Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Cupertino d’État

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on Patreon.

In this week’s episode, Mike and Ben cover:

• Tech bosses threatened with prison if they fail to protect children (The Times)
• Apple and Google given three months to ban nude images on children’s devices (BBC News)
• Keir Starmer’s social media ban for under-16s could backfire, experts warn (OpenDemocracy)
• Apple previews new child safety features (Apple)
• Apple’s WWDC keynote was very different, but this will be the new normal (9to5mac)
• Ottawa introduces bill to restrict social media for teens, regulate AI chatbots (Globe and Mail)
• Australia builds enforcement layer behind age assurance laws (Biometric Update)
• NCAC Welcomes Meta Oversight Board’s New Account Recommendations (NCAC)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 (Anthropic)
• Microsoft restricts Claude Fable for employees over data retention concern (The Verge)
• The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform (Lawfare)
• Policy on the AI Exponential (Dario Amodei)

Our fun links this week are the 7-0 World Cup game (Ben) and Chipotlai Max (Mike).

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, australia, canada, content moderation, trust and safety, uk
Companies: anthropic, apple, google, meta

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Generous To A Default

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on Patreon.

In In this week’s episode, Mike and Ben cover:

• New 13+ Content Settings for Teen Accounts Expanding Globally on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger (Meta)
• Meta Expands Safety Features for Teenagers (New York Times)
• Hackers Used Meta’s AI Support Bot to Seize Instagram Accounts (Krebs on Security)
• Everyone In This LEGO Dispute Should Have Spoken To A Lawyer Earlier Than They Did (Techdirt)
• Can you go 82-0? (82-0)
• My toddler’s version of a silent disco (Instagram)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet (Liberalism)

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, content moderation, decentralization, trust and safety
Companies: bricks and minifigs, meta

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Deus vs. Machina

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on Patreon.

In this week’s episode, Mike and Ben cover:

• The Boring Internet (Terry Godier)
• Orkney Library & Archive (Bluesky)
• Silicon Valley takes its AI pitch to the pope (Politico)
• Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah’s remarks on Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica humanitas” (Anthropic)
• Vance calls Pope Leo’s AI warnings ‘profound’ (NBC News)
• American heresy: should Peter Thiel be burned at the stake? (Le Grand Continent)
• Spotify chief defends AI-generated music (Financial Times)
• OpenAI readies cyber, misinformation defenses ahead of elections (Axios)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• In a surprise, Meta increases funding to the Oversight Board (Platformer)
• Spotlight: Five Years of the Oversight Board, from Experiment to Essential Institution (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, content moderation, oversight board, trust and safety
Companies: anthropic, meta, openai, spotify

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Message In A Bottleneck

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by civil liberties lawyer Jennifer Granick. Together they discuss:

• Kickstarter rolls back its mature content policy after outcry (Engadget)
• Apple gives update on the App Store and its key protections (9to5 Mac)
• Thoughts on the £1,000,000 SaSu Fine (Preston Byrne)
• Pushing back from Big Tech: Africa’s hard road to AI sovereignty (Rest of World)
• America’s dangerous, messy deepfakes crackdown is here (The Verge)
• X accounts are limited to 50 posts and 200 replies a day unless they pay for a blue checkmark (Engadget)

Support the podcast by joining our Patreon, with special founder membership available until May 28th.

Filed Under: africa, ai, artificial intelligence, content moderation, deepfakes, trust and safety
Companies: apple, kickstarter, twitter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: The Human Element In The Room

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by First Amendment lawyer Ari Cohn. Together they discuss:

• Pennsylvania sues AI chatbot as state lawmakers wrestle with stricter regulations (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
• Children are drawing moustaches on their faces to fool online age checks – and it’s working (Euronews)
• The Online Safety Act: Are children safer online? (Internet Matters)
• Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks (Tom’s Hardware)
• Three Justifications—and the AI Accelerant—of India’s Digital Censorship Infrastructure (Tech Policy Press)
• Did School Cellphone Bans Work? New Study Finds Mixed Results.(NY Times)

Support the podcast by joining our Patreon, with special founder membership available until May 28th.

Filed Under: age verification, ari cohn, artificial intelligence, chatbots, content moderation, free speech, trust and safety
Companies: character.ai

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Age Against The Machine

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by Jess Miers, law professor at University of Akron School of Law. Together, they discuss:

• AI Chatbots: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
• OpenAI’s Sam Altman apologizes to Canadian community after failing to flag mass shooter’s conversations with its AI chatbot (CNN)
• OpenAI And Sam Altman Could Face Dozens More Lawsuits Over School Shooting In British Columbia, Lawyer Says (Forbes)
• Manitoba premier addresses province’s plan to ban youth from social media, AI chatbots (CTV News)
• Turkey Passes Legislation Barring Children Under 15 From Social Media (NY Times)
• How YouTube Took Over the American Classroom (WSJ)

Support the podcast by joining our Patreon, with special founder membership available until May 28th.

