenty of predictions and prognoses about various aspects of the world of tech — which means we've made plenty of mistakes. This week, ou...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/things-we-got-wrong

There's a common refrain regarding services these days that "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" — but this notion is at best an oversimplification, and at worst outright untrue. T...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/no-youre-not-the-product

Last week, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens joined us to discuss DMCA anti-circumvention exceptions, but that's just one specific facet of a broader issue: the freedom to repair, modify, reverse-engineer an...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-the-freedom-to-tinker-matters

One of the many strange and problematic features of modern copyright law is the DMCA anti-circumvention exception system, wherein the Librarian of Congress makes unilateral decisions about what y...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/why-do-we-let-an-86-year-old-librarian-decide-whos-allowed-to-innovate

Lots of publishers freak out about the existence of adblockers. Some seek ways to get around them, others simply complain. This might seem like a situation where the desires of publishers and the...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/adblocking-wouldnt-be-a-problem-if-ads-didnt-suck-so-much

Privacy policies are ubiquitous online, and often required by law, but what are they really for? People don't read them, and when they do they have a tendency to misunderstand them, such as with ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/privacy-policies-have-nothing-to-do-with-privacy

Technological innovation is solving all sorts of problems, from major issues to minor inconveniences — but one criticism that often comes up is that Silicon Valley has a "by rich young white me...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-silicon-valley-only-building-tech-for-the-rich

From e-voting and online petitions to broad new avenues of communication between politicians and the public, technology is changing democracy, and has the potential to do so even more. This week ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/technologys-impact-on-democracy

Time and time again, we hear the claim that without copyright and/or patents there is no way for creators to make money, or even any reason for anyone to create anything at all. This is obviously...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/yes-there-are-business-models-that-dont-need-intellectual-property

When people talk about today's most innovative technology and media companies, the discussion tends to orbit the usual suspects: Apple, Google, Facebook et al. But there's one small company that ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/humble-bundle-deserves-more-credit-for-its-many-innovations

We live in a world that venerates "ideas" but ignores the fact that even the best idea is worthless if it's poorly executed. In turn, people who "copy" ideas are often demonized, even when it's t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/in-defense-of-copying

Long-time Techdirt readers know that we're big fans of Kevin Smith, not just for his films and podcasts but also for his many innovative approaches to business, distribution and creativity in gen...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/kevin-smith-on-how-to-be-yourself-and-make-a-living

A few years ago, there was no reason to see Apple and Google as direct competitors — but thanks to the mobile space, all that has changed. Now the two tech giants are going head-to-head in a co...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/apple-versus-google

Reddit is a prime example of the explosive growth of online communities — and recently it's become a prime test case for the huge challenges such growth brings, especially for those who are try...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/reddit-and-the-challenges-of-building-a-business-out-of-a-community

Smart watches are among the hottest gadgets du jour, but do they live up to the hype? Their adoption hasn't been even remotely on par with smartphones, and reactions from those who have used them...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/are-smart-watches-the-new-calculator-watches

The promise of virtual reality has been teasing us since the late 60s, and yet it never seems to arrive in a fully realized form. Recently, however, VR (and its cousin, augmented reality) is back...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/closing-in-on-virtual-reality

The internet has changed the parameters for how people can interact. Today, all sorts of work and socialization can be done over distances that were previously impossible, and the rise of telecom...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/does-distance-matter-in-the-digital-age

Last week, we were joined by Upshift founder Ezra Goldman to discuss the future of mobility in a world of on-demand services like Uber. This week, Ezra is back to help us fill in the other big pi...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/autonomous-vehicles-will-change-everything

The explosive rise of Uber, ride-sharing programs, and other on-demand mobility services has led many to wonder if the whole concept of car ownership is on its way out, at least for city-dwellers...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-car-ownership-on-the-way-out

There are a lot of startups out there trying to become the "Uber of..." something, from valet parking to food delivery to dog-walking. But as much as this might look like mere bandwagon-hopping, ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-rise-of-the-on-demand-economy

Many people have tried to figure out what factors contributed to making Silicon Valley a center of rapid innovation, usually so that they might replicate it elsewhere. But most of these efforts f...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/silicon-valleys-secret-ingredient

Last week, we discussed the many misconceptions that run rampant in the public understanding of copyright. This week, the EFF's Parker Higgins returns for part two of the conversation, looking at...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/effs-parker-higgins-on-correcting-copyright-misconceptions

Copyright is one of the most important fields of law in the digital age, and also one of the most widely misunderstood. The EFF's Parker Higgins joins us to discuss to most common misconceptions ...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/effs-parker-higgins-on-common-copyright-misconceptions

AirBnB has become a massive, popular service despite many people balking at its introduction. But in the big picture, what effect is it having on the urban centers where it thrives?

