Become a Ctrl-Alt-Speech supporter to get extended episodes of the podcast plus the chance to submit stories for us to cover.

In this week’s episode, Mike is joined by Mike McCue, founder and CEO of Flipboard, and a long term Silicon Valley exec and entrepreneur. Together, they discuss:

• Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots (TechCrunch)
• Publishers call on Andy Burnham to crack down on AI stealth bots (The Times)
• Drone Strikes Didn’t Take Out a Russian Bot Farm, But We Were Primed to Believe It (Mother Jones)
• TikTok Quietly Gutted Its Advertising Rules. Scams Have Exploded Ever Since (Forbes)
• Trump Vowed to Wall Off TikTok From China. Did He? (Politico)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• Florida wins key ruling allowing it to enforce a law that targets social media use by kids (AP)
• Eleventh Circuit Says Cliffhangers Are ‘Features,’ Not Speech, As It Greenlights Florida’s Social Media Age Gate (Techdirt)

Our fun links this week include Steve Job’s prescient 1983 speech and TinyLittleOffice which is an office suite where documents are stored in the URL themselves.

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

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).

In this week's episode, Mike and Ben cover:

• The Official Sonic Discord Server’s Launch Went About As Poorly As You’d Expect (Kotaku)
• Vladimir Putin's Forkiverse (Search Engine)
• They trade child sex abuse material. They find each other on TikTok (Prospect)
• Meta rolls out new AI tools to detect ads that secretly lead to child sexual abuse material (TechCrunch)
• TikTok gave teens, children placebo safety feature in experiment, New York alleges (Reuters)
• DNS Resolver Quad9 Rejects French Piracy Blocks, Weighs Exit as beIN Seeks Up to €580K a Day (TorrentFreak)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• EU drops sponsorship of disinformation conference at Trump officials’ request (The Guardian)
• EEAS runs scared of US 'disinformation' debate (Rapporteur)
• Canada drops sponsorship of conference that cites U.S. as foreign-interference actor (The Globe and Mail)

Our fun links this week include the Job Trail game and Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft City.

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

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).

Become a Ctrl-Alt-Speech supporter to get extended episodes of the podcast plus the chance to submit stories for us to cover.

In this week’s episode, Ben is joined by Katie Harbath, Meta’s former director of public policy for global elections and now founder of technology policy firm Anchor Change. She is also the author of Disrupting Politics, out on Tuesday. Together they discuss:

• TSE (Brazil Election Commission) clarifies rules on deepfakes in the 2026 elections (O Diário do Paraná)
• AI tools keep recommending candidates, monitoring finds (Tribuna Livre Brasil)
• On Eve of Brazil Elections, Meta Content Moderation Decisions Raise Questions (Tech Policy Press)
• Deepfakes, foreign-run accounts and unauthorised ads, new research exposes Meta's Brazil election ad machine (Ekō)
• Social media ban for under-16s to come into effect next March, Culture Secretary confirms (LBC)
• Trump says top tech firms have signed accord to 'self-police' AI development (NPR)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• Meta-Led Anti-Terrorism Group Faces Mass Resignation of Expert Advisers (WIRED)
• Meta to report child abuse material directly to Indian authorities (BBC)
• Some NPR podcasts started getting mysterious comments on Spotify (Instagram)
• Content Moderation Knowledge Sharing Shouldn't Be A Backdoor To Cross-Platform Censorship (Techdirt)
• J.M. Berger on resigning from GIFCT’s Independent Advisory Committee (Bluesky)
• Mark: A journey to the heart of history’s largest nonterritorial empire (Colossus)

Our fun links this week include legal-walls.net for all your legal graffiti questions and, courtesy of Katmai National Park in Alaska, Fat Bear Week.

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky.

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).