Techdirt

For two decades, the landscape of social media has been constantly changing, and the discourse about "free speech" has been changing alongside it. This week, we've got a bit of an open-ended discussion with TechFreedom's Corbin Barthold, host of the Tech Policy Podcast, about social media's history and future, and the question of what people really want out of it.

It was nearly 400 episodes ago when Catherine Bracy joined the podcast for a two part discussion to talk about Silicon Valley culture and what investors are willing to fund. Now, more than a decade later, Catherine has released a new book, World Eaters: How Venture Capital Is Cannibalizing The Economy, which takes even closer look at the basic incentives of venture capital today. So this week, Catherine is back on the podcast to talk about her book and the ways venture capital is shaping tech innovation for the worse. The book: https://catherinebracy.com/world-eaters Previous Appearances: Episode 39 - https://www.techdirt.com/2015/08/25/techdirt-podcast-episode-39-technologys-impact-democracy/ Episode 40 - https://www.techdirt.com/2015/09/01/techdirt-podcast-episode-40-is-silicon-valley-only-building-tech-rich/

As you know, we talk a lot about decentralization and protocols over platforms. When it comes to decentralized social media in particular, one person who has been working on it since the earliest days is developer Rabble, who was around at the very beginning of what would become Twitter and has worked on many decentralized social media efforts, and recently proposed a new Social Media Bill of Rights in a post here on Techdirt. This week, Rabble joins the podcast to talk all about the history and present state of decentralized social media.

Techdirt recently passed its 28th anniversary as an independent online media outlet. Once, it looked like such outlets might take over, but then most were scooped up by traditional media or grew into more traditional companies themselves. But now we're seeing a new generation emerge, especially via newsletters on platforms like Substack, and one such journalist is Marisa Kabas, creator of The Handbasket. This week, Marisa joins the podcast to talk about the modern rise of independent online journalism.

We've written a lot about how AI can empower users when employed the right way, but how this is difficult when a few giant tech firms control the technology. One company that is trying to move in a different direction is DuckDuckGo with its Duck.ai offering. This week, DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg joins the podcast for a deeper dive into what the company is doing in the AI space.

Last year, Renée DiResta joined us on an episode of the podcast to talk about her book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, all about the people who have crafted a massive fictional narrative about the state of social media and government's involvement in content moderation. Now that Jim Jordan is celebrating Google's recent letter about the Biden administration and spreading all sorts of false claims about what it says, Renée joins us again to talk about maddening irony and overall craziness of this narrative that just won't go away. Last year's episode: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/09/techdirt-podcast-episode-397-the-people-who-turn-lies-into-reality/ Renée's book: https://www.reneediresta.com/books/ Our coverage of Google's letter: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/25/jim-jordan-celebrates-google-caving-to-his-pressure-in-letter-that-says-caving-to-government-pressure-is-wrong/

Last week, we published three separate posts that looked at the FTC's recent settlement with Aylo, the parent company of multiple adult websites including, most famously, Pornhub. Those posts, written by Stanford HAI policy fellow Riana Pfefferkorn, examined the legally complicated but very important issues that arise from the settlement forcing Aylo to scan for CSAM. This week, Riana joins us on the podcast alongside TechFreedom president Berin Szoka, to go even deeper into the legal weeds and explain how this settlement could doom criminal CSAM cases. Posts on Techdirt: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/15/the-trump-ftcs-war-on-porn-just-ensured-that-accused-csam-offenders-will-walk-free/ https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/15/the-ftcs-settlement-with-aylo-this-isnt-really-about-fighting-csam-and-revenge-porn/ https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/18/the-worlds-most-popular-porn-site-is-a-government-agent-now-does-it-matter/

In what feels like something of a throwback to much earlier days of Techdirt, the Supreme Court is getting into the weeds of the DMCA. Cox v. Sony is a case centered around questions of repeat infringers and intermediary liability, and we've submitted an amicus brief from the Copia Institute, written by Cathy Gellis. This week, Cathy joins the podcast to discuss the Supreme Court's opportunity to fix the first amendment problems with platform copyright liability. Copia Institute brief: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/something-good-the-supreme-court-could-do-finally-fix-the-first-amendment-problems-with-platform-liability-for-copyright-infringement/

We've got a cross-post episode this week, with Mike's recent appearance on the Computer Says Maybe podcast hosted by Alix Dunn. The discussion starts out looking at decentralization and Bluesky, then goes way beyond that into the early days of the internet and the concept of the Eternal September. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode.

