Ctrl-Alt-Speech

Latest Episodes:

Moderating is Such Sweet Sorrow Oct 01, 2025

Show notes

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike is joined by Dave Willner, founder of Zentropi, and long-time trust & safety expert who worked at Facebook, AirBnB, and OpenAI in Trust & Safety roles. Together they discuss:

Masnick's Impossibility Theorem: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible To Do Well (Techdirt)
UK makes new attempt to access Apple cloud data (Financial Times)
Imgur pulls out of UK after data regulator warns of fines (TechCrunch)
Leaked Meta guidelines show how it trains AI chatbots to respond to child sexual exploitation prompts (Business Insider)
OpenAI's Sora joins Meta in pushing AI-generated videos. Some are worried about a flood of 'AI slop' (ABC News)
Flights in Afghanistan grounded after internet shutdown (BBC)

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).

From 'Free Speech' To 'Flag This' Sep 18, 2025

Show notes

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

How platforms are responding to the Charlie Kirk shooting (The Verge)
Bluesky Issues Warning to Any Users Celebrating Charlie Kirk Assassination (Newsweek)
Right-Wing Activists Are Targeting People for Allegedly Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Death (Wired)
Charlie Kirk Was Shot and Killed in a Post-Content-Moderation World (Wired)
Has Britain Gone Too Far With Its Digital Controls? (New York Times)
The Censorship Alarm Is Ringing in the Wrong Direction (Public Knowledge)
We now know who the new owners of TikTok will be - if Trump gets his deal done with Xi (CNN)
Nepal’s Social Media Ban Backfires as Politics Moves to a Chat Room (New York Times)

It's a Banned, Banned, Banned, Banned World Sep 11, 2025

Show notes

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Nepal to block some social media including Facebook (Reuters)
Why Nepal Banned 26 Social Media Platforms And What It Means (Medianama)
A parliament in flames, a leader toppled. Nepal’s Gen-Z protesters ask: What comes next? (CNN)
When Trolls Take On Tyrants: 4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over Extraterritorial Censorship (Techdirt)
Wikipedia is resilient because it's boring (The Verge)
Former Meta employees say they saw child abuse in VR before company blocked research (NBC News)
Mark Zuckerberg sues Mark Zuckerberg (Techcrunch)

The Haidt of Hypocrisy Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Jordan escalates global tech argument, with Farage's help (Politico)
Farage’s rules for free speech: talk about anything but your lunch (The Times)
Is Jonathan Haidt right about smartphones? (TES)
My mom and Dr. DeepSeek (Rest of World)
AI 'deadbots' are persuasive — and researchers say they're primed for monetization (NPR)
OpenAI co-founder calls for AI labs to safety-test rival models (TechCrunch)
Privacy-Preserving Age Verification—and Its Limitations (Steven M. Bellovin)

You Asked, We Answered Aug 21, 2025

Show notes

This is the second of our special episodes for the month of August. Last time, we talked a bit about the past and future of Ctrl-Alt-Speech; this time, Mike and Ben answer some questions from our listeners, and also share a few of the latest reviews. We're taking one more week off after this, then we'll be back in the first week of September with a return to our regular weekly news roundups!

What's Next for Ctrl-Alt-Speech Aug 07, 2025

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We're taking a little break from our regular weekly news roundups this month, but we've got a couple special episodes lined up in the mean time, starting with a conversation all about the past and future of Ctrl-Alt-Speech. This week, Mike and Ben talk about how the podcast 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 hope you enjoy it!

Live at TrustCon 2025 Jul 24, 2025

Show notes

Our second annual live at TrustCon recording of Ctrl-Alt-Speech! Ben was unable to make the trip halfway around the world, but Mike was joined by trust & safety influencer Alice Hunsberger from Musubi and Ashken Kazaryan, a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University. They cover:

As millions adopt Grok to fact-check, misinformation abounds (Al Jazeera)
Analysis Of Grok’s Epstein Comments Show How This AI Chatbot Is Learning (Forbes)
People With Body Dysmorphia Are Spiraling Out After Asking AI to Rate Their Looks (Rolling Stone)
Can A Chatbot Be Your Therapist? Casper’s Neil Parikh Launches A New $93 Million-Backed Startup To Try (Forbes)
A Realist Perspective on Trust & Safety (Tech Policy Press)

This week’s sponsor is Modulate. In our bonus chat Mike Masnick talks with Modulate founder and CEO Mike Pappas, live at TrustCon, about the kinds of voice scams they’re seeing, with a focus on scams using social engineering techniques to pressure people to do things they probably shouldn’t do.

The UK Wants Us To Ask Your Age Before You Listen Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise (404 Media)
Hugging Face Is Hosting 5,000 Nonconsensual AI Models of Real People (404 Media)
Ofcom head says age checks are ‘really big moment’ for children’s online safety (The Guardian)
New online safety rules not 'the end of the conversation', says minister (BBC)
Commission’s guidelines for online child safety target platforms of all sizes (Euractiv)
I met the sextortion scammers destroying young lives for £1 a day (The Times)
“Why me?” On shame, self-blame, and feeling so. damn. Stupid. (Blockparty)
If It Breaks Wikipedia, It’s Probably Bad Policy (InternetExchange)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund and by our sponsor, the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership. In our bonus chat Mike talks with DTSP Executive Director David Sullivan to talk about their new Safe Framework Specification, which is an official ISO standard (available for free download) which will help everyone better understand best practices and concepts around online trust & safety work.