The Tech Policy Press Podcast

This was a landmark week for tech accountability in US courts. Juries in New Mexico and California delivered verdicts finding tech giants Meta and Google liable for harms to young users on their platforms, decisions that are projected to open the door to more lawsuits alleging that social media creates addiction or endangers kids.Today’s guest sees these developments as positive and in line with the types of thinking he believes will help improve the internet. Olivier Sylvain is a professor at Fordham Law School and the author of a new book titled Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back, published by Columbia Global Reports. Justin Hendrix interviewed him at Book Culture, a bookstore on 112th Street in New York City.

AI hype is everywhere, and the CEOs of many tech firms are promising that the tech will soon eclipse human intelligence. The trillions in investment towards this goal and the massive deployment of capital and the human and natural resources it purchases both requires this kind of hype and causes it to compound. Today’s guests are studying this phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, building out a line of inquiry they call "Hype Studies." It's the subject of an occasional series of contributions to Tech Policy Press. Guests include:Jascha Bareis, a postdoctoral political scientist at the University of Fribourg;Andreu Belsunces Gonçalves, a sociologist of design and technology pursuing a PhD at the Tecnopolítica unit of the Open University of Catalonia;Marché Arends, a South African independent investigative journalist.

Across the world, governments and other institutions are racing to apply artificial intelligence in countless ways. In a draft paper forthcoming in the UC Law Journal titled "How AI Destroys Institutions," Boston University law professors Woodrow Hartzog and Jessica Silbey argue that the design of AI systems—from large language models to predictive and automated decision tools—is fundamentally incompatible with the civic institutions that hold democratic society together, including the rule of law, universities, a free press, and civic life itself. This isn't necessarily because AI is being misused or falling into the wrong hands, they say—in most instances AI is working exactly as intended and, in doing so, eroding the expertise, decision-making structures, and human connection that give institutions their legitimacy.

Early this year, following the deaths of Keith Porter, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents and the violent immigration raids on communities across the United States, 1,500 Google workers signed a new petition demanding the company cut contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).Justin Hendrix spoke to two of the employees who signed the petition about why they signed it, the environment inside the company, and how they think about the risk they face for speaking out.

Online fraud has become one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises on the planet. Deepfake fraud cases are surging, and Deloitte analysts project that generative AI-driven banking fraud alone could climb to roughly as much as $40 billion in the US alone by 2027.The problem is not just the volume. It's the architecture. These are no longer opportunistic scams—they are industrialized, AI-assisted operations, and the synthetic media tools that power them are becoming cheaper and more convincing by the month.A new report on deepfake financial fraud from Data & Society maps this threat. Justin Hendrix spoke to its authors, including:Alice Marwick, director of research at Data & Society, andAnya Schiffrin, co-director of the tech policy and innovation concentration at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Today's guest has spent thirty years on the front lines of one of the defining battles at the intersection of technology and democracy: privacy and the fight for who controls your digital life. Cindy Cohn is the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and she has been in the room for some of the most consequential fights over digital rights since the internet became part of everyday life—from fighting for encryption in the 90s, to the NSA mass surveillance revelations, to battling FBI gag orders that kept Americans in the dark about government data requests, and now for the fight against the grave civil rights and privacy abuses of the Trump administration.Now, as she’s preparing to step down from her role at EFF, she's telling her story, and trying to recruit a new generation to the fight. Her new book, Privacy's Defender, out March 10 from MIT Press, weaves her personal journey with the legal battles she's fought on behalf of whistleblowers, researchers, innovators, and everyday people.

In their new book, Move Slow and Upgrade: The Power of Incremental Innovation, Evan Selinger, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology and Albert Fox Cahn, founder in residence of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), argue that society is over-fixated on disruptive innovation over the kind of steady incrementalism that can deliver sustainable returns over longer time frames. They argue in favor of more careful deliberation and adopting what they call the “upgrader’s mindset,” which should be applied whenever “disruptive changes would pose the greatest social risk.”

The Pentagon wants AI that can fight wars — without limits. One of the United States’ leading AI companies says there are lines it won't cross. And this week, that standoff turned into an all-out confrontation. To discuss the implications of the dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon, including the determination that the company represents a supply chain risk, Justin Hendrix spoke to two experts:Kat Duffy, senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, andAmos Toh, senior counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Concerns about synthetic media and coordinated manipulation of online platforms have moved from theoretical worry to documented reality. Researchers, regulators, and civil society organizations are working to understand how algorithmically driven content recommendation systems can be exploited — not just by ideologically motivated actors, but by ordinary users pursuing financial gain.Fundación Maldita.es is a Spanish nonprofit that has been working on information integrity and fact-checking since 2017. Its most recent investigation focuses on TikTok, and what they found raises pointed questions about the platform's creator monetization program. Researchers at Maldita documented a network of hundreds of accounts — spanning eighteen countries — that were producing AI-generated videos of protests that never happened, and doing so not out of any discernible political motive, but to accumulate followers, qualify for TikTok's revenue-sharing program, and, in some cases, sell the accounts outright. In this episode, Justin Hendrix is joined by Maldita associate director for public policy Carlos Hernández-Echevarría and public policy officer Marina Sacristán.