Filed Under: age verification, ai, artificial intelligence, chatbots, content moderation, education, manitoba, social media, trust and safety, turkey
Companies: openai, youtube

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Celebrating 100 Episodes & Launching Our Patreon

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this special episode, Mike and Ben reflect on 100 episodes of the podcast, followed by an important announcement: we’re launching a Patreon and making some changes to Ctrl-Alt-Speech!

Starting on May 28th, Patreon members will get early access to extended weekly episodes with in-depth coverage of an extra major story. The free episodes will continue here on this feed, just slightly shorter and released one day later. 

You can become a member now at one of two levels: Supporters get early access to the extended episodes, and for a limited time Founders get that plus the opportunity to send us news stories that you think we should cover each week. After the new episodes begin at the end of May, the Founder tier will become the Insider tier with all the same benefits at a slightly higher price, so act now if you don’t want to miss out (you’ll also get bragging rights as a founding member!)

We’re immensely grateful to the incredible audience we’ve found over these past 100 episodes, and this is our way of helping make the podcast sustainable for the next 100!

Filed Under: content moderation, trust and safety
Companies: patreon

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: The Silence Of The LLMs

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

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

• The Darkest Web (BBC)
• Federal agencies skirt Trump’s Anthropic ban to test its advanced AI model (Politico)
• Anthropic Opposes the Extreme AI Liability Bill That OpenAI Backed (Wired)
• Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says (Politico EU)
• Statement by President von der Leyen with Executive Vice-President Virkkunen on the digital age verification app (European Commission)
• Apple threatened to remove Grok from the App Store over sexualized deepfakes, letter says (NBC News)
• A fake Ledger app on the Apple App Store drained $9.5 million in crypto (Coindesk)
• India’s Decentralized System of Internet Censorship (Tech Policy Press)
• As Social Media Tears Society Apart, a New Crop of Scary Movies Focuses on the Horror of Content Moderation (Variety)

We’re still yet to find a Ctrl-Alt-Speech 2026 Bingo Card winner — could this week be your lucky day? Play along!

Filed Under: app stores, child safety, content moderation, grok, india
Companies: anthropic, apple, twitter, x, xai

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ Internet

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Fadzai Madzingira, a digital policy expert with a decade of experience at Meta, Salesforce, Ofcom and currently Twitch, where she leads the policy, outreach and education teams. Together, they discuss:

• Exclusive: Meta has discussed ending funding to the Oversight Board (Platformer)
• Spotlight: Five Years of the Oversight Board, from Experiment to Essential Institution (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)
• What Teens Are Doing With Those Role-Playing Chatbots (The New York Times)
• Early Lessons from Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban for the Rest of the World (Tech Policy Press)
• Stuck in the Middleware with Youth with Vaishnavi J (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)
• Greece to ban social media for under-15s from 2027, calls on EU action (Reuters)
• The Family Tech Cycle: Navigating Screens, Devices, and Social Media (Joan Ganz Cooney Center)

We’re still yet to find a Ctrl-Alt-Speech 2026 Bingo Card winner — could this week be your lucky day? Play along.

Filed Under: child safety, content moderation, greece, oversight board, trust and safety
Companies: meta, twitch

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Age Old Questions

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

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

• It’s official: Australia’s teen social media ban isn’t working, yet (Crikey)
• Social Media Minimum Age – Compliance update (eSafety Commision)
• Blunder from Down Under (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)
• April 3 could create a dangerous gap in child safety across Europe (Thorn)
• Commissioners pile pressure on Parliament to pass child sexual abuse bill (POLITICO)
• Weeks After Denouncing Government Censorship On Rogan, Zuckerberg Texted Elon Musk Offering To Take Down Content For DOGE (Techdirt)
• What Is YouTube’s Dominance Doing to Us? We Asked Its C.E.O. (The New York Times)
• This Episode is Broadly Safe To Listen To (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)
• Meta will “substantially reduce” describing Instagram teen accounts as PG-13 (Engadget)
• Rated R for Ridiculous (Ctrl-Alt-Speech)

If you’ve got Elon Musk in your Ctrl-Alt-Speech 2026 Bingo Card this week, you’re in luck.

Filed Under: australia, child safety, content moderation, csam, doge, eu, social media, trust and safety
Companies: meta, youtube