The Tech Policy Press Podcast

Danielle Citron is the