Ctrl-Alt-Speech (original) (raw)

Ben Whitelaw Mike Masnick Locate Your Nearest X-it Locate Your Nearest X-it In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia follows The Guardian in quitting Elon Musk’s X due to disinformation and ‘disturbing content’ (Fortune)
Bluesky attracts millions as users leave Musk's X after Trump win (Reuters)
Advertisers set to return to X as they seek favour with Elon Musk and Donald Trump (Financial Times)
The plan to ban children under 16 from social media (The Times)
Should smartphones be banned in schools? (Financial Times)
Facebook and Instagram to Offer Subscription for No Ads in Europe (Facebook)
An update on political advertising in the European Union (Google)
Facebook’s Algorithms Think a Small English Community Is Up to No Good (Gizmodo)
Phony X accounts are meddling in Ghana’s election (Rest of World)
Sockpuppet network impersonating Americans and Canadians amplifies pro-Israel narratives on X (DFR Lab)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at podcast@ctrlaltspeech.com and sponsorship enquiries to sponsorship@ctrlaltspeech.com. Thanks for listening.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia follows The Guardian in quitting Elon Musk’s X due to disinformation and ‘disturbing content’ (Fortune)
Bluesky attracts millions as users leave Musk's X after Trump win (Reuters)
Advertisers set to return to X as they seek favour with Elon Musk and Donald Trump (Financial Times)
The plan to ban children under 16 from social media (The Times)
Should smartphones be banned in schools? (Financial Times)
Facebook and Instagram to Offer Subscription for No Ads in Europe (Facebook)
An update on political advertising in the European Union (Google)
Facebook’s Algorithms Think a Small English Community Is Up to No Good (Gizmodo)
Phony X accounts are meddling in Ghana’s election (Rest of World)
Sockpuppet network impersonating Americans and Canadians amplifies pro-Israel narratives on X (DFR Lab)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-16115842 Fri, 15 Nov 2024 18:00:00 -0500 3101 content moderation,facebook,meta,x,twitter,donald trump,social media,smartphones,canada,EU,child safety,the guardian 1 37 full false Presidents & Precedents Presidents & Precedents In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Pennsylvania Becomes Hot Spot for Election Disinformation (NY Times)
After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent (NY Times)
X Is a White-Supremacist Site (The Atlantic)
Papers, Please? The Republican Plan to Wall Off the Internet (Tech Policy Press)
What Trump's Victory Means for Internet Policy (CNET)
The government plans to ban under-16s from social media platforms. Here's what we know so far (ABC Australia)
Canada orders shutdown of TikTok's Canadian business, app access to continue (Reuters)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Pennsylvania Becomes Hot Spot for Election Disinformation (NY Times)
After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent (NY Times)
X Is a White-Supremacist Site (The Atlantic)
Papers, Please? The Republican Plan to Wall Off the Internet (Tech Policy Press)
What Trump's Victory Means for Internet Policy (CNET)
The government plans to ban under-16s from social media platforms. Here's what we know so far (ABC Australia)
Canada orders shutdown of TikTok's Canadian business, app access to continue (Reuters)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-16073391 Fri, 08 Nov 2024 18:00:00 -0500 2718 content moderation,donald trump,election,tiktok,canada,australia,twitter,x 1 36 full false Sorry, This Episode Will Not Cheer You Up Sorry, This Episode Will Not Cheer You Up In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

These look like Harris ads. Trump backers bought them (Washington Post)
Facebook Took More Than $1 Million For Ads Sowing Election Lies (Forbes)
Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine (CNN)
Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way (New York Times)
Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election (ProPublica)
The U.S. Spies Who Sound the Alarm About Election Interference (New Yorker)
This Is What $44 Billion Buys You (The Atlantic)
How Russia, China and Iran Are Interfering in the Presidential Election (New York Times)
Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide? (New York Times)
'Sickening' Molly Russell chatbots found on Character.ai (BBC)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Concentrix, the technology and services leader driving trust, safety, and content moderation globally. In our Bonus Chat, Dom Sparkes, Trust and Safety Director for EMEA, and David Elliot, Head of Technology, try to lighten the mood by discussing how to make a compelling business case for online safety and the importance of measuring ROI.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

These look like Harris ads. Trump backers bought them (Washington Post)
Facebook Took More Than $1 Million For Ads Sowing Election Lies (Forbes)
Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine (CNN)
Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way (New York Times)
Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election (ProPublica)
The U.S. Spies Who Sound the Alarm About Election Interference (New Yorker)
This Is What $44 Billion Buys You (The Atlantic)
How Russia, China and Iran Are Interfering in the Presidential Election (New York Times)
Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide? (New York Times)
'Sickening' Molly Russell chatbots found on Character.ai (BBC)

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-16033991 Fri, 01 Nov 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3505 content moderation,meta,facebook,character.ai,artificial intelligence,ai,misinformation,disinformation,politics,election 1 35 full false Minisode: The Robots Take Over Ctrl-Alt-Speech Minisode: The Robots Take Over Ctrl-Alt-Speech Ben and Mike are technically off this week, but we decided to run an experiment. After discussing Google’s NotebookLM and its ability to create AI-generated podcasts about any content, Mike experimented with how it would handle one of the stories Mike & Ben discussed last week: Daphne Keller’s The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform on Lawfare. Mike explains why we’re running this, some of the work that went into it, as well as his thoughts on the experiment, followed by the AI-generated version.

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

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

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & NotebookLM Buzzsprout-15991438 Fri, 25 Oct 2024 15:00:00 -0400 1533 content moderation,ai,artificial intelligence,notebookLM,google,daphne keller,compliance,regulation 1 34 full false Regulate, Rinse, Repeat Regulate, Rinse, Repeat In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

How Russian disinformation is reaching the U.S. ahead of the 2024 election (NBC News)
The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform (Lawfare)
ExTwitter Makes It Official: Blocks Are No Longer Blocks (Techdirt)
People are flocking to Bluesky as X makes more unwanted changes (The Verge)
Instagram blames some moderation issues on human reviewers, not AI (TechCrunch)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our launch sponsor Modulate, which builds prosocial voice technology that combats online toxicity and elevates the health and safety of online communities. Mike Pappas joins us for our bonus chat, talking to Mike about the ever important decision between building your own trust & safety tools versus buying them from vendors.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

How Russian disinformation is reaching the U.S. ahead of the 2024 election (NBC News)
The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform (Lawfare)
ExTwitter Makes It Official: Blocks Are No Longer Blocks (Techdirt)
People are flocking to Bluesky as X makes more unwanted changes (The Verge)
Instagram blames some moderation issues on human reviewers, not AI (TechCrunch)