As AI technologies proliferate, a growing number of people are asking what it means to live in a world dominated by algorithms and automated systems—and what gets lost when those systems optimize human behavior at scale. These questions sit at the intersection of political theory, technology policy, and everyday life, and they are drawing scholars from fields well outside computer science into the conversation.José Marichal is a political scientist at California Lutheran University who has been writing and teaching about technology and politics for more than two decades. Marichal's new book, You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem: Renegotiating the Socio-Technical Contract, considers the age of recommendation systems and large language models. Drawing on political philosophy, he argues that individuals have entered into an implicit bargain with technology companies, trading unpredictability and novelty for the convenience of algorithmically curated experience. The consequences of that bargain, he contends, reach beyond personal preference and into the foundations of liberal democratic citizenship.

This week marks the second DSA and Platform Regulation conference in Amsterdam, where experts will convene to consider the Digital Services Act (DSA) two years after it entered full effect across the European Union. Over that period, the law has been tested by national elections, geopolitical tensions, high-profile enforcement actions, and the rapid rise of generative AI. It has become both a benchmark for platform accountability and a political lightning rod.Ahead of the conference, Tech Policy Press senior editor Ramsha Jahangir spoke with members of the DSA Observatory, which is organizing the conference, to take stock. What have these first years of enforcement clarified? Where does opacity remain? And what does it mean to conduct DSA research in today’s political climate? Guests include:John Albert, associate researcher, DSA Observatory.Paddy Leerssen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam and part of the DSA Observatory.Magdelena Jozwiak, associate researcher at the DSA Observatory.

A wave of lawsuits in the Unites States is targeting tech firms for their product design decisions. Lawyer Carrie Goldberg has played a role in establishing the product liability theory that underlies them. As the founder of C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, in 2017, her firm brought a lawsuit that sought to apply product liability theory to a tech platform — Herrick v. Grindr — arguing that a dangerous app design, not just user behavior, was the source of harm. In 2022, Goldberg was appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the federal social media multidistrict litigation. She’s led cases against Amazon, Meta, and Omegle, has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on child safety issues, and is the author of Nobody's Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls. Justin Hendrix spoke to her from her offices in Brooklyn about what she's learned over the last decade, and about some ongoing litigation that remains in dispute.

"Operation Metro Surge" — the massive immigration enforcement operation playing out right now in Minnesota — was billed as a targeted effort to apprehend undocumented immigrants. But what it has exposed goes far beyond immigration enforcement. It has pulled back the curtain on a sprawling surveillance apparatus that incorporates artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and other novel tools — not just to enable the raids that have turned violent and, in some cases, deadly; but also to silence dissent, to intimidate entire communities, and to discourage people from even watching what masked federal agents are doing in their own neighborhoods.To discuss these events and the prospects for reform, Justin Hendrix spoke to Irna Landrum, a senior campaigner at Kairos Fellowship and author of a recent piece on Tech Policy Press, "How ICE Uses AI to Automate Authoritarianism," and Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, vice president for the Center for Civil Rights and Technology at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which has called for reforms at the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies.

In his forthcoming book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You, George Washington University Law School professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson explores how the rise of sensor-driven technologies, social media monitoring, and artificial intelligence can be weaponized against democratic values and personal freedoms. Smart cars, smart homes, smart watches—these devices track our most private activities, and that data can be accessed by police and prosecutors looking for incriminating clues. What should legislatures, courts, and individuals do to protect civil liberties?

The killing of 37-year old nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis was filmed from multiple angles by residents of the city, and local government officials have implored the public to share evidence of immigration enforcement agents committing acts of violence with investigators. But what are the challenges of using such artifacts in the pursuit of accountability? And what is there to learn from other efforts to use video, including from social media platforms, as evidence when seeking justice for crimes by state actors? Inequality.org managing editor and Tech Policy Press fellow Chris Mills Rodrigo joins Justin Hendrix to discuss these questions and more.

Today's guest is Jennifer Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth, a fellow at Chatham House London, and the author of the new book Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny, just out from Cornell Press. The book introduces the concept of 'smart authoritarianism,' a strategy that seeks to preserve political dominance while minimizing the economic damage of repression. It’s a sharp and unsettling argument—and one that is worth considering as a wave of autocratization continues to sweep across the globe, increasingly enabled by new technologies.

In a forthcoming paper, George Washington University Law School scholar Spencer Overton argues that the Trump administration's AI policy is consistent with its broader efforts to advance ethnonationalism. By eliminating policies intended to ensure safeguards against algorithmic bias—and recasting work on such problems as ideological threats to innovation—Trump's policies embed exclusion into the technological infrastructure of the future. As a growing body of research suggests, when AI systems operate without regulation, they default to dominant patterns that reproduce racial inequality and suppress cultural pluralism.

A new book titled Governing Digital China offers crucial insights into China's governance ecosystem. Written by Daniela Stockmann, a professor at the Hertie School in Berlin and director of the Center for Digital Governance, and Ting Luo, an associate professor in artificial intelligence and government at the University of Birmingham, the book reveals a more complex reality than simple top-down control.The authors show how massive tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba have become essential partners to the Chinese state, blending corporate and government power. At the same time, citizens exercise bottom-up influence, shaping how both platforms and the state respond to their needs. The result is what the authors call "popular corporatism"—a form of digital authoritarianism that operates quite differently than you might expect.