The United States Congress has before it dozens of bills intended to rein in social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. This raft of proposed legislation is in response to various harms that have come to light over the past few years, including dangers to democracy, harassment and hate speech, concerns over safety (especially for children), and various ways the platforms reinforce inequities and permit discrimination. One agency in the federal government argu...
Mar 24, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, governments and tech companies have taken swift action to limit the flow of propaganda out of Russia, and Russia has in turn taken draconian measures to limit the flow of information into Russia, including banning some Western social media platforms, crushing what remained of independent journalism in the country and cracking down on free expression generally. How do these events fit in the broader scheme of things? The trajectory for global ...
Mar 20, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Governments and tech platforms have moved quickly to take action against Russian state media since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. But what frameworks exist in international law that could inform our thinking about these complicated questions at the intersection of speech and human rights? To answer that question, I spoke to Vivek Krishnamurthy , the Samuelson-Glushko Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public In...
Mar 18, 2022•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast The past couple of months has seen controversies over misinformation, anti-vaccine and racist material, and how best to moderate content on online publishing platforms such as Spotify and Substack. To talk more about these issues of speech, editorial intervention, content moderation, and implications for democracy, I invited two expert commentators, Bridget Todd and Elizabeth Spiers, to the Tech Policy Press podcast. Bridget Todd is the creator and host of the award-winning technology and ...
Mar 17, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair at the University of Miami School of Law, is an expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She is an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project, and author of an award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech from Stanford Pres...
Mar 13, 2022•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, we’re going to listen in on a panel discussion hosted by the Stanford Cyber Policy Center on State Media, Social Media, and the Conflict in Ukraine. Convened by Nate Persily , Co-director of the Cyber Policy Center and James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, the panel considers the moves taken in recent days by governments and technology platforms, and the implications for the ways state-sponsored media and information will be regulated in the future. Guests ...
Mar 06, 2022•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, governments’ and private companies’ moves to limit or ban Russian state media have rapidly spread from the European Union, to the United States, South Africa, Australia and elsewhere. The cascade of developments harkens back to the World War II period, when governments regarded German propaganda as a weapon of war and used tools such as short wave radio to reach citizens behind enemy lines to penetrate the Axis power’s internal informatio...
Mar 05, 2022•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Upstream from concerns about policy, we enter the realm of ethics- and that is the subject of today’s podcast. Our guest is Stephanie Hare , the author of Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics , published on February 22nd in London Publishing Partnership’s Perspectives series. The book was edited by Diane Coyle. Stephanie Hare is a researcher and broadcaster with an expertise in technology, politics and history. As part of the BBC Expert Women programme, she oft...
Feb 27, 2022•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode of the podcast, we’re going to consider questions related to disinformation and the information ecosystem, and the role of the tech platforms in this deadly moment. The first guest is Clint Watts , a national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC and author of Messing With The Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians and Fake News. His research and writing focuses on terrorism, counterterrorism, social media influenc...
Feb 26, 2022•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Facebook vaunts its multibillion dollar investment in content moderation in advertisements and every time a senior executive is asked to address the problems of mis- and disinformation, hate speech, abuse, bigotry and other violations on its platforms. But what does that investment look like at the last mile? Who does the work? What are the conditions they face? Today we hear from Billy Perrigo, a journalist at Time magazine, who tells us of the plight of outsourced content moderation work...
Feb 20, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Peter Pomerantsev was working as a documentary producer in Russia, he observed how Vladimir Putin employed propaganda to spread such deep doubt and division that meaningful political debate became impossible. Since then, he has written two books on the subject– Nothing is True and Everything is Possible : The Surreal Heart of the New Russia , which chronicled Putin’s strategy and tactics; and This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality , which looked at similar phenomena e...
Feb 17, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast To discuss the Canadian trucker protests and the relationship between topics networked activism, social media manipulation, extremism and law enforcement- as well as the potential for Canadian convoys to inspire similar actions in the US, where right wing media personalities have embraced the idea- we speak with two experts: Joan Donovan , Ph.D., the Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Amarnath Amarasingam , Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the School o...
Feb 15, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first segment in this episode focuses on the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, known as the EARN IT Act. Nathalie Maréchal, Ph.D., Senior Policy and Partnerships Manager at Ranking Digital Rights, wrote in Tech Policy Press about what motivates her opposition to the legislation, and she joined the podcast to share her perspective. The second segment takes on the idea of tech exceptionalism. Yaël Eisenstat, a Future of Democracy Fellow at the ...
Feb 13, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Warning: this episode features discussion of sexual assault and rape. This week’s podcast has two segments. We’re going to hear from Vice News reporter Carter Sherman about her story from last week titled “Woman Says She Was ‘Virtually Gang-Raped’ in Facebook's Metaverse,” detailing an incident that represents an early test of Facebook’s ability create a safe environment in its virtual world. Then, I speak with Dr. Carly Kocurek, a cultural historian specializing in the study of new media techno...
Feb 06, 2022•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Earlier this year, Matt Rivitz announced he planned to step aside from Sleeping Giants, an activist campaign launched five years ago to address the flow of advertising revenues to sites that promote hate speech and disinformation. The ad tech ecosystem is exceptionally complex- and the incentives in place lend themselves to waste and fraud, and to large sums of money flowing to sites that promote questionable content often without the knowledge of the people spending that money. In 2016, Rivitz ...