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15950979 Fri, 18 Oct 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3630 content moderation,twitter,x,disinformation,misinformation,ai,artificial intelligence,blocking,bluesky,free speech,instagram,meta 1 33 full false An Appeal a Day Keeps the Censor Away An Appeal a Day Keeps the Censor Away In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

States sue TikTok over app’s effects on kids’ mental health (CNBC)
Risks vs. Harms: Youth & Social Media (Substack)
Instagram and Threads moderation is out of control (The Verge)
TikTok lays off hundreds in Malaysia in move toward AI moderation (Asia Nikkei)
Meta ‘Supreme Court’ expands with European center to handle TikTok, YouTube cases (Washingon Post)
The DSA article you didn't know about, but should (T&S Insider)
Streaming platform Kick bans Jack Doherty after he crashed his car on a livestream (Polygon)
Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams (Gizmodo)
Hacked ‘AI Girlfriend’ Data Shows Prompts Describing Child Sexual Abuse (404 Media)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

States sue TikTok over app’s effects on kids’ mental health (CNBC)
Risks vs. Harms: Youth & Social Media (Substack)
Instagram and Threads moderation is out of control (The Verge)
TikTok lays off hundreds in Malaysia in move toward AI moderation (Asia Nikkei)
Meta ‘Supreme Court’ expands with European center to handle TikTok, YouTube cases (Washingon Post)
The DSA article you didn't know about, but should (T&S Insider)
Streaming platform Kick bans Jack Doherty after he crashed his car on a livestream (Polygon)
Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams (Gizmodo)
Hacked ‘AI Girlfriend’ Data Shows Prompts Describing Child Sexual Abuse (404 Media)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15911693 Fri, 11 Oct 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3132 content moderation,tiktok,meta,facebook,instagram,ai,artificial intelligence,child safety,sextortion,truth social,kick,dsa 1 32 full false Moderation has a Well-Known Reality Bias Moderation has a Well-Known Reality Bias In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Professor Kate Klonick, who has studied and written about trust & safety for many years and is currently studying the DSA & DMA in the EU as a Fulbright Scholar. They cover:

EU Commission’s Digital Fairness Fitness Check (European Commission)
Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions (Nature)
Inside Two Years of Turmoil at Big Tech's Anti-Terrorism Group (Wired)
Big Tech’s Promise Never To Block Access To Politically Embarrassing Content Apparently Only Applies To Democrats (Techdirt)
Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta's Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers (404 Media)
Americans’ Views Mixed on Tech’s Role in Politics (Anchor Change with Katie Harbath)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor TaskUs, a leading company in the T&S field which provides a range of platform integrity and digital safety solutions. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Marlyn Savio, a psychologist and research manager at TaskUs, talks to Mike about a recent study they released regarding frontline moderators and their perceptions and experiences dealing with severe content.

]]> In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Professor Kate Klonick, who has studied and written about trust & safety for many years and is currently studying the DSA & DMA in the EU as a Fulbright Scholar. They cover:

EU Commission’s Digital Fairness Fitness Check (European Commission)
Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions (Nature)
Inside Two Years of Turmoil at Big Tech's Anti-Terrorism Group (Wired)
Big Tech’s Promise Never To Block Access To Politically Embarrassing Content Apparently Only Applies To Democrats (Techdirt)
Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta's Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers (404 Media)
Americans’ Views Mixed on Tech’s Role in Politics (Anchor Change with Katie Harbath)

]]> Mike Masnick & Kate Klonick Buzzsprout-15871215 Fri, 04 Oct 2024 17:00:00 -0400 3659 content moderation,meta,google,twitter,X,misinformation,disinformation,facial recognition,eu,kate klonick 1 31 full false Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fakery? Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fakery? In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Cathryn Weems, who has held T&S roles at Yahoo, Google, Dropbox, Twitter and Epic Games. They cover:

Google outlines plans to help you sort real images from fake (The Verge)
Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out (Ars Technica)
We Don't Need Google to Help "Reimagine" Election Misinformation (Tech Policy Press)
Social media owners top global survey of misinformation concerns (The Guardian)
Expert Survey on the Global Information Environment (IPIE)
X’s First Transparency Report Since Elon Musk’s Takeover Is Finally Here (Wired)
Telegram will now provide some user data to authorities (BBC)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Concentrix, the technology and services leader driving trust, safety, and content moderation globally. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, clinical psychologist Dr Serra Pitts, who leads the psychological health team for Trust & Safety at Concentrix, talks to Ben about how to keep moderators healthy and safe at work and the innovative use of heart rate variability technology to monitor their physical response to harmful content.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Cathryn Weems, who has held T&S roles at Yahoo, Google, Dropbox, Twitter and Epic Games. They cover:

Google outlines plans to help you sort real images from fake (The Verge)
Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out (Ars Technica)
We Don't Need Google to Help "Reimagine" Election Misinformation (Tech Policy Press)
Social media owners top global survey of misinformation concerns (The Guardian)
Expert Survey on the Global Information Environment (IPIE)
X’s First Transparency Report Since Elon Musk’s Takeover Is Finally Here (Wired)
Telegram will now provide some user data to authorities (BBC)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Concentrix, the technology and services leader driving trust, safety, and content moderation globally. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, clinical psychologist Dr Serra Pitts, who leads the psychological health team for Trust & Safety at Concentrix, talks to Ben about how to keep moderators healthy and safe at work and the innovative use of heart rate variability technology to monitor their physical response to harmful content.

