Look What The Chat Dragged In

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: The group chats that changed America (Semafor) Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy Is Done. Powerful Conservatives Are Listening (New York Times) Meta faces Ghana lawsuits over impact of extreme content on moderators (The Guardian) Social media moderators’ lives are getting worse. Big Tech needs to take responsibility (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) Meta’s ‘Digital Companions’ Will Talk Sex With Users—Even Children (Wall Street Journal) Kids should avoid AI companion bots—under force of law, assessment says (CalMatters) I'm a mom who works in tech, and AI scares me. I taught my daughter these simple guidelines to spot fake content (Business Insider) Playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with Meta over my fraudulent avatars (Financial Times) Meta slowest to remove scam content, says City watchdog (The Guardian) This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Modulate. In our Bonus Chat, we speak with Modulate CEO Mike Pappas about the evolving landscape of online fraud and how the company’s work detecting abuse in gaming environments is helping identify financial misconduct across different types of digital platforms. 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).