Techdirt
394 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 20 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 48 ratingsThe Techdirt Podcast, hosted by Michael Masnick.
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Episodes
Ninja Future, With Gary Shapiro
January 08, 2019 21:03 - 44 minutes - 41 MBToday, Mike is at the opening of the Consumer Technology Association's CES 2019 show — which means we'll have one of our CES post-mortem podcasts coming up soon! But before that, for this first episode of 2019, we've got a discussion with CTA CEO Gary Shapiro, whose new book Ninja Future takes a look at how people and businesses are dealing with innovation and rapid technological change.
Can Anyone Disrupt The Disruptors?
December 18, 2018 19:50 - 55 minutes - 50.5 MBCan Anyone Disrupt The Disruptors? by Techdirt
Section 230 And Political Bias
December 11, 2018 21:23 - 56 minutes - 52 MBWe've got another panel discussion from the Lincoln Network's Reboot conference this week, all about the law on everyone's minds lately: Section 230 of the CDA. The debate includes law professor Eric Goldman, the EFF's Corynne McSherry, and Dr. Jerry A. Johnson from National Religious Broadcasters, offering up a wide spectrum of opinions on Section 230 and political bias.
Free Speech Disorder, With Mike Godwin
December 04, 2018 20:45 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBLast week, we published a series of posts by Mike Godwin looking at Our Bipolar Free Speech Disorder And How To Fix It (check out part one, part two, and part three). But with a topic like this, there's always more to dig into, so this week we've got Mike Godwin joining the podcast to take a closer look at his ideas about free speech in the digital era.
Should We Break Up Big Tech?
November 27, 2018 21:07 - 54 minutes - 49.8 MBA few weeks ago, we featured a panel discussion with Mike and others at the Lincoln Network's Reboot conference on the podcast. This week we're doing something a little different and featuring another panel discussion from that conference, but one in which Mike wasn't involved. Instead, it's an interesting — and at times contentious — debate about one big question: do the big tech firms need to be broken up?
What The Hell Is Initiative Q?
November 13, 2018 21:18 - 47 minutes - 43.8 MBBy now, there's a good chance you've received an invitation to join Initiative Q, and also a good chance that you took one look at it and thought "wow, this seems extremely sketchy." And indeed, there's little reason (other than hopefulness) to see the strange new proposed payment system as anything but a pyramid scheme. But it's got people talking, thanks in no small part to its viral marketing scheme, so this week's episode is all about trying to figure out just what Initiative Q really is.
Government, Activism & Silicon Valley
November 06, 2018 19:36 - 55 minutes - 51 MBIn late September, Mike joined a panel at the Lincoln Network's Reboot conference to tackle the question "will rising activism limit government’s access to Silicon Valley?" along with Trae Stephens, Pablo E. Carrillo, with moderator Katie McAuliffe. For this week's episode, we've got the full audio from that panel plus an additional introduction from Mike with some thoughts after the fact. Enjoy!
AI, Free Speech & Human Rights
October 30, 2018 20:24 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBAs artificial intelligence technology marches onwards, it's raising a lot of complicated questions about free speech, privacy, and important rights. One person who's been thinking a lot about these questions is David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, who recently published a thorough report [pdf] on the subject. This week, David joins us on the podcast to discuss artificial intelligence and its implications for h...
Free Speech & Content Moderation (Panel Discussion)
October 09, 2018 20:11 - 1 hour - 57.7 MBFor this week's episode of the podcast, we're featuring a recent panel discussion from Mozilla's Speaker Series. Mike Masnick sat down with Guillaume Chaslot from Algo Transparency, hosted by Mozilla Fellow in Residence Renée DiResta, to talk about the challenges of online content moderation and its implications for freedom of expression. Enjoy!
Building New Senses (Plus The Possible End Of The World)
October 02, 2018 20:24 - 1 hour - 73.8 MBThis week, we've got a special cross-post from Rob Reid's excellent After On podcast. After a conversation between Mike and Rob about the possible end of the world, we pivot to the full episode of After On in which Rob talks to neuroscientist David Eagleman about his fascinating work using technology to create new human senses. We hope you enjoy it!
Life Insurance, Life Surveillance
September 25, 2018 19:45 - 40 minutes - 37.4 MBA major insurance company recently announced that it would offer discounts on life insurance to customers who wear activity trackers and log data showing they live a healthy lifestyle. This understandably freaked out some people, but there are interesting aspects to the idea as well. There's plenty to consider, so this week regular hosts Mike, Hersh and Dennis discuss whether this is an exciting innovation, a worrying expansion of surveillance culture, or both.