]]> Ben Whitelaw & Cathryn Weems Buzzsprout-15829881 Fri, 27 Sep 2024 17:00:00 -0400 4043 content moderation,google,x,twitter,elon musk,transparency report,telegram,artificial intelligence,ai,misinformation,disinformation 1 30 full false Smells Like Teen Safety Smells Like Teen Safety In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Breton’s resignation could mark a new chapter for EU digital policy (Euractiv)
Finnish horse enthusiast is an EU tech front-runner (Politico)
Instagram, Facing Pressure Over Child Safety Online, Unveils Sweeping Changes (New York Times)
Instagram to make teenagers’ profiles private by default (Financial Times)
AI chatbots might be better at swaying conspiracy theorists than humans (Arstechnica)
SocialAI offers a Twitter-like diary where AI bots respond to your posts (TechCrunch)
Meta bans Russian state media for 'foreign interference’ (Reuters)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Breton’s resignation could mark a new chapter for EU digital policy (Euractiv)
Finnish horse enthusiast is an EU tech front-runner (Politico)
Instagram, Facing Pressure Over Child Safety Online, Unveils Sweeping Changes (New York Times)
Instagram to make teenagers’ profiles private by default (Financial Times)
AI chatbots might be better at swaying conspiracy theorists than humans (Arstechnica)
SocialAI offers a Twitter-like diary where AI bots respond to your posts (TechCrunch)
Meta bans Russian state media for 'foreign interference’ (Reuters)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15789379 Fri, 20 Sep 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3112 content moderation,online speech,free speech,thierry breton,instagram,meta,chatbots,AI,artificial intelligence,teen safety,child safety 1 29 full false Blunder from Down Under Blunder from Down Under In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Riana Pfefferkorn, a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human Centered AI. They cover:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Riana Pfefferkorn, a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human Centered AI. They cover:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Riana Pfefferkorn Buzzsprout-15750024 Fri, 13 Sep 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3290 content moderation,australia,utah,free speech,first amendment,child safety,riana pfefferkorn,tiktok,social media,snap 1 28 full false Judge, Jury and Moderator Judge, Jury and Moderator In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Social networks can’t be forced to filter content for kids, says judge (The Verge)
Judge Rejects Yet Another Attempt By Texas To Police Online Speech (Techdirt)
Telegram apologizes for handling of deepfake porn content in S. Korea (Yonhap)
Brazilian Supreme Court panel upholds X ban (Axios)
Elon Musk’s Starlink backtracks to comply with Brazil’s ban on X (The Guardian)
With Musk’s X banned in Brazil, its users carve out new digital homes (AP)
The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case (Wired)
Posts That Include “From the River to the Sea” (Oversight Board)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Social networks can’t be forced to filter content for kids, says judge (The Verge)
Judge Rejects Yet Another Attempt By Texas To Police Online Speech (Techdirt)
Telegram apologizes for handling of deepfake porn content in S. Korea (Yonhap)
Brazilian Supreme Court panel upholds X ban (Axios)
Elon Musk’s Starlink backtracks to comply with Brazil’s ban on X (The Guardian)
With Musk’s X banned in Brazil, its users carve out new digital homes (AP)
The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case (Wired)
Posts That Include “From the River to the Sea” (Oversight Board)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15709357 Fri, 06 Sep 2024 19:00:00 -0400 3320 content moderation,twitter,x,brazil,elon musk,telegram,meta,oversight board,starlink,spacex,texas 1 27 full false The Platform to Prison Pipeline The Platform to Prison Pipeline In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15671677 Fri, 30 Aug 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3183 content moderation,tiktok,pavel durov,x,twitter,telegram,section 230,mark zuckerberg,elon musk,donald trump,politics,brazil 1 26 full false ChatGPT Told Us Not to Say This, but YOLO ChatGPT Told Us Not to Say This, but YOLO In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Daphne Keller, the Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center. They cover:

Ninth Circuit Rules in Favor of NetChoice Over California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (Ninth Circuit)
Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta on appellate court decision regarding California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (State of California)
Regulating platform risk and design: ChatGPT says the quiet part out loud (Stanford Cyberlaw blog)
X says it is closing operations in Brazil due to judge’s content orders (CNBC)
Indigenous creators are clashing with YouTube’s and Instagram’s sensitive content bans (Rest of World)
Teens are making thousands by debating Trump vs. Harris on TikTok (Rest of World)
Forced to rethink this Patreon (Chris Klimas Patreon)
Ninth Circuit Allows Case Against YOLO Technologies to Proceed (Ninth Circuit)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Daphne Keller, the Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center. They cover:

Ninth Circuit Rules in Favor of NetChoice Over California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (Ninth Circuit)
Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta on appellate court decision regarding California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (State of California)
Regulating platform risk and design: ChatGPT says the quiet part out loud (Stanford Cyberlaw blog)
X says it is closing operations in Brazil due to judge’s content orders (CNBC)
Indigenous creators are clashing with YouTube’s and Instagram’s sensitive content bans (Rest of World)
Teens are making thousands by debating Trump vs. Harris on TikTok (Rest of World)
Forced to rethink this Patreon (Chris Klimas Patreon)
Ninth Circuit Allows Case Against YOLO Technologies to Proceed (Ninth Circuit)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Daphne Keller Buzzsprout-15632153 Fri, 23 Aug 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3695 content moderation,x,twitter,tiktok,patreon,youtube,ninth circuit,kosa,age appropriate design code,california,gavin newsom,chatgpt 1 25 full false Do Not Leave a Fake Review for this Podcast Do Not Leave a Fake Review for this Podcast In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

EU takes shot at Musk over Trump interview — and misses (Politico)
Online Safety Act not fit for purpose after far-right riots, says Sadiq Khan (The Guardian)
See why AI detection tools can fail to catch election deepfakes (The Washington Post)
Harris campaign's Google ads rewrite news headlines (Axios)
Children to be taught how to spot extremist content and fake news online (The Guardian)
The friendliest social network you’ve never heard of (The Washington Post)
The FTC finalizes its rules clamping down on fake online reviews (Engadget)
Trust & Safety as Preventative Healthcare (Delbius)
A key part of California’s online safety law for kids is still on hold after appeals court ruling (The Verge)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

