Ctrl-Alt-Speech

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 (Techdirt)
Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally (Discord)
Media Literacy Parent's study (GOV.UK)
EU says TikTok must disable ‘addictive’ features like infinite scroll, fix its recommendation engine (Techcrunch)
We Didn’t Ask for This Internet with Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow (The New York Times)
Despite Meta’s ban, Fidesz candidates successfully posted 162 political ads on Facebook in January 9 (Lakmusz.hu)
Claude’s Constitution Needs a Bill of Rights and Oversight (Oversight Board)
Account Closed Without Notice: Debanking Adult Industry Workers in Canada (ResearchGate)
Play along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card and get in touch if you win!
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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 alike) 
We read Claude's "Constitution" and ask: Should AI do what you ask it to do—or what it thinks you really want long-term? 
Why Dan switched from OpenAI to Claude (and what he learned about tone, capability, and custom projects) 
OpenAI scrambles; the market stumbles; Jensen Huang acts like Sam Altman is "just someone I used to know" 
How AEO (AI Engine Optimization) becomes critical in an AI-agent world—and what that means for brand, marketing, and search 
Why social media is already past (dark social won) 
Elon's pivot to humanoid robots, data centers in space, and other cool things we definitely need 
Are we setting higher ethical standards for machines than for tech leaders? 
Subscribe to FAFO wherever you get your podcasts, or at futurearound.com
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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 It (Techdirt)
Spain Aims to Ban Social Media for Children Under 16, Prime Minister Says (NY Times)
TikTok Keyword Analysis (LinkedIn)
Why newsrooms are taking comments seriously again (New_ Public)
Whoops, Websites Realize That Killing Their Comment Sections Was A Mistake (Techdirt)
Play along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card!
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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 what it means (TechCrunch)
TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes (Wired)
Social network UpScrolled sees surge in downloads following TikTok’s US takeover (TechCrunch)
Europe votes to tackle deep dependence on US tech in sovereignty drive (Computerworld)
Meta hides followers and following lists for users based in Iran (Iran International)
Iran’s internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only (Rest of World)
The ‘Social Media Addiction’ Narrative May Be More Harmful Than Social Media Itself (Techdirt)
Payment processors were against CSAM until Grok started making it (The Verge)
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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 Truth When The Videos Are About Him (Techdirt)
Roskomnadzor Denies Reports That It’s Throttling Telegram Over Content Moderation Disputes (Moscow Times)
Europeans set to launch an alternative to X. It’s called W (Cybernews)
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at [email protected] and sponsorship enquiries to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.