No Easy Answers For Content Moderation
September 18, 2018 19:30 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MBWe've done it — we've solved the challenge of content moderation! (Checks notes). No, wait, sorry: we haven't. But what we have done is invited Kate Klonick, law professor and author of the excellent paper The New Governors: The People, Rules, and Processes Governing Online Speech, to join us for an in-depth discussion about how we got here and why there are no easy or simple answers for content moderation.
Anonymity In The Media & Online
September 11, 2018 20:09 - 40 minutes - 37.2 MBAnonymity is back in the news in a big way, especially since the New York Times published an explosive opinion piece by an anonymous White House official. Here at Techdirt — proudly one of the few blogs that still allows completely anonymous comments with no sign-up — we've talked about anonymity for a long time in the context of the internet. On this week's episode, Mike and regular co-hosts Dennis Yang and Hersh Reddy talk about the benefits, challenges, and overall importance of anonymous ...
There's Always Something New To Learn About Copyright
September 04, 2018 20:15 - 42 minutes - 39.1 MBCopyright is a big, complicated monster of a law, composed of patchwork updates and shaped by international agreements — which is, in fact, the source of a lot of its problems. But fixing copyright means understanding it, so this week we've got a conversation with UCLA professor Neil Netanel, author of the new book Copyright: What Everyone Needs To Know, because there's always something new to learn about copyright.
Do Short-Term Profits Hurt Long-Term Innovation?
August 28, 2018 19:42 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBIs the way companies are currently structured and operated conducive to long-term innovation? It's a tough question, but there are plenty of reasons to consider that short-term profit incentives might be getting in the way of better overall innovation strategies — and lots of possibilities for how we might rethink companies to change this. This week, the regular crew of Mike, Hersh and Dennis discuss how this problem could be addressed, and whether there's truly a problem at all.
Emoji & The Law
August 22, 2018 18:21 - 51 minutes - 46.9 MBHave you ever thought about the legal issues surrounding emoji? Don't worry, most people haven't. But they are myriad and interesting, with roots nearly two decades ago following the emergence of emoticons — and two people who definitely have thought a lot about it are Eric Goldman and Gabriella Ziccarelli, who join us on this week's episode to talk about the various intersections of emoji and the law.
Old Tweets & Your Permanent Record
August 14, 2018 20:42 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MBThere has long been anxiety around the "permanent record" of the internet, and recent public shamings based on old tweets have brought that fear to the forefront for many people. But the mass deletion of old tweets also means throwing out huge amounts of potentially valuable information. Is there a technological solution? A cultural one? This week, we're joined by returning guests Cathy Gellis and Parker Higgins to discuss a proposal for fixing the problem without sacrificing the permanent re...
Why People Don't Trust Capitalism Anymore
August 07, 2018 20:26 - 57 minutes - 52.8 MBThe tides of public opinion on economics seem to be shifting, and criticism of the very idea of free markets is on the ride. The conversation is messy, confusing, and transcends many traditional political boundaries — so we've got an expert source to help us dig in. EconTalk host Russ Roberts joins us to look at why so many people don't trust capitalism anymore.
The EU's Copyright Threat To The Open Internet
July 31, 2018 20:21 - 45 minutes - 42 MBWe've got a crossover episode this week, all about the EU's disastrous moves on the copyright front. Mike recently joined the Building Tomorrow podcast to discuss the subject with Paul Matzko and Will Duffield, and now you can listen to it here on this week's episode of the Techdirt Podcast.
Building Communities Outside Facebook
July 24, 2018 19:44 - 54 minutes - 50.2 MBOne thing we've talked about for a long time at Techdirt is the importance communities for media outlets, including our own. These days, it feels like a lot of media companies are giving up on this work altogether and outsourcing it to social media platforms — but that means foregoing some of the most powerful aspects of the internet. This week, we're joined by Josh Millard, who recently took over MetaFilter, to talk about building online communities and not relying on Facebook.
How Private Agreements Recreated SOPA
July 17, 2018 19:36 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBOne of the most dangerous aspects of SOPA and other copyright proposals is the idea of moving enforcement and liability further down the stack of technology that powers the internet, even all the way to the DNS system. Although SOPA's DNS-blocking proposals were heavily criticized and the bill ultimately defeated, the idea of deep-level copyright enforcement has lived on and been implemented without changes to the law. This week our returning guest, law professor Annemarie Bridy, discusses ho...