EU takes shot at Musk over Trump interview — and misses (Politico)
Online Safety Act not fit for purpose after far-right riots, says Sadiq Khan (The Guardian)
See why AI detection tools can fail to catch election deepfakes (The Washington Post)
Harris campaign's Google ads rewrite news headlines (Axios)
Children to be taught how to spot extremist content and fake news online (The Guardian)
The friendliest social network you’ve never heard of (The Washington Post)
The FTC finalizes its rules clamping down on fake online reviews (Engadget)
Trust & Safety as Preventative Healthcare (Delbius)
A key part of California’s online safety law for kids is still on hold after appeals court ruling (The Verge)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15595943 Fri, 16 Aug 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3172 content moderation,EU,elon musk,donald trump,AI,artificial intelligence,deepfakes,online safety act,sadiq khan,ftc,social media 1 24 full false Should Speech Cost a GARM and a Leg? Should Speech Cost a GARM and a Leg? In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Bluesky adds Techdirt founder Mike Masnick to its board (TechCrunch)
X, Owned by Elon Musk, Brings Antitrust Suit Accusing Advertisers of a Boycott (New York Times)
WFA Shutters GARM, X Antitrust Suit Cited (MediaPost)
UK faces resistance from X over taking down disinformation during riots (Financial Times)
Open letter to UK online service providers (Ofcom)
Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers (Financial Times)
Turkey blocks access to Instagram for failure to comply with laws (Reuters)
Harry and Meghan discuss 'protecting' their children (BBC)
The Many Reasons Why NCMEC’s Board Is Failing Its Mission, From A NCMEC Insider (Techdirt)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Bluesky adds Techdirt founder Mike Masnick to its board (TechCrunch)
X, Owned by Elon Musk, Brings Antitrust Suit Accusing Advertisers of a Boycott (New York Times)
WFA Shutters GARM, X Antitrust Suit Cited (MediaPost)
UK faces resistance from X over taking down disinformation during riots (Financial Times)
Open letter to UK online service providers (Ofcom)
Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers (Financial Times)
Turkey blocks access to Instagram for failure to comply with laws (Reuters)
Harry and Meghan discuss 'protecting' their children (BBC)
The Many Reasons Why NCMEC’s Board Is Failing Its Mission, From A NCMEC Insider (Techdirt)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15559376 Fri, 09 Aug 2024 19:00:00 -0400 3789 bluesky,twitter,x,elon musk,GARM,UK,turkey,google,meta,NCMEC 1 23 full false I Bet You Think This Block is About You I Bet You Think This Block is About You In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Jim Jordan Demands Advertisers Explain Why They Don’t Advertise On MAGA Media Sites (Techdirt)
TikTok Has a Nazi Problem (Wired)
NazTok: An organized neo-Nazi TikTok network is getting millions of views (Institute for Strategic Dialogue)
How TikTok bots and AI have powered a resurgence in UK far-right violence (The Guardian)
Senate Passes Child Online Safety Bill, Sending It to an Uncertain House Fate (New York Tmes)
The teens lobbying against the Kids Online Safety Act (The Verge)
Social Media Mishaps Aren’t Always Billionaire Election Stealing Plots (Techdirt)
X suspends ‘White Dudes for Harris’ account after massive fundraiser (Washington Post)
Why Won’t Google Auto-complete ‘Trump Assassination Attempt’? (Intelligencer)
‘Technical glitch’ is no longer an excuse (Everything in Moderation from 2020)
A message to our Black community (TikTok from 2020)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Discord. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Mike speaks to Juliet Shen and Camille Francois about the Trust & Safety Tooling Consortium at Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, and the importance of open source tools for trust and safety.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Jim Jordan Demands Advertisers Explain Why They Don’t Advertise On MAGA Media Sites (Techdirt)
TikTok Has a Nazi Problem (Wired)
NazTok: An organized neo-Nazi TikTok network is getting millions of views (Institute for Strategic Dialogue)
How TikTok bots and AI have powered a resurgence in UK far-right violence (The Guardian)
Senate Passes Child Online Safety Bill, Sending It to an Uncertain House Fate (New York Tmes)
The teens lobbying against the Kids Online Safety Act (The Verge)
Social Media Mishaps Aren’t Always Billionaire Election Stealing Plots (Techdirt)
X suspends ‘White Dudes for Harris’ account after massive fundraiser (Washington Post)
Why Won’t Google Auto-complete ‘Trump Assassination Attempt’? (Intelligencer)
‘Technical glitch’ is no longer an excuse (Everything in Moderation from 2020)
A message to our Black community (TikTok from 2020)

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15522207 Fri, 02 Aug 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3784 jim jordan,tiktok,social media,content moderation,kosa,twitter,x,google 1 22 full false Live at TrustCon 2024 Live at TrustCon 2024 In the first ever live recording of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike and Ben are joined at TrustCon 2024 by Dona Bellow, Platform Safety Policy at Reddit, and Alice Hunsberger, PartnerHero’s VP of Trust & Safety and Content Moderation, to round up the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, including:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor TaskUs, a leading company in the T&S field which provides a range of platform integrity and digital safety solutions. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, also recorded live at TrustCon, Mike sits down with Rachel Guevara, TaskUs Division Vice President of Trust and Safety, to talk about her impressions of this year’s conference and her thoughts on the future of trust and safety.

You can also watch the video of the recording on our YouTube channel.

]]> In the first ever live recording of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike and Ben are joined at TrustCon 2024 by Dona Bellow, Platform Safety Policy at Reddit, and Alice Hunsberger, PartnerHero’s VP of Trust & Safety and Content Moderation, to round up the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, including:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor TaskUs, a leading company in the T&S field which provides a range of platform integrity and digital safety solutions. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, also recorded live at TrustCon, Mike sits down with Rachel Guevara, TaskUs Division Vice President of Trust and Safety, to talk about her impressions of this year’s conference and her thoughts on the future of trust and safety.

You can also watch the video of the recording on our YouTube channel.

]]> Mike Masnick, Ben Whitelaw, Dona Bellow & Alice Hunsberger Buzzsprout-15478591 Fri, 26 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0400 3650 content moderation,trust and safety,TrustCon,live,meta,social media 1 21 full false Spotlight: Modulate CEO Mike Pappas on Voice Moderation Spotlight: Modulate CEO Mike Pappas on Voice Moderation In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw talks to Mike Pappas, the founder & CEO of our launch sponsor Modulate, which builds prosocial voice technology that combats online toxicity and elevates the health and safety of online communities. Their conversation takes an in-depth look at how voice is becoming an increasingly important medium for online speech while technology is making more advanced voice moderation possible, and what that means for trust and safety.

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and our sponsor Modulate.

]]> In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw talks to Mike Pappas, the founder & CEO of our launch sponsor Modulate, which builds prosocial voice technology that combats online toxicity and elevates the health and safety of online communities. Their conversation takes an in-depth look at how voice is becoming an increasingly important medium for online speech while technology is making more advanced voice moderation possible, and what that means for trust and safety.

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and our sponsor Modulate.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15459384 Tue, 23 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0400 2167 spotlight,modulate,mike pappas,content moderation,voice,voice chat,video games,ai,artificial intelligence 1 20 bonus false Conspiracies Abhor a Vacuum Conspiracies Abhor a Vacuum In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Russia and China pounce on Trump rally shooting to undermine U.S. (Washington Post)
The Gunshots Rang Out. Then the Conspiracy Theories Erupted Online (New York Times)
Chaos on social media platforms after Trump shooting is a mess of their own making (CNN)
Elon Musk Wants His AI Bot to Deliver the News. It Is Struggling With the Job (WSJ)
Spotify's new comment feature tries to solve a longtime problem (Fast Company)
Comments on Podcasts Gives Creators and Listeners More Ways To Engage (Spotify)
A grieving mom’s TikTok videos spark online speech battle (Washington Post)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Concentrix, the technology and services leader driving trust, safety, and content moderation globally. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Paul Danter, Global Head of Trust and Safety at Concentrix, talks about what he's excited for at next week’s TrustCon event and the huge potential for industry collaboration.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Russia and China pounce on Trump rally shooting to undermine U.S. (Washington Post)
The Gunshots Rang Out. Then the Conspiracy Theories Erupted Online (New York Times)
Chaos on social media platforms after Trump shooting is a mess of their own making (CNN)
Elon Musk Wants His AI Bot to Deliver the News. It Is Struggling With the Job (WSJ)
Spotify's new comment feature tries to solve a longtime problem (Fast Company)
Comments on Podcasts Gives Creators and Listeners More Ways To Engage (Spotify)
A grieving mom’s TikTok videos spark online speech battle (Washington Post)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Concentrix, the technology and services leader driving trust, safety, and content moderation globally. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Paul Danter, Global Head of Trust and Safety at Concentrix, talks about what he's excited for at next week’s TrustCon event and the huge potential for industry collaboration.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15442517 Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:00:00 -0400 3201 donald trump,russia,china,twitter,x,artificial intelligence,AI,content moderation,free speech,tiktok,spotify,podcasting,social media 1 19 full false Over to EU, Elon Over to EU, Elon In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Domonique Rai-Varming, Senior Director, Trust & Safety at Trustpilot. Together they cover:

