Techdirt

It took a little longer than usual, but we've finally announced the winners of the fourth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1926! In this episode, Mike and I are joined by Randy Lubin (our partner in running the jam) to discuss the winners in all six categories, as well as some of our favorite entries that didn't quite make the cut. The Winners: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/03/09/announcing-the-winners-of-the-4th-annual-public-domain-game-jam/ The Entries: https://itch.io/jam/gaming-like-its-1926/entries

Nearly three years ago, we were joined by Professor Jeff Kosseff to discuss his then-new book about Section 230, The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet. Now, Jeff has a new book coming out, about another internet issue that is deeply misunderstood by many people: anonymity. The United States Of Anonymous releases in two weeks, and on today's episode Jeff joins us to discuss how the right to anonymity has shaped American values, politics, business, security, and discourse.

We've got another cross-post this week: Mike was recently a guest on the new Internet of Humans podcast by Jillian York and Konstantinos Komaitis, for a wide-ranging discussion about internet regulation issues today and where they might be headed. You can listen to the entire conversation on this week's episode.

More than a year and a half ago we were joined on the podcast by Riana Pfefferkorn, then the Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and now a research fellow at the Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss the disastrous EARN IT Act. As you probably know, EARN IT is back, and this week, Riana joins us once again to discuss why it hasn't gotten any better — and might in fact have gotten worse.

We talk a lot about free speech in different countries, and about the history of free speech in the US — but what about the global history of this fundamental concept? A new book released today, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama, tackles exactly this subject in great and insightful detail. This week, Jacob joins us on the podcast to discuss the sweeping story of free speech throughout the ages and around the world.

As many of you know, last week we hosted an online event for the latest Techdirt Greenhouse edition, all about looking back on the lessons learned from the 2012 protests against SOPA and PIPA. Our special guest was Rep. Zoe Lofgren, one of the strongest voices in congress speaking out against the disastrous bills, who provided all kinds of excellent insight into what happened then and what's happening now. In case you missed it, for this week's episode of the podcast (yes, we're finally back with new episodes!) we've got the full conversation and Q&A from the event. The Techdirt Greenhouse: https://www.techdirt.com/blog/greenhouse/

Our lives are lived at the intersection of vast systems (economic, technological, and beyond) that are incredibly complex and often chaotic, and it's hard to understand and embrace what author Neil Chilson's new book, Getting Out Of Control, calls "the emergent mindset." On this week's episode, Neil joins us to discuss his book and why you can't simply "control" complex systems.

In last week's episode, we had a conversation with the creators and curators of the Knight Foundation's virtual symposium on Lessons From The First Internet Ages. This week, we've got the audio from the panel discussion at the symposium that Mike participated in along with Stanford's Daphne Keller and Harvard Law's Evelyn Douek, all about the ways that the governance of online communities has evolved and changed as the internet has matured.

Earlier this month Mike participated in a content series and virtual symposium on Lessons From The First Internet Ages, hosted by the Knight Foundation, alongside several important figures from the history of the internet. On this week's episode, the creators and curators of the event — John Sands, Mary Anne Franks, and Eric Goldman — to reflect on the writings and conversations from the event and the lessons to be learned.

We've got a crossposted episode for you this week: Mike recently joined The Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb O. Brown for a discussion about the "hacking" fiasco in Missouri and the state's treatment of the journalists who exposed its huge data security flub. It's a shorter conversation than our usual podcasts, and you can listen to the whole thing on this week's episode.

Facebook is under a lot of scrutiny lately, and for very good reasons! But the anger surrounding Facebook has also resulted in plenty of criticism that is misleading or downright inaccurate in its description of how the company operates and what it does — though Facebook itself carries some of the blame for that happening, too. The goal of fixing the problems with social media isn't helped by misrepresenting what those problems are, so this week we're joined by Gizmodo's Shoshana Wodinsky to discuss all the things people get wrong about Facebook.

The documents revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen are full of important information — but the media hasn't been doing the best job of covering that information and all its nuances. There are plenty of examples of reporters taking one aspect out of context and presenting it in the worst possible light, while ignoring the full picture. This week, we're joined by law professor Kate Klonick to discuss the media's failings in covering the Facebook Papers, and the unwanted outcomes this could produce.

It's another crossposted episode this week! Mike recently joined the Tech Policy Press podcast alongside Block Party founder Tracy Chou for a conversation about using middleware and interoperability to craft a new, less centralized online ecosystem. You can listen to the whole conversation on this week's episode.

We've got a cross-posted podcast for you this week! Recently, Mike appeared on the Ipse Dixit podcast with host Professor Brian L. Frye — the inspiration for our Plagiarism Collection of NFTs and, previously, our OK, Landlord gear — for a wide-ranging discussion about scarcity and abundance in the digital age. You can listen to the whole conversation on this week's episode. Ipse Dixit - https://shows.acast.com/ipse-dixit

Last week, we celebrated 300 episodes of the Techdirt Podcast with a live stream, for which we brought back original co-hosts Dennis Yang and Hersh Reddy. You can watch the stream on YouTube, but now it's time to release the episode as normal! The subject was simple, but led the conversation in all kinds of interesting directions: how have our views on technology issues changed and evolved since the podcast started? YouTube Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYOzagdwfkI

Disinformation continues to be a major topic of discussion across many fields, but a lot of what people believe about the subject is... questionable at best. One of the more thoughtful writers on the subject is Joe Bernstein from Buzzfeed News, whose recent cover story in Harper's brings a very different and valuable perspective to the debate. This week, he joins us on the podcast to discuss the glut of misconceptions and misinformation about disinformation. Harper's Article: https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/bad-news-selling-the-story-of-disinformation/ Additionally, as we recently announced, we'll be celebrating our upcoming 300th episode of the podcast with a live stream featuring the return of the original co-hosts Dennis Yang and Hersh Reddy, including (hopefully, barring technical issues) the ability for viewers who back our Patreon to call in live and ask questions. The stream will happen on Thursday, September 30th at 1pm PT/4pm ET — stay tuned for more details on how you can watch the stream, and

The concept of "shadowbanning" comes up a lot in content moderation discussions — often from people who are spreading nonsense. But various means of deprioritizing content have been employed by platforms for many years. This week, we're joined by Dr. Carolina Are, a researcher who recently released a paper on the subject, especially how it relates to nudity and censorship on Instagram. This week, she joins us on the podcast to discuss shadowbanning, how it works, and the impact it has. The Shadowban Cycle [Paper]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2021.1928259 Additionally, we've got a special announcement: to celebrate our upcoming 300th episode of the podcast, we'll be hosting a live stream with the return of the original co-hosts Dennis Yang and Hersh Reddy, including (hopefully, barring technical issues) the ability for viewers who back our Patreon to call in live and ask questions. The stream will happen on Thursday, September 30th at 1pm PT/4pm ET — stay tuned for more details on h

The notion that if libraries didn't exist already, the publishing industry wouldn't allow them to exist at all is both a grim joke and a depressing truth, as continually evidenced by the opposition of publishers to seemingly unobjectionable technologies like controlled digital lending, which aim to allow libraries to carry their mission forward into the digital age. This week, we're joined by Jennie Rose Halperin, executive director of the Library Futures Institute, to discuss the institute's new paper on the subject and the legality of and opposition to controlled digital lending, and what it tells us about the future of libraries.

Canada is barreling towards a federal election, and if recent legislative proposals are any indication, the outcome will have huge implications for the future of the internet in the country. Between the recent Bill C-10 and the proposed online harms legislation (among other things), it's clear that plenty of Canadian politicians want to make drastic and draconian changes to how the internet is regulated. This week, I join Mike on the podcast along with Matt Hatfield, the Campaigns Director of OpenMedia (something like Canada's version of the EFF), to discuss the Canadian election and what it means for a variety of important internet policy issues.

We've written a lot about the Oracle/Google case over API copyrights as it wound its way through the courts, but the Supreme Court ruling has such widespread implications that there is still plenty to unpack. This week, we're joined by two top experts on intellectual property — Berkeley Law's Pamela Samuelson and Stanford Law's Mark Lemley, who recently co-wrote a paper on the subject — to discuss in detail what impact this landmark case has on copyright and interoperability. Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3898154