Sci-Fi & Scenario Planning
July 10, 2018 19:17 - 46 minutes - 42.2 MBEliot Peper is a novelist who uses thorough research and creative thinking to produce science fiction that can feel more like eerily-accurate prognostication. Exploring possible futures with real insight has always been one of sci-fi's greatest strengths, and this week Peper joins Mike on the podcast to discuss his work, methods, and ideas about tomorrow. Eliot Peper - http://www.eliotpeper.com/
Are Tech And Journalism Att Odds With Each Other?
June 26, 2018 20:02 - 53 minutes - 48.5 MBBetween Elon Musk's proposal for a website ranking the credibility of journalists and Tim Draper blaming the collapse of Theranos on the press (not to mention Peter Thiel's attack on Gawker), it feels like there's a war brewing between Silicon Valley and journalism. Though the press has some major problems, it really seems like tech entrepreneurs are misunderstanding how it works and proposing some dangerous ideas. This week, we discuss the tensions between tech and journalism, and what will ...
Debating Steam's New Hands-Off Policy
June 19, 2018 20:17 - 46 minutes - 42.8 MBRecently, Valve sent waves through the PC gaming world by announcing an upcoming policy change for its Steam platform: it will no longer enforce specific content rules and will allow all games as long as they aren't illegal or "straight-up trolling". Though it's not exactly clear what this means, the reaction from the gaming press has been largely negative, and it's hard to say how the new policy will be implemented — so this week myself, Tim Geigner and Cathy Gellis join the podcast to discu...
Are E-Scooters A Problem?
June 12, 2018 19:45 - 49 minutes - 45.6 MBThe latest entrant on the decentralized transportation scene is the suddenly-ubiquitous electric scooters that are taking over San Francisco and other cities. Their appearance has triggered the inevitable controversy, with some saying they are ruining cities while others laud their convenience for urbanites. And, of course, a regulatory battle wasn't far behind. On this week's episode, we discuss the e-scooter trend and its many pros and cons.
MEP Julia Reda On EU's Dangerous Copyright Proposal
June 05, 2018 20:08 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBAs we've noted recently, the current copyright reform proposal being considered by the EU is full of extremely dangerous ideas, from mandated filters to a "link tax". This week, we're joined by European Parliament member Julia Reda to talk about the details of the regulatory process and the problems with the current proposal.
Rob Reid's Mind-Bending Podcast
May 29, 2018 20:21 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MBWe've talked about author Rob Reid many times on Techdirt, and had him on the podcast once before. Now, in what started as a project to promote his latest novel, Reid is hosting a podcast called After On, which tackles some pretty crazy real-world topics — from alien life to mind-reading technology — befitting a science fiction writer. This week, he returns to our podcast to discuss what it's like interviewing big thinkers about mind-bending ideas.
CIA: Collect It All
May 19, 2018 05:20 - 39 minutes - 36.5 MBWe're nearing the end of the Kickstarter campaign for CIA: Collect It All, our polished and fully-playable version of a formerly top secret card game used by the CIA to train new recruits. In this special Saturday edition of the podcast, the three of us working on the project — myself, Mike, and Randy Lubin of Diegetic Games — sit down to talk all about what players can expect from CIA: Collect It All. Our Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmasnick/cia-collect-it-all?ref=2ivphk
How The Courts Created The Surveillance State
May 08, 2018 19:26 - 1 hour - 55.7 MBThe US has been something of a surveillance state since long before the Snowden revelations that showed the full extent of some of the NSA's activities. A lot of this is made possible — often unintentionally — by decades-old court decisions regarding technology. It's a problem. This week, reporter Cyrus Farivar — whose new book Habeas Data digs into this judicial history — joins us to discuss how courts created the surveillance state. Habeas Data - https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/habeas-data/
Is "Free" Bad?
May 01, 2018 20:10 - 48 minutes - 44 MBIn the last few years, a lot of the conversation around technology in general has shifted its focus from excitement about the obvious benefits to concern about its downfalls and side effects. It even feels like there's a general sense that "technology is bad for society" in a lot of places. This comes with a lot of associated myths, including the prominent idea that "if you're not paying for something, you're the product being sold" — an idea that is, at best a massive oversimplification. So ...