Amazon, Expedia and Trustpilot unite to fight fake reviews (BBC)
EU charges Elon Musk’s X for letting disinfo run wild (Politico)
British female politicians targeted by fake pornography (The Guardian)
The hidden workers behind AI tell their stories (Netzpolitik)
How Machine Learning Can Undermine Human Rights: YouTube’s Struggle to Moderate the Syrian Crisis (Trust and Safety Foundation)
Strengthening Our Approach to Mature Content on Etsy (Etsy)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Domonique Rai-Varming, Senior Director, Trust & Safety at Trustpilot. Together they cover:

Amazon, Expedia and Trustpilot unite to fight fake reviews (BBC)
EU charges Elon Musk’s X for letting disinfo run wild (Politico)
British female politicians targeted by fake pornography (The Guardian)
The hidden workers behind AI tell their stories (Netzpolitik)
How Machine Learning Can Undermine Human Rights: YouTube’s Struggle to Moderate the Syrian Crisis (Trust and Safety Foundation)
Strengthening Our Approach to Mature Content on Etsy (Etsy)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Ben Whitelaw & Domonique Rai-Varming Buzzsprout-15405840 Fri, 12 Jul 2024 17:00:00 -0400 2604 amazon,experdia,trustpilot,EU,elon musk,twitter,X,DSA,UK,machine learning,artificial intelligence,youtube,syria,etsy,content moderation 1 18 full false Minisode: The Supreme Court's NetChoice Ruling Minisode: The Supreme Court's NetChoice Ruling Although our hosts are both on vacation this week, we didn’t want to leave our listeners waiting too long for an update on today’s big news about online speech: the Supreme Court’s ruling in the NetChoice cases, which sends the Texas and Florida laws that would limit the ability of online platforms to moderate political speech back to the lower courts. So Mike Masnick has stepped briefly back to the microphone to join our producer, Leigh Beadon, for a quick mini episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, which we’re also posting to the Techdirt podcast feed. In this short discussion, Mike explains the immediate implications of the ruling, the way it separates procedural questions from its broader guidance on the First Amendment, and what it signals about how the court will evaluate issues like this in the future.

Read more about the NetChoice ruling in our coverage on Techdirt:

This episode is produced with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Although our hosts are both on vacation this week, we didn’t want to leave our listeners waiting too long for an update on today’s big news about online speech: the Supreme Court’s ruling in the NetChoice cases, which sends the Texas and Florida laws that would limit the ability of online platforms to moderate political speech back to the lower courts. So Mike Masnick has stepped briefly back to the microphone to join our producer, Leigh Beadon, for a quick mini episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, which we’re also posting to the Techdirt podcast feed. In this short discussion, Mike explains the immediate implications of the ruling, the way it separates procedural questions from its broader guidance on the First Amendment, and what it signals about how the court will evaluate issues like this in the future.

Read more about the NetChoice ruling in our coverage on Techdirt:

This episode is produced with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Leigh Beadon Buzzsprout-15344668 Mon, 01 Jul 2024 18:00:00 -0400 1163 supreme court,netchoice,first amendment,free speech,social media,florida,texas,law,content moderation 1 17 full false A Lack of (Under)Standing A Lack of (Under)Standing In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Supreme Court Sees Through The Nonsense, Rejects Lower Courts’ Rulings Regarding Social Media Moderation (Techdirt)
How Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Failed Children on Safety, States Say (New York Times)
New Features to Help Protect Our Community (Snap)
Trends in Financial Sextortion (Thorn/NCMEC)
Teens lean on AI for mental health support (Mercury News)
I Paid $365.63 to Replace 404 Media With AI (404 Media)
Companies see backlog in DSA transparency database (Euronews)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Supreme Court Sees Through The Nonsense, Rejects Lower Courts’ Rulings Regarding Social Media Moderation (Techdirt)
How Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Failed Children on Safety, States Say (New York Times)
New Features to Help Protect Our Community (Snap)
Trends in Financial Sextortion (Thorn/NCMEC)
Teens lean on AI for mental health support (Mercury News)
I Paid $365.63 to Replace 404 Media With AI (404 Media)
Companies see backlog in DSA transparency database (Euronews)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15330492 Fri, 28 Jun 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3339 meta,mark zuckerberg,supreme court,SCOTUS,free speech,first amendment,murthy,jawboning,sextortion,snap,AI,artificial intelligence,child safety 1 16 full false This Podcast May be Hazardous to Moral Panics This Podcast May be Hazardous to Moral Panics In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms (New York Times)
The Surgeon General Is Wrong. Social Media Doesn’t Need Warning Labels (The Daily Beast)
Anthropic calls for AI red teaming to be standardized (Fortune)
How small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline (Engadget)
Pornhub to block five more states over age verification laws (The Verge)
New York Outlaws 'Addictive' Social Media Feeds For Teen Users (PC Mag)
Meta Oversight Board’s Helle Thorning-Schmidt: ‘Not all AI-generated content is harmful’ (Financial Times)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms (New York Times)
The Surgeon General Is Wrong. Social Media Doesn’t Need Warning Labels (The Daily Beast)
Anthropic calls for AI red teaming to be standardized (Fortune)
How small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline (Engadget)
Pornhub to block five more states over age verification laws (The Verge)
New York Outlaws 'Addictive' Social Media Feeds For Teen Users (PC Mag)
Meta Oversight Board’s Helle Thorning-Schmidt: ‘Not all AI-generated content is harmful’ (Financial Times)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15291666 Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:00:00 -0400 3164 meta,AI,artificial intelligence,social media,surgeon general,vivek murthy,oversight board 1 15 full false Moderating Politics & Politicizing Moderation Moderating Politics & Politicizing Moderation In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Meta says it won’t support suit against major child safety law (Washington Post)
Obstacles to Autonomy: Post-Roe Removal of Abortion Information Online (Amnesty International)
Abortion Groups Say Tech Companies Suppress Posts and Accounts (NY Times)
The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled (Platformer)
How Politics Broke Content Moderation (Columbia Journalism Review)
Propagandists are using AI too—and companies need to be open about it (MIT Tech Review)
The rise and fall of Koo, India’s once-thriving Twitter alternative (Rest of World)
An Anonymous-Messaging App Upended This High School (WSJ)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Meta says it won’t support suit against major child safety law (Washington Post)
Obstacles to Autonomy: Post-Roe Removal of Abortion Information Online (Amnesty International)
Abortion Groups Say Tech Companies Suppress Posts and Accounts (NY Times)
The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled (Platformer)
How Politics Broke Content Moderation (Columbia Journalism Review)
Propagandists are using AI too—and companies need to be open about it (MIT Tech Review)
The rise and fall of Koo, India’s once-thriving Twitter alternative (Rest of World)
An Anonymous-Messaging App Upended This High School (WSJ)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15252560 Fri, 14 Jun 2024 17:00:00 -0400 2961 content moderation,meta,india,AI,artificial intelligence,propaganda,fizz,stanford internet observatory,politics,abortion,roe v wade 1 14 full false The Internet is (Still) for Porn, with Yoel Roth The Internet is (Still) for Porn, with Yoel Roth In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Yoel Roth, former head of trust & safety at Twitter and now head of trust & safety at Match Group. Together they cover:

X tweaks rules to formally allow adult content (TechCrunch)
Temu joins Shein in facing stricter regulation in the EU (The Verge)
Facebook’s Taylor Swift Fan Pages Taken Over by Animal Abuse, Porn, and Scams (404 Media)
Post-January 6th deplatforming reduced the reach of misinformation on Twitter (Nature)
Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation (Nature)
Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War (NY Times)
Twitch terminates all members of its Safety Advisory Council (CNBC)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Yoel Roth, former head of trust & safety at Twitter and now head of trust & safety at Match Group. Together they cover:

X tweaks rules to formally allow adult content (TechCrunch)
Temu joins Shein in facing stricter regulation in the EU (The Verge)
Facebook’s Taylor Swift Fan Pages Taken Over by Animal Abuse, Porn, and Scams (404 Media)
Post-January 6th deplatforming reduced the reach of misinformation on Twitter (Nature)
Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation (Nature)
Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War (NY Times)
Twitch terminates all members of its Safety Advisory Council (CNBC)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Yoel Roth Buzzsprout-15214020 Fri, 07 Jun 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3164 x,twitter,social media,meta,twitch,temu,shein,EU,DSA,digital services act,content moderation,deplatforming,misinformation,israel 1 13 full false Won't Someone Please Think of the Adults? Won't Someone Please Think of the Adults? In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

EU Explores Whether Telegram Falls Under Strict New Content Law (Bloomberg)
Too Small to Police, Too Big to Ignore: Telegram Is the App Dividing Europe (Bloomberg)
NIST Reports First Results From Age Estimation Software Evaluation (NIST)
Supersharers of fake news on Twitter (Science)
Digital town square? Nextdoor's offline contexts and online discourse (JQD:DM)
The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing (CNN)
TikTok offered an extraordinary deal. The U.S. government took a pass. (Washington Post)
Q&A: Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator On 100 Days of the DSA (Tech Policy Press)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

EU Explores Whether Telegram Falls Under Strict New Content Law (Bloomberg)
Too Small to Police, Too Big to Ignore: Telegram Is the App Dividing Europe (Bloomberg)
NIST Reports First Results From Age Estimation Software Evaluation (NIST)
Supersharers of fake news on Twitter (Science)
Digital town square? Nextdoor's offline contexts and online discourse (JQD:DM)
The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing (CNN)
TikTok offered an extraordinary deal. The U.S. government took a pass. (Washington Post)
Q&A: Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator On 100 Days of the DSA (Tech Policy Press)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15172787 Fri, 31 May 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3184 tiktok,EU,ireland,DSA,digital services act,nextdoor,telegram,regulation,social media,twitter,misinformation,disinformation 1 12 full false Deepfake It Till You Make It Deepfake It Till You Make It In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor TaskUs, a leading company in the trust and safety field providing a range of platform integrity and digital safety solutions. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, TaskUs SVP of Global Offerings Phil Tomlinson tells us about his time at the Trust and Safety Professional Association summit in Dublin, his key takeaways from the event, and the trust and safety lessons learned from well-designed conference lanyards.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15132512 Fri, 24 May 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3462 content moderation,meta,coinbase,scams,india,deepfakes,AI,artificial intelligence,bluesky,tiktok,france,new caledonia,twitter,X,china,australia 1 11 full false Do You Really Want the Government in Your DMs? Do You Really Want the Government in Your DMs? In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act related to the protection of minors on Facebook and Instagram (European Commission)
Meta, TikTok, other platforms told to expect EU guidelines soon on child protection, age verification (MLex)
Got a text that you think is a scam? S’pore’s new centre to fight online harms can help verify it (Straits Times)
Bipartisan Bill To Repeal Section 230 Defended In Facts-Optional Op-Ed (Techdirt)
Indian journalists turned to YouTube to dodge Modi’s censorship. Some of their channels are now being blocked (Reuters Institute for Journalism)
She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all (The Guardian)
Commission services sign administrative arrangement with Ofcom to support the enforcement of social media regulations (Pub Affairs Bruxelles)
Singapore’s proposed online safety laws look like more censorship in disguise (Rest of World)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act related to the protection of minors on Facebook and Instagram (European Commission)
Meta, TikTok, other platforms told to expect EU guidelines soon on child protection, age verification (MLex)
Got a text that you think is a scam? S’pore’s new centre to fight online harms can help verify it (Straits Times)
Bipartisan Bill To Repeal Section 230 Defended In Facts-Optional Op-Ed (Techdirt)
Indian journalists turned to YouTube to dodge Modi’s censorship. Some of their channels are now being blocked (Reuters Institute for Journalism)
She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all (The Guardian)
Commission services sign administrative arrangement with Ofcom to support the enforcement of social media regulations (Pub Affairs Bruxelles)
Singapore’s proposed online safety laws look like more censorship in disguise (Rest of World)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15090398 Fri, 17 May 2024 18:00:00 -0400 2891 speech,content moderation,EU,european commission,facebook,meta,instagram,tiktok,section 230,india,deepfakes,ofcom,singapore 1 10 full false Between a Rock and a Hard Policy Between a Rock and a Hard Policy In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership (Tom's Hardware)
Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online (Ofcom)
Reddit Lays Out Content Policy While Seeking More Licensing Deals (Bloomberg)
Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups (Wired)
Politicians Scapegoat Social Media While Ignoring Real Solutions (Techdirt)
‘Facebook Tries to Combat Russian Disinformation in Ukraine’ – FB Public Policy Manager (Kyiv Post)
TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban (New York Times)
Swiss public broadcasters withdraw from X/Twitter (Swissinfo)
Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights (Techdirt)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership (Tom's Hardware)
Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online (Ofcom)
Reddit Lays Out Content Policy While Seeking More Licensing Deals (Bloomberg)
Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups (Wired)
Politicians Scapegoat Social Media While Ignoring Real Solutions (Techdirt)
‘Facebook Tries to Combat Russian Disinformation in Ukraine’ – FB Public Policy Manager (Kyiv Post)
TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban (New York Times)
Swiss public broadcasters withdraw from X/Twitter (Swissinfo)
Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights (Techdirt)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-15048006 Fri, 10 May 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3080 content moderation,stack overflow,openAI,chatgpt,reddit,ofcom,facebook,meta,russia,ukraine,tiktok,switzerland,social media 1 9 full false This One Weird Trick to Save the Open Internet This One Weird Trick to Save the Open Internet In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Alex Feerst, former General Counsel and head of trust & safety at Medium, and co-founder of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership. Together they cover:

