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Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly news podcast co-created by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation’s Ben Whitelaw. Each episode looks at the latest news in online speech, covering issues regarding trust & safety, content moderation, regulation, court rulings, new services & technology, and more.
The podcast regularly features expert guests with experience in the trust & safety/online speech worlds, discussing the ins and outs of the news that week and what it may mean for the industry. Each episode takes a deep dive into one or two key stories, and includes a quicker roundup of other important news. It's a must-listen for trust & safety professionals, and anyone interested in issues surrounding online speech.
If your company or organization is interested in sponsoring Ctrl-Alt-Speech and joining us for a sponsored interview, visit ctrlaltspeech.com for more information.
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is produced with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, a fiscally-sponsored multi-donor fund at Global Impact that supports charitable activities to build a more robust, capable, and inclusive Trust and Safety ecosystem and field.
96 Episodes
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In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Grammarly turned me into an AI editor against my will and I hate it (Platformer)Grammarly has disabled its tool offering generative-AI feedback credited to real writers (Engadget)Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature (Wired)Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz. (NY Times)Molly vs the Machines review – a powerful s...
In a special episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Ben and Mike discuss (with apologies to Tay-Tay) the three eras of content moderation in the media and what comes next. Their conversation builds on Ben’s essay in the soon-to-be-published Trust, Safety, and the Internet We Share Multistakeholder Insights, a new book looking at the evolution of the Trust & Safety industry and how platform policies decisions are made. The pre-print is available online. Together, they unpack three distinct phas...
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, a podcast that makes sense of the rapidly changing world of tech. Together, they discuss: After a deadly raid, an AI power struggle erupts at the Pentagon (Washington Post)Following: Anthropic vs. The Pentagon (Platformer)Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge (TIME)Hackers Expose Age-Verification Soft...
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Dr Blake Hallinan, Professor of Platform Studies in the Department of Media & Journalism Studies at Aarhus University. Together, they discuss: On Section 230’s 30th Birthday, A Look Back At Why It’s Such A Good Law And Why Messing With It Would Be Bad (Techdirt)An 18-Million-Subscriber YouTuber Just Explained Section 230 Better Than Every Politician In Washington (Techd...
In this special bonus for Ctrl-Alt-Speech listeners, we're cross-posting an episode from the Future Around And Find Out podcast hosted by Dan Blumberg with guest Kwaku Aning. This week Dan and Kwaku dig into: The uncanny valley that is AI agents and Moltbook—the "Reddit" that agents built for themselves to complain about humans, create a religion, and behave in ways that freak humans out Anthropic takes aim at OpenAI with a Super Bowl ad that's spicy (for cubs and cougars alik...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: House Judiciary Releases EU X Fine Details (House Judiciary X Account)New Report Exposes European Commission Decade-Long Campaign to Censor American Speech (House Judiciary Committee)X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok (BBC)Hey Gavin Newsom! Investigating TikTok’s Moderation Is Just As Unconstitutional As When Texas & Florida Tried I...
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by Konstantinos Komaitis, Senior Resident Fellow for Global and Democratic Governance at the Digital Forensics Research Lab (DFRLab) at the Atlantic Council. Together, they discuss: Who Owns TikTok in the U.S. Now? (NY Times)TikTok is investigating why some users can't write 'Epstein' in messages (NPR)TikTok users freak out over app’s ‘immigration status’ collection — here’s ...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: My year with a flip phone (Financial Times)Claude’s Constitution (Anthropic)From the CEO: What’s coming to YouTube in 2026 (Youtube)BBC to show programmes on YouTube in landmark deal (Financial Times)Rand Paul: I’ve changed my mind — Google and YouTube can’t be trusted to do the right thing and must be reined in (NY Post)Rand Paul Only Wants Google To Be The Arbiter Of ...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: UK, Canadian watchdogs press on with probes into Elon Musk's Grok chatbot (Reuters)Musk’s xAI limits Grok’s ability to create sexualized images of real people on X after backlash (CNBC)X claims it has stopped Grok from undressing people, but of course it hasn’t (The Verge)State Department Threatens UK Over Grok Investigation, Because Only The US Is Allowed To Ban Foreig...