Getting News Without Social Media
April 25, 2018 19:46 - 54 minutes - 49.8 MBSocial media can be an extremely powerful tool for gathering, finding and sharing the news. It can also be... a bit of a disaster. It would be nice if such an important question had a simple answer, but they never do, do they? So this week, we're discussing and dissecting whether or not social media is "good" for the way we consume the news.
Teaching The Law Via Podcasts
April 17, 2018 20:26 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBLaw isn't simple, and truly learning about it takes more than a few short primers or even an in-depth guide or two — which makes it the perfect topic to explore via the medium of podcasts. This week, we've got a pair of guests who are doing exactly that: Ken White of Popehat fame, who recently launched the Make No Law podcast about First Amendment issues, and Elizabeth Joh, co-host of the What Trump Can Teach Us About Constitutional Law podcast. Instead of picking their brains about the law i...
Can The Blockchain Save Publishers?
April 10, 2018 20:07 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MBAfter the recent launch of po.et, which aims to use the blockchain to create a new business model for digital media companies, Mike was... unconvinced. This led to a Twitter discussion with CEO Jarrod Dicker, which in turn led to a longer in-person conversation about the ideas behind the service and where it might go — and you can listen to the whole thing on this week's podcast episode.
How One Court Just Screwed Up Software Development
April 03, 2018 18:18 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MBWe've already written about the insanity of the appeals court overturning Google's fair use victory against Oracle — but there's plenty to dig into regarding just how bad the ruling is. This week, we're joined by Pamela Samuelson, a law professor and co-director of the Center for Law & Technology at Berkeley, to discuss what the court just did to the world of software development.
Overreacting To Facebook's Mistakes Won't Solve Anything
March 27, 2018 19:13 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MBFacebook. Cambridge Analytica. Need I say more? There's plenty to discuss. Among them is the question of similarities between what happened and the Obama campaign — which is why we're lucky to be joined this week by Catherine Bracy, who led the Obama campaign's San Francisco tech office, and worked on its Facebook app, for a discussion about what really went down with Cambridge Analytica, and all the misinformation that's out there.
What Does It Mean For Social Media To Be Held Accountable?
March 20, 2018 20:19 - 1 hour - 56.7 MBThis isn't the first time we've discussed this on the podcast, and it probably won't be the last — disinformation online is a big and complicated topic, and there are a whole lot of angles to approach it from. This week, we're joined by Renee DiResta, who has been researching disinformation ever since the anti-vaxxer movement caught her attention, to discuss what exactly it means to say social media platforms should be held accountable.
How MoviePass Makes Money
March 13, 2018 19:59 - 47 minutes - 43.9 MBThe apparent success of MoviePass raises a whole bunch of interesting business model questions — and privacy concerns about the data-harvesting portion of that business model add another layer of complexity. So this week, we're going back to a good old-fashioned formula for the podcast, and dedicating an episode to examining the company in detail and trying to figure out where it might be headed.
The Worst Of Both Worlds: SESTA & FOSTA Together
March 06, 2018 20:24 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBIt wasn't very long ago that we last discussed SESTA on the podcast, but now that the House has voted to approve its version of the bill with SESTA tacked on, it's unfortunately time to dig into the issues again. So this week we're joined by returning guest Emma Llansó from the Center for Democracy and Technology and, for the first time, law professor Eric Goldman to talk about why the combination of SESTA and FOSTA has resulted in the worst of both worlds.
Disrupting Google
February 27, 2018 19:49 - 41 minutes - 37.9 MBWhen a tech company is huge and dominant, it can feel like competing with them is impossible. Worse still, it can sometimes feel like innovating is impossible, since they might just step in and take over as soon as someone executes on a good idea. Once upon a time this was how startups felt about Microsoft, while today it's more likely to be Google or Facebook. But no company, no matter how mighty, is immune to being disrupted — and figuring out how is the subject of this week's episode.
Lies, Damned Lies & Audience Metrics
February 20, 2018 20:16 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MBIn 2016, mostly out of frustration, I wrote a post about how traffic is fake, audience numbers are garbage, and nobody knows how many people see anything. My feelings haven't changed much, and neither has the digital advertising ecosystem. And since regular podcast co-host Dennis Yang runs a digital metrics company, it only made sense for us to hash it out on an episode all about audience measurement and how it shapes online advertising. 2016 Post: https://tdrt.io/fOt
Truth, Trust, Transparency & Tribalism
February 13, 2018 20:11 - 57 minutes - 53 MBA couple of weeks ago, Mike was in Washington, DC for the State Of The Net conference, where he participated in a panel called Internet Speech: Truth, Trust, Transparency & Tribalism. For this week's podcast, we've got the audio from that conversation with all sorts of interesting ideas about how people are dealing with fake news, trolls, propaganda and more.