Was There A Trojan Horse Hidden In Section 230 All Along That Could Enable Adversarial Interoperability? (Techdirt)
EU Commission opens formal proceedings against Facebook and Instagram under the Digital Services Act (European Commission)
OnlyFans Investigated over its duties to protect under-18s from restricted materials (Ofcom)
Canadian banks need to do more to stop abusive e-transfers, survivors say (CBC)
TikTok And Meta Aren’t Labeling State Propaganda About The War In Gaza (Forbes)
How we fought bad apps and bad actors in 2023 (Google security blog)
Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers (Washington Post)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by guest host Alex Feerst, former General Counsel and head of trust & safety at Medium, and co-founder of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership. Together they cover:

Was There A Trojan Horse Hidden In Section 230 All Along That Could Enable Adversarial Interoperability? (Techdirt)
EU Commission opens formal proceedings against Facebook and Instagram under the Digital Services Act (European Commission)
OnlyFans Investigated over its duties to protect under-18s from restricted materials (Ofcom)
Canadian banks need to do more to stop abusive e-transfers, survivors say (CBC)
TikTok And Meta Aren’t Labeling State Propaganda About The War In Gaza (Forbes)
How we fought bad apps and bad actors in 2023 (Google security blog)
Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers (Washington Post)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Alex Feerst Buzzsprout-15005535 Fri, 03 May 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3868 content moderation,tiktok,meta,propaganda,canada,EU,oversight board,section 230 1 8 full false The Bell Tolls for TikTok The Bell Tolls for TikTok In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

How to Fix the Online Child Exploitation Reporting System (Stanford Internet Observatory)
TikTok faces EU Commission’s second probe, potential suspension of reward program (Euronews)
Meta Expands Its Mixed Reality Beyond the Quest Headsets (CNet)
The biggest AI companies agree to crack down on child abuse images (Thorn)
Wattpad has a community problem, so it’s killing DMs (The Verge)
Discord CEO Jason Citron makes the case for a smaller, more private internet (The Verge)
Stanford Internet Observatory’s CyberTipline Report (Stanford Law School)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

How to Fix the Online Child Exploitation Reporting System (Stanford Internet Observatory)
TikTok faces EU Commission’s second probe, potential suspension of reward program (Euronews)
Meta Expands Its Mixed Reality Beyond the Quest Headsets (CNet)
The biggest AI companies agree to crack down on child abuse images (Thorn)
Wattpad has a community problem, so it’s killing DMs (The Verge)
Discord CEO Jason Citron makes the case for a smaller, more private internet (The Verge)
Stanford Internet Observatory’s CyberTipline Report (Stanford Law School)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-14963698 Fri, 26 Apr 2024 17:00:00 -0400 3293 content moderation,csam,tiktok,EU,meta,AI,artificial intelligence,wattpad,discord,NCMEC 1 7 full false The Difficulty of Being a Teen Online The Difficulty of Being a Teen Online In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-14920868 Fri, 19 Apr 2024 17:00:00 -0400 3160 teenagers,censorship,filtering,content moderation,sextortion,scams,mexico,AI,artificial intelligence,australia 1 6 full false Watch Out, AI is Getting More Persuasive Watch Out, AI is Getting More Persuasive In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Alice Hunsberger, VP of Trust and Safety and Content Moderation at Partnerhero and former Global Head of Customer Experience at Grindr. Together they cover:

Measuring the Persuasiveness of Language Models (Anthropic)
Our Approach to Labeling AI-Generated Content and Manipulated Media (Meta)
Survey: New Laws Mandate Access To Social Media Data, But Obstacles Remain (Tech Policy Press)
Brazil Might Regulate All Social Media After Clash With Elon Musk (Guardian)
X automatically changed 'Twitter' to 'X' in users' posts, breaking legit URLs (Mashable)
LinkedIn starts verifying recruiters to stop scams (Axios)
Content policy is basically astrology? (T&S Insider from Everything in Moderation)

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Alice Hunsberger, VP of Trust and Safety and Content Moderation at Partnerhero and former Global Head of Customer Experience at Grindr. Together they cover:

Measuring the Persuasiveness of Language Models (Anthropic)
Our Approach to Labeling AI-Generated Content and Manipulated Media (Meta)
Survey: New Laws Mandate Access To Social Media Data, But Obstacles Remain (Tech Policy Press)
Brazil Might Regulate All Social Media After Clash With Elon Musk (Guardian)
X automatically changed 'Twitter' to 'X' in users' posts, breaking legit URLs (Mashable)
LinkedIn starts verifying recruiters to stop scams (Axios)
Content policy is basically astrology? (T&S Insider from Everything in Moderation)

]]> Ben Whitelaw & Alice Hunsberger Buzzsprout-14879515 Fri, 12 Apr 2024 17:00:00 -0400 2465 content moderation,twitter,x,brazil,AI,artificial intelligence,linkedin 1 5 full false Are Platforms Ready for Elections? Are Platforms Ready for Elections? In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Elon Musk's X appoints new safety chiefs as it seeks to rebuild ads business (Fortune)
X’s ‘complimentary’ Premium push gives people blue checks they didn’t ask for (The Verge)
Mozilla Research: Platforms’ Election Interventions in the Global Majority Are Ineffective (Mozilla)
Implementing the Online Safety Act: Additional duties for ‘categorised’ online services (Ofcom)
Social networks could quit Britain under online safety laws, Reddit claims (The Telegraph)
Patreon is taking Reddit’s approach to content moderation (The Verge)
Facebook has blocked Kansas Reflector (Kansas Reflector)

The episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our launch sponsor Modulate, the prosocial voice technology company making online spaces safer and more inclusive. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Modulate's Director of Marketing Mark Nolan chats with Mike about the the recent launch of the Gaming Safety Coalition, why its important for Modulate to work with other companies to create stronger gaming environments and the importance of a hybrid approach to T&S.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Elon Musk's X appoints new safety chiefs as it seeks to rebuild ads business (Fortune)
X’s ‘complimentary’ Premium push gives people blue checks they didn’t ask for (The Verge)
Mozilla Research: Platforms’ Election Interventions in the Global Majority Are Ineffective (Mozilla)
Implementing the Online Safety Act: Additional duties for ‘categorised’ online services (Ofcom)
Social networks could quit Britain under online safety laws, Reddit claims (The Telegraph)
Patreon is taking Reddit’s approach to content moderation (The Verge)
Facebook has blocked Kansas Reflector (Kansas Reflector)

