Techdirt

Amidst all the conversation around regulating social media, algorithmic amplification, and disinformation, one idea that tends to get a lot of broad support is mandating editorial transparency. After all, it sounds nice, since transparency is usually a good thing. But in fact, there are huge legal and conceptual problems with mandated transparency. Santa Clara Law's Eric Goldman has written papers on the constitutionality of the idea and an important Supreme Court case related to this question, and this week he joins the podcast to discuss why mandated transparency isn't as good (or as constitutional) as many people claim. Read the papers: The Constitutionality of Mandating Editorial Transparency - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4005647 Zauderer and Compelled Editorial Transparency - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4246090

One of the oldest and most important topics on Techdirt is copyright, and the many problems with the law both here and abroad. One of the best voices on the subject, here and in many other publications, is Glyn Moody, who recently released his book Walled Culture, that goes through the history of how legacy copyright industries have tried to harm the internet and gain ever greater control over the work of artists and creators. It's available as a free e-book under a Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication, and today Glyn joins the podcast to discuss the book and the long, often-sad story of copyright law around the world. Get the book: https://walledculture.org/the-book/

As you probably already know, Techdirt recently marked its 25th anniversary and celebrated the occasion with an online party for our Insider subscribers. At the event, Mike was joined by Techdirt co-founder Dennis Yang for an interview conducted by Alex Feerst of Murmuration Labs, in which they looked back on the history of the site and took some questions from the audience. Now, you can listen to the full conversation on this week's episode of the Techdirt Podcast.

When Mike wrote a post digging into some of the complex questions surrounding Cloudflare banning Kiwi Farms, there was plenty of backlash and disagreement — much of it thoughtful and well worth engaging with. Among the strongest critics was lawyer Mike Dunford, who composed a detailed Twitter thread that lead to a lengthy back-and-forth. This week, he joins us on the podcast to continue the conversation and discuss the welcome death of Kiwi Farms as well as broader issues of content moderation at the infrastructure layer.

When the Elon Musk/Twitter drama landed in the Delaware Court Of Chancery, it thrust specialist publication The Chancery Daily into the spotlight, and they began offering up excellent explainers on this important court that most people knew very little about. The people behind the publication have decided to remain anonymous amidst the influx of attention, but today one of them joins us on the podcast to discuss just what's going on as Elon Musk takes his chances in a court that seems pretty immune to his reality distortion field.

The explosion of AI-generated art has taken the internet by storm, and is poised to continue growing for a long time. In turn, that's sparked a lot of conversation (and a lot of backlash) about the impact on artists — but much of the controversy seems misguided or overblown. This week, we're joined by Rob Sheridan, an artist and designer who has embraced the power of these tools, to discuss what AI-generated art really means for artists.

We've got one more cross-post episode this week. If you've been following Techdirt recently, you've surely heard about California's recently-passed bill, the Age Appropriate Design Code, and all its massive problems. Recently, Mike appeared on This Week In Google to discuss these problems, and you can listen to the whole conversation on this week's episode of the Techdirt Podcast.

We've got a cross-post episode for you this week! Recently, Mike appeared on the Walled Culture podcast to discuss a wide range of topics including reflections on the SOPA/PIPA fight, ways to support creators, and the world of NFTs. You can listen to the entire interview on this week's episode of the Techdirt Podcast.

Read the report: https://copia.is/library/just-a-click-away/ Yesterday, we released a new report from the Copia Institute, written by Karl Bode, about the state of broadband competition and the great potential of an open access fiber model: Just A Click Away: Broadband Competition In America. On today's episode, Karl joins the podcast to dig into the details of the report and explain how a better future of US broadband is possible and attainable.

As advocates of decentralization and a protocols-not-platforms approach to the web, there's a lot about the concept of Web3 that sounds appealing to us at Techdirt — but the details usually leave a lot to be desired. A new project called TBD from Block aims to move beyond all that, and while its invocation of "Web5" understandably invites skepticism, it's actually a lot more interesting. This week, we're joined by project lead Mike Brock to discuss how TBD and the concept of Web5 aims to grapple with the true potential of decentralization.