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-airbnb-good-or-bad-for-cities

Following the recent shutdowns of GigaOm and San Francisco's The Bold Italic, we ask a critical question: how can smaller online media players survive in this age of goliaths like Buzzfeed?

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/are-smaller-online-media-players-doomed-in-the-age-of-buzzfeed

Last week, Hersh Reddy helped us navigate the many ways in which the patent system is broken. This week, we turn our attentions to the ways in which it might be fixed, whether by small changes or...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-the-patent-system-can-be-fixed

Hersh Reddy, co-host of the podcast, is a patent attorney with a computer science degree and a long history of working in the tech industry. In this first half of a double episode, he discusses t...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/how-the-patent-system-is-broken

Gabriella Coleman is back this week to discuss the astonishing and still-recent shift in the digital world towards real, widespread political engagement on issues like privacy and surveillance.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/from-lulz-to-activism-with-gabriella-coleman

People (especially those in the news media) love to talk about Anonymous, often making bold, sweeping and generally inaccurate proclamations about the group's nature and goals. Gabriella Coleman,...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-many-faces-of-anonymous-with-gabriella-coleman

Adam Fong discusses his thoughts, both as a composer and as the founder and director of the Center for New Music in San Francisco, on the changing opportunities for musicians to make money. The m...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/musicians-making-money-with-composer-adam-fong

Recently, there's been a growing discussion around the concept of a basic income guarantee and its potential to completely change how we think about work, income and leisure. Albert Wenger from U...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/rethinking-work-income-leisure-albert-wenger-on-basic-income

Techdirt co-host Dennis Yang has been trying his hand as a driver for both Uber and Lyft. He shares his experiences, and sparks a discussion about the role and future of these services.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/whats-it-like-to-drive-for-uber-and-lyft

Techdirt has long operated on a homegrown content management system, but while we've been considering a switch to something open like Wordpress, many other media companies have been building thei...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/do-you-need-a-proprietary-platform-to-be-a-serious-media-company-today

It's Fair Use Week, so we're discussing this often-misunderstood counterpoint to copyright law that is in fact one of the most critical safeguards of our evolving shared culture.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/fair-use-protects-culture-from-copyright-not-the-other-way-around

Barry Eisler is back, this time in his capacity as a former CIA employee with insight into the intelligence community's inner workings and culture. This week's music is The NSA Hates This Song by...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/former-cia-employee-barry-eisler-explains-why-you-shouldnt-trust-the-cia

Bestselling author Barry Eisler discusses the evolving culture and business model of publishing with Mike Masnick and Dennis Yang. This week's music is D.I.Y. MySpam by Jayme Gutierrez.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/barry-eisler-dissects-the-publishing-industry

Cybersecurity has become a big, vague buzzword. But what are the actual underlying issues, and are they really as serious as they're made out to be? Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang disc...

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-cybersecurity-a-real-issue-or-government-boondoggle

What if cities provided broadband alongside services like water and garbage pickup? Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang discuss the potential pros and cons.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/is-muni-broadband-a-monopoly-killer-or-a-killer-monopoly

A panel discussion about threats to internet freedom with the creators of the documentary Killswitch, moderated by Mike Masnick at the BitTorrent office.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/threats-to-internet-freedom-recorded-live-at-bittorrent

With so much communication happening on private platforms, is the First Amendment sufficient to protect the ideals of free speech? Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang discuss.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/terms-of-service-are-the-new-constitution-do-they-need-a-first-amendment

Does education need an overhaul for the information age? And what would that entail? Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang discuss.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/should-kids-be-forced-to-learn-coding-or-economics-or-stats

Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang discuss satellite internet and other big ideas about connectivity in Episode 5 of the Techdirt Podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/the-internet-from-space

Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang look beyond the kneejerk reaction that "all advertising is bad" in Episode 4 of the Techdirt Podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/in-defense-of-advertising

Amanda Palmer drops by to discuss her new book The Art Of Asking with Mike Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang in Episode 3 of the Techdirt Podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/amanda-palmer-and-the-art-of-asking

Michael Masnick interviews Brad Burnham about strategies for solving the privacy problem in episode two of the Techdirt Podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/privacy-and-user-control-with-brad-burnham

Michael Masnick, Hersh Reddy and Dennis Yang discuss the paradox of privacy in the digital age.

https://soundcloud.com/techdirt/can-you-increase-privacy-by-increasing-surveillance