Ctrl-Alt-Speech

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• TikTok must face a lawsuit for recommending the viral ‘blackout challenge’ (The Verge)
• Third Circuit’s Section 230 TikTok Ruling Deliberately Ignores Precedent, Defies Logic (Techdirt)
• France charges Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, releases him on €5M bail (Politico) 
• Elon Musk’s X could face ban in Brazil after failure to appoint legal representative (The Guardian)
• Zuckerberg says he regrets caving to White House pressure on content (Politico)

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 [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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:

• Meta content moderation vendors hit by global cyber outage (Reuters)
• Could social media support healthy online conversations? New_ Public is working on it (Nieman Lab)
• Pathways - Expert advice, resources and opportunities for the tech industry to further build capacity to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse (Tech Coalition)

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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:

• In Content Moderation Cases, Supreme Court Says ‘Try Again’ – But Makes It Clear Moderation Deserves First Amendment Protections (Mike Masnick)
• In The NetChoice Cases, Alito And His Buddies Are Wrong, But Even If They Were Right It May Not Matter, And That’s Largely Good News (Cathy Gellis)

This episode is produced 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 [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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. 

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• Meta and Coinbase link up with Match to fight pig-butchering, romance scams (Fortune)
• Indian Voters Are Being Bombarded With Millions of Deepfakes. Political Candidates Approve (Wired)
• Meta says AI-generated election content is not happening at a “systemic level” (MIT Technology Review)
• How Bluesky is thinking about spam (Bluesky)
• French TikTok block in overseas territory sets ‘dangerous precedent,’ critics warn (Politico)
• How a Chinese Influence Operation Is Targeting Pro-Trump Communities Online (Lawfare)
• X CEO Linda Yaccarino accuses Australia of ‘overreach’ after judge lifts ban on stabbing video (CNBC)

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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. 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:

• 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.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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. 

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.