Jan 30, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ukraine has long been known as a "live fire" environment in cybersecurity circles, but with Russian aggression intensifying there are concerns that cyberattacks may signal the beginning of a broader conflict following a string of attacks in the last week that targeted Ukrainian government and private sector websites. The United States Department of Homeland Security has also warned that Russia may target "US networks—from low-level denials-of-service to destructive attacks targeting critic...
Jan 26, 2022•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Last week, the European Parliament gave initial approval to the Digital Services Act, which contains a set of regulations that will have major implications for tech platforms, including on how they moderate content and on their business models. This spring, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union will debate the details of the legislation before voting on a final version. To learn more about what is at stake and where the DSA is in the process, I spoke with Mathias Vermeule...
Jan 25, 2022•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode features two segments. First, we catch up with one reporter who has read every single one of the documents leaked by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen: Shoshana Wodinsky , a staff reporter at Gizmodo covering consumer privacy and tech policy. Shoshana is part of a team that is preparing to release the papers to the public. And then, we hear from three lawyers- including one former Massachusetts attorney general- that were involved in the legal actions that led to the Big To...
Jan 23, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast There are two segments in this episode. First, we hear from Jay Van Bavel , an Associate Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University, about social media, misinformation and collective behavior following a week in which he was brigaded by far right and anti-vaccine personalities for calling in to question the veracity of claims made in Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. And second, we catch up with Trooper Sanders , the CEO of Benefits Data Trust, about new broadband benefits in...
Jan 16, 2022•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the second of two episodes on extremism, media and tech one year after the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, we’re going to hear from two individuals who are working to deprive the racists and violent extremists who seek to radicalize Americans and attack our democracy. The Check My Ads Institute is an independent watchdog organization that seeks to reform the digital ad tech industry from inside. At its website, checkymads.org, it says "we're holding the sur...
Jan 09, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, the United States observed the first anniversary of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. In this episode, we’re going to look at the extremist movement in the United States and how the media and technology environment plays a role in it. We’re going to hear first from Jared Holt, a resident fellow at Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), who will walk us through the findings of his latest report, After the Insurrection: How Domestic Extremists Adapt...
Jan 09, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast This first episode of 2022 features a discussion hosted by the Center for Social Media and Politics at NYU (CSMaP) that gathered academic, policy, and tech experts to discuss ideas about how to make social media a safer and more civil place. The panel was expertly moderated by Jane Lytvynenko , a Senior Research Fellow at the Technology and Social Change Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and included: Niousha Roshani , Deputy ...
Jan 02, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode focuses on the intersection of race, technology and policy. First, we hear from Carmen Scurato , Suher Adi and Jacquelyn Mason - members of the Disinfo Defense League, which calls itself a network of intersectional organizations fighting disinformation that affects communities of color- about the League’s new policy platform. And second, we speak with two researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life- Daniel...
Dec 19, 2021•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve got two segments today. First up, Alexandra Reeve Givens, President and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) discusses last week’s Summit for Democracy and what it accomplished. Second, we speak with Marshall Steinbaum, an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah about market and monopoly power, tech platforms and antitrust.
Dec 12, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast In October, New York City launched its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. A 116-page document, the strategy says "Like software itself, AI will touch virtually every area of life in the years ahead, including everything from basic scientific research to the operation of various products and services, and its impacts will be felt from a personal to a societal scale. For these reasons, the City of New York believes that an ecosystem approach grounded in digital rights is necessary to maximize ...
Dec 05, 2021•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’ve got two conversations about the problem of mis- and disinformation. In the first segment, Courtney Radsch, a Tech Policy Press contributor and board member, speaks with Vivian Schiller, Executive Director of Aspen Digital, a part of the Aspen Institute that just released the final report of the Commission on Information Disorder. And in the second segment, Justin Hendrix speaks with Karen Hao, senior AI editor at MIT Technology Review about her year reporting on how the business mod...
Nov 28, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’ve got two separate but related conversations about social media and how it intersects with democracy and society. In the first segment, we’re going to hear from Jeff Allen and Sahar Massachi, two former Facebook employees who are the founders of the Integrity Institute, a new nonprofit organization. They believe one solution to the problems on social media is the development of a community of integrity professionals with experience at a variety of social media platforms that can come ...
Nov 21, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast There are two segments in this week's show: First- Ifeoma Ozoma is the Founder and Principal of Earthseed, a consulting firm advising individuals, organizations, and companies on tech accountability, public policy and health misinformation. A tech policy expert, Ifeoma is a co-sponsor of the Silenced No More Act. The legislation, authored by CA State Senator Connie Leyva and recently signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, allows everyone in California to share information about discrimination...
Nov 14, 2021•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first segment in this episode is a conversation with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky , a Democrat representing Illinois’ 9th district. Representative Schakowsky serves as Senior Chief Deputy Whip and Chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has called the tech CEOs to testify in recent months and introduced proposed legislation. The second is a discussion on the threat of big tech and disinformation to social movements th...
Nov 07, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is Part 3 of three special episodes focused on Facebook in the wake of the revelations in what has come to be known as the Facebook Papers, reports based on a trove of documents brought forward by whistleblower Frances Haugen. On Thursday- the same day Facebook announced its name change to Meta- Tech Policy Press had the chance to speak with two members of the Oversight Board, the entity the company set up to provide external oversight to its content moderation decisions and to help it make...
Oct 31, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