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-14836048 Fri, 05 Apr 2024 17:00:00 -0400 3453 twitter,x,reddit,elon musk,meta,social media,content moderation,patreon,facebook,mozilla 1 4 full false The Most Moderated Word on Meta The Most Moderated Word on Meta In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Users shocked to find Instagram limits political content by default (ArsTechnica)
Oversight Board Publishes Policy Advisory Opinion on Referring to Designated Dangerous Individuals as “Shaheed” (Oversight Board)
It’s not a glitch: how Meta systematically censors Palestinian voices (Access Now)
High Court orders temporary suspension of Telegram's services in Spain (Reuters)
Imagining a Roadmap to User-Led Governance of Meta (Tech Policy Press)
Why Bluesky Remains The Most Interesting Experiment In Social Media, By Far (Techdirt)
Meta’s most banned word, ad targeting vs moderation and new civility research (Everything in Moderation)

The episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund. We weren't able to schedule our usual Bonus Chat at the end of the episode so Mike and Ben talk about their thinking on podcast sponsorship, why advertising content doesn't have to be all bad and how you get in touch if you're a company or organization looking to reach Ctrl-Alt-Speech's growing and global audience.

]]> In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Users shocked to find Instagram limits political content by default (ArsTechnica)
Oversight Board Publishes Policy Advisory Opinion on Referring to Designated Dangerous Individuals as “Shaheed” (Oversight Board)
It’s not a glitch: how Meta systematically censors Palestinian voices (Access Now)
High Court orders temporary suspension of Telegram's services in Spain (Reuters)
Imagining a Roadmap to User-Led Governance of Meta (Tech Policy Press)
Why Bluesky Remains The Most Interesting Experiment In Social Media, By Far (Techdirt)
Meta’s most banned word, ad targeting vs moderation and new civility research (Everything in Moderation)

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-14794443 Fri, 29 Mar 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3292 meta,facebook,oversight board,telegram,spain,content moderation,free speech,bluesky 1 3 full false Murthy, Reddit, and the Speech Deciders Murthy, Reddit, and the Speech Deciders In this week's online speech, content moderation and internet regulation round-up, Mike and Ben cover:

Supreme Court Seems Skeptical Of The Claims That The Federal Government Coerced Social Media To Moderate (Techdirt)
Reddit’s I.P.O. Is a Content Moderation Success Story (New York Times)
Elon Musk's X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist's Alleged Identity (Wired)
The Risks of Internet Regulation (Foreign Affairs)
EU to impose election safeguards on Big Tech (Financial Times)
Canada’s Online Harms Act is revealing itself to be staggeringly reckless (Globe and Mail)

The episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Block Party, which builds privacy and anti-harassment tools to increase user control, protection, and safety. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Block Party founder and CEO Tracy Chou discusses the impact of harassment on self-censorship and explains how she is making navigating privacy and safety settings on major platforms easier for users through her tool, Privacy Party.

]]> In this week's online speech, content moderation and internet regulation round-up, Mike and Ben cover:

Supreme Court Seems Skeptical Of The Claims That The Federal Government Coerced Social Media To Moderate (Techdirt)
Reddit’s I.P.O. Is a Content Moderation Success Story (New York Times)
Elon Musk's X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist's Alleged Identity (Wired)
The Risks of Internet Regulation (Foreign Affairs)
EU to impose election safeguards on Big Tech (Financial Times)
Canada’s Online Harms Act is revealing itself to be staggeringly reckless (Globe and Mail)

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-14747842 Fri, 22 Mar 2024 18:00:00 -0400 3521 murthy,reddit,content moderation,free speech,EU,elon musk,X,twitter,regulation,Canada 1 2 full false The Global Internet - Or Is It? The Global Internet - Or Is It? In this week's round-up of news about online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

The US TikTok ban and what it could mean for the future of the internet (Techdirt)
The EU prepares to regulate Chinese marketplaces (Reuters)
Telegram's CEO gives a rare interview - and what that says about online speech (Financial Times)
Generative AI is already messing with elections (Al Jazeera)
Bluesky open sources its moderation tooling software (Bluesky)
Trust & Safety software market is set to double by 2028, according to a new report (Duco)

The episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our launch sponsor Modulate, the prosocial voice technology company making online spaces safer and more inclusive. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Modulate CEO Mike Pappas joins us to talk about how safety lessons from the gaming world can be applied to the broader T&S industry and how advances in AI are helping make voice moderation more accurate.

]]> In this week's round-up of news about online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

The US TikTok ban and what it could mean for the future of the internet (Techdirt)
The EU prepares to regulate Chinese marketplaces (Reuters)
Telegram's CEO gives a rare interview - and what that says about online speech (Financial Times)
Generative AI is already messing with elections (Al Jazeera)
Bluesky open sources its moderation tooling software (Bluesky)
Trust & Safety software market is set to double by 2028, according to a new report (Duco)

The episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our launch sponsor Modulate, the prosocial voice technology company making online spaces safer and more inclusive. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Modulate CEO Mike Pappas joins us to talk about how safety lessons from the gaming world can be applied to the broader T&S industry and how advances in AI are helping make voice moderation more accurate.

]]> Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw Buzzsprout-14698023 Fri, 15 Mar 2024 15:00:00 -0400 3054 tiktok,china,AI,artificial intelligence,generative AI,telegram,bluesky 1 1 full false Introducing Ctrl-Alt-Speech Introducing Ctrl-Alt-Speech Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Speech, a brand new a weekly news podcast co-created by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation’s Ben Whitelaw. Each episode will be looking at the latest news in online speech, covering issues regarding trust & safety, content moderation, regulation, court rulings, new services & technology, and more.

Subscribe now and stay tuned for our debut episode coming next Friday!

If your company or organization is interested in supporting Ctrl-Alt-Speech and joining us for a sponsored interview, visit ctrlaltspeech.com for more information.

]]> Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Speech, a brand new a weekly news podcast co-created by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation’s Ben Whitelaw. Each episode will be looking at the latest news in online speech, covering issues regarding trust & safety, content moderation, regulation, court rulings, new services & technology, and more.

Subscribe now and stay tuned for our debut episode coming next Friday!

If your company or organization is interested in supporting Ctrl-Alt-Speech and joining us for a sponsored interview, visit ctrlaltspeech.com for more information.

]]> Buzzsprout-14628586 Mon, 04 Mar 2024 20:00:00 -0500 233 1 0 trailer false