The goal of Bluesky and the ATProtocol, and of the push for protocols over platforms in general, has always been to see more people building their own communities in a modular fashion. One of the most interesting projects demonstrating this potential is Blacksky, created by Rudy Fraser, which started as a custom feed within Bluesky but has grown into something much bigger. Today, Rudy joins the podcast for a conversation all about Blacksky and what it teaches us about open social media protocols.

As we've been thinking and writing about the intersection of democracy and technology, especially burgeoning AI technology, we always come back to the core issues of user control and user freedom. Recently, Chris Riley of the Data Transfer Initiative wrote an excellent piece for Tech Policy Press about the need for data portability in personal AI tools. This week, he joins the podcast to discuss why we need to control personal AI data so personal AI cannot control us. Tech Policy Press article: https://www.techpolicy.press/we-need-to-control-personal-ai-data-so-personal-ai-cannot-control-us/

One of the most troubling things about this era in American history is the number of institutions that have caved to Trump's bullying and given him what he wants, especially when it comes to media organizations. The folks over at the non-profit Free Press have done a lot of research and put together the new Media Capitulation Index, which aims to track and dissect this distressing phenomenon. This week, Free Press's Nora Benavidez and Timothy Karr join the podcast to talk about how they made the Index and what it can teach us.

We've got a bunch of brand new episodes of the Techdirt podcast coming over the next few weeks, but first we've got one special cross-post from our other podcast made in partnership with Ben Whitelaw from Everything in Moderation: Ctrl-Alt-Speech. As we take a little break from that podcast for the month of August, we're posting a few special episodes, starting with this conversation about how it got started, how we create the episodes, our philosophy about sponsorship, and what we need to make Ctrl-Alt-Speech sustainable in the long run. We're cross-posting it here on the Techdirt podcast feed, and we hope you enjoy it!

We've got one more cross-post episode for you this week! A few weeks ago, Mike joined host Aaron Ross Powell on the ReImagining Liberty podcast for a discussion that digs into the the philosophy and principles underlying the push for internet decentralization and protocols over platforms, and why this shift is both desirable and, in the long term, likely. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode.

This week, we've got a cross-post episode of Mike's appearance on Kevin Williamson's How The World Works podcast. Kevin conducted a wide-ranging interview that covers some of the earliest days of Techdirt, the blog's evolution, and many of the important topics we cover today — and you can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode.

In a world awash with misinformation and disinformation, those who spread and benefit from the chaos have worked hard to brand fact-checking and counterspeech as a form of censorship — and it's a worryingly effective tactic. But there's one type of counterspeech that is very hard to evade: mockery and satire. One person who knows that very well is Ben Collins, CEO of Global Tetrahedron, which purchased The Onion last year. This week, Ben joins us on the podcast to talk about the incredible power of mockery in the social and political landscape.

Way, way back during the SOPA/PIPA fight, a very important part of the resistance against the bills was coming from infrastructure operators who explained how they were technically incoherent and dangerous. One prominent group was the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, co-founded by Christian Dawson. Today, with legislative amnesia setting in and new requirements for infrastructure-level site blocking rearing their heads, the Coalition has released a new report: DNS At Risk. This week, he joins us on the podcast to talk about the report and the ongoing dangers of attacks on the internet infrastructure.

We've got a cross-post episode for you this week, courtesy of the Tech Policy Podcast by TechFreedom, hosted by Corbin Barthold. Both TechFreedom and The Copia Institute submitted comments on the FTC's inquiry into social media censorship, Corbin invited Mike and TechFreedom's Santana Boulton for a discussion all about what's going on. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode. Copia Comment: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/22/we-shouldnt-have-to-explain-to-the-ftc-why-content-moderation-is-so-crucial-to-free-speech-but-we-did/ TechFreedom Comment (pdf): https://techfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/TechFreedom-Comments-FTC-Political-Bias-Inquiry.pdf

In something of a followup to our last episode about Elon Musk's playbook, today we're digging deeper into the comparison between Washington and Silicon Valley and what it tells us about DOGE. Johns Hopkins International Affairs professor Henry Farrell has been looking specifically at the concept of "blitzscaling", and this week he joins us on the podcast to talk about how Elon Musk and DOGE are bringing blitzscaling to government. "Blizscaling for Tyrants" on Substack: https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/blitzscaling-for-tyrants

We've written a lot about how understanding the playbook Elon Musk used at Twitter is key to understanding his current playbook with DOGE. The people who literally wrote the book on said playbook are New York Times journalists Ryan Mac and Kate Conger (the latter of whom joined the podcast last year to discuss the book), and this week they both join us to dig deeper into the ways Musk is reusing his Twitter methods on the entire federal government.