An Interview With Rep Zoe Lofgren
February 06, 2018 20:32 - 30 minutes - 27.5 MBWhen it comes to many of the legislative issues of interest to us here at Techdirt, we've always been able to count on at least one voice of reason amidst the congressional chaos: Representative Zoe Lofgren from California. In addition to playing a critical role in the fight against SOPA, she continues to be a voice of reason against bad copyright policy, expansive government surveillance, and the broken CFAA, among many other things. This week, she joins Mike on the podcast for a wide-rangin...
Free Speech & The Marketplace Of Ideas
January 30, 2018 20:25 - 45 minutes - 42 MBLast week, Mike sparked lots of conversation with his post about rethinking the marketplace of ideas without losing sight of the importance of the fundamental principles of free speech. Naturally, there's plenty more to discuss on that topic, so this week we're joined by Buzzfeed general counsel Nabiha Syed — whose recent article in the Yale Law Journal, Real Talk About Fake News, offered a thorough and insightful look at free speech online — to try to cut through all the simplistic takes on ...
Facebook Won't Save Democracy
January 23, 2018 21:05 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MBIn the midst of the political chaos in America and the world at large, a whole lot of attention has been turned to Facebook and its role in modern democracy. The social network has responded by announcing another round of news feed changes, the true impact of which (if any) remains far from clear. This week, we're joined by Mathew Ingram from the Columbia Journalism Review to talk about Facebook's changes, and whether we can or should expect them to fix anything.
The CES 2018 Post-Mortem
January 16, 2018 21:21 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBMike was at CES 2018 last week, and now for the third year in a row we've got our special episode of the podcast dedicated to looking at the best (and worst) innovations on show. As usual, he's joined by long-time CES veteran Rob Pegoraro — so without any further preamble, here's the CES 2018 Post-Mortem.
Barbies v. Bratz
January 09, 2018 20:47 - 55 minutes - 50.5 MBIf you've been reading Techdirt for more than five years, you probably remember the conclusion of Mattel v. MGA — and if you've been reading for more than thirteen years, you might even remember when it started. This epic legal battle over intellectual property went through nearly a decade of rulings and reversals, and the resulting story is a fascinating one that ties in a lot of the topics we discuss here at Techdirt. It's also the subject of the new book You Don't Own Me by law professor O...
The Lost Art Of Productive Debate
December 19, 2017 20:28 - 49 minutes - 56.9 MBEven those of us who believe that the internet is overall a tremendous positive force when it comes to discourse and culture can admit that, in many parts of the online world, having constructive and substantive conversations is... difficult. And that issue has most certainly come to the fore in the last couple of years. So this week, we're joined by author Barry Eisler (one of our first and most frequent podcast guests) to tackle the challenge of framing important debates in productive ways,...
Games That Tell Stories
December 12, 2017 20:08 - 46 minutes - 52.7 MBGaming is changing the nature of storytelling. Video games of course — but also the modern rise of board games, tabletop RPGs and other forms of analog gaming. A good game does more than just arbitrarily pair play with a veneer of narrative, it marries the mechanics and the ideas to enable interesting new ways of conveying and exploring complex ideas. This week, we're joined by game designer Randy Lubin to discuss how games can tell stories in a way nothing else can.
Can A Trivia App Resurrect Appointment Viewing?
December 05, 2017 19:49 - 32 minutes - 36.7 MBNormally, we wouldn't dedicate a whole episode of the podcast to talking about a single app — but every now and then something small comes along that contains innovations worth exploring. So this week, we're taking a look at the hit trivia app HQ, which is one of the first new things in recent memory to gain real momentum with "appointment viewing".
Tom Wheeler Reacts To Trump's FCC
November 28, 2017 21:07 - 37 minutes - 42.9 MBIf you're a Techdirt reader or just a general regular on the ol' internet, our topic this week — the current situation with net neutrality and the FCC — needs little introduction. And we've got two very special guests joining us to discuss it: former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler (author of the rules that Ajit Pai is currently undoing) and his former advisor Gigi Sohn (who joined us on the podcast in February to predict pretty much exactly what is now happening). There are few people as qualified to ...