We've got some great new discussions for the Techdirt Podcast... coming in a few weeks. But at the moment, amidst a very busy schedule on a variety of fronts, we're taking a short break to look back on a very old conversation: our 14th episode ever, from 2015, about media companies rolling out proprietary content management systems. Since we recently completed our own migration to Wordpress (the popular platform that was also a major component of that seven-year-old discussion) we thought it might be fun to revisit the question. So on this week's episode, Mike and I open with a bit of a retrospective followed by a replay of the original conversation in full.

This week is Engine's second annual Patent Quality Week, focused on the many ways that the patent system allows low-quality patents to get through, the problems this causes, and what can be done about it. On this week's episode, we're joined by Abby Rives and Charles Duan for a discussion all about why patent quality matters.

In discussions about content moderation, it's easy to get stuck in the mindset that there are only a few simple ways it could possibly work — but in fact there is plenty of room for exploring creative alternatives. One such idea examined in a recent paper by Aviv Ovadya, Technology and Public Purpose Fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, is called "platform democracy". It's well worth discussing, and Aviv joins us on this week's episode to do exactly that. Paper: http://platformdemocracy.com/

The problems with copyright have been a subject of coverage here at Techdirt since the beginning, and for most of that time it has been largely a non-partisan subject. At the moment, however, that isn't so much the case thanks to Josh Hawley's war with Disney, which has created a situation where some copyright reform ideas that are conceptually good are mired in culture war issues, partisan politics, and unconstitutional nonsense. This week, we're joined by the Niskanen Center's Daniel Takash to discuss the problems with Hawley's copyright bill and copyright law in general.

It's no secret that Elon Musk's statements about his plans for Twitter have been confused to say the least. It has become abundantly clear that he doesn't know much at all about how a service like Twitter operates, especially when it comes to content moderation, and doesn't seem to have much interest in learning. On this week's episode, we're joined by Renee DiResta from the Stanford Internet Observatory to discuss just how little Elon Musk understands the platform he's supposedly planning to buy.

PLAY THE GAME: https://startuptrail.engine.is/ Last week, in partnership with Engine, we launched our startup policy simulator game Startup Trail. The game puts you in the shoes of a founder trying to build a successful startup, and facing the many difficult policy decisions that entails without running out of money, losing all your users, or ending up with a company that has no innovative ability. This week on the podcast, Mike and I are joined by our game design partner Randy Lubin of Leveraged Play as well as Kate Tummarello and Abby Rives from Engine, for a discussion all about how the game came to be and what we hope people will learn from it.

So much of the debate about Section 230 is based on an incorrect understanding of its procedural benefits, and the completely false idea that it's a special gift to "big tech". A new paper (which we wrote about yesterday) by Elizabeth Banker from the Chamber of Progress dives deep into the real benefits and beneficiaries of Section 230, and this week she joins us on the podcast to discuss how the law protects small companies, individuals, and free speech. Research Paper: https://progresschamber.org/new-report-details-impact-of-section-230-litigation-onsmall-online-providers/ Our Coverage: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/18/new-study-shows-section-230-protects-small-companies-much-more-than-big-ones/

People often talk about some kind of "right to deletion" as an approach to fixing online privacy issues. This construct can create problems, as we've seen with Europe's version, but newer proposals don't seem to consider these lessons. A recent paper by law professor Tiffany Li looks at another angle on the issue: how data deletion impacts algorithms and AI-trained models. This week, Tiffany joins us on the podcast to discuss this concept of "algorithmic destruction", and how policy makers are ignoring it. "Algorithmic Destruction" paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4066845

Recently, Mike joined Jason Feifer on the Build for Tomorrow podcast for a discussion about predicting the future — and specifically about a prediction that Mike got very wrong. The episode includes interviews with several other guests on the subject, and we're featuring the whole thing this week on the Techdirt Podcast.

Five years ago, we were joined on the podcast by author and law professor Aaron Perzanowski to discuss his book about the impact of copyright on property in the digital age, The End of Ownership. That book touched on the issue of repairing devices and the ways companies make it difficult, but his new book, The Right To Repair, puts this topic in the spotlight. This week, Aaron joins us to discuss the history and future of the right to repair around the world.