In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw talks to Oversight Board co-chair Paolo Carozza (Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana) and Board member Julie Owono (Executive Director of Internet Without Borders and research affiliate at Berkman Klein Centre) about the Board’s five-year journey and its plans for the future. Together, Ben, Paolo and Julie discuss the Board’s recently published report, From Bold Experiment ...
In the first Ctrl-Alt-Speech episode of 2026, Mike and Ben look forward at the year ahead and begin building a bingo card of things that might happen. They discuss a short list of possible squares, ask for listeners to contribute more ideas, and go few a through suggestions that have already come in. Soon, we’ll release an official Ctrl-Alt-Speech bingo card for listeners to play along throughout the year. Follow Ben at Everything in Moderation and Mike at Techdirt. Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a week...
In the last Ctrl-Alt-Speech of the year, Mike and Ben round up the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation with the following stories: Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content | Global development (The Guardian)Facebook is testing a link-posting limit for professional accounts and pages (Techcrunch)Meta adopts new age-check system to meet global child safety laws (FT)Russian ban on Roblox gaming platform sparks rare protest (...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Resonant Computing Manifesto Support Techdirt’s Uncompromising Coverage, Get Our First Commemorative Coin (Techdirt)US Ambassador Slams EU Tech Rules as Musk’s X Hit With Fine (Bloomberg)Why the X fine is causing so much transatlantic drama (Politico)Tech workers face new H1-B scrutiny as Trump targets ‘censorship’ (Washington Post)H1-B visa advice (LinkedIn - Alic...
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Vaishnavi J, former head of youth policy at Meta and founder and principal of Vyanams Strategies, a product advisory firm that helps companies, civil society, and governments build safer age appropriate experiences. Prior to founding Vys, she led video policy at Twitter, built its safety team in APAC and was Google's child safety polciy lead in APAC. Together Ben and Vaishn...
In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw speaks with George Vlasto, head of the Trust & Safety division at Resolver, as the organisation marks its 20th anniversary. Their conversation looks back at two decades of Resolver’s work supporting platforms and safeguarding online communities, and explores how that legacy has shaped its newest innovations. Ben and George dig into Resolver’s unique approach to scaling the detection of Child Sexual Abuse Material (C...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Meta wins FTC antitrust trial over Instagram, WhatsApp deals (CNBC)Commission eyes further simplification of tech rules after DSA review (Euractiv)Inside Europe's 'Jekyll and Hyde' tech strategy (Digital Policy)NetChoice sues Virginia to block its one-hour social media limit for kids (The Verge)Tech Giants Sue California Over Social Media Access Law (2) (Bloomberg Law)T...
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Kenji Yoshino, who has the excellent title of Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and the Director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. Kenji is also a member of the Oversight Board. Together Ben and Kenji discuss: ‘Andrew Tate is dead’: inside the minds of 16-year-olds (The Observer)Introdu...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: It’s Cool to Have No Followers Now (New Yorker)Introducing Safe for Work? — all about T&S jobs (Everything in Moderation*)Kids Turn Podcast Comments Into Secret Chat Rooms, Because Of Course They Do (Techdirt)Reddit and Kick added to child social media ban (ABC News)X boss explains why ‘horrific’ video viewed by Axel Rudakubana wasn’t removed (The Independent)Southp...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Character.AI is banning minors from AI character chats (Financial Times)Strengthening ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive conversations (OpenAI)Senators propose banning teens from using AI chatbots (The Verge)EU accuses Meta, TikTok of breaching digital rules (Politico) Meta and TikTok are obstructing researchers’ access to data, European Commission rules (Science.org...
In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Wikipedia Volunteers Avert Tragedy by Taking Down Gunman at Conference (New York Times)AI-Generated Content a Triple Threat for Reddit Moderators (Cornell Tech)Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors (404 Media)As social media age restrictions spread, is the internet entering its Victorian era? (The Conversation)Winning with misinformation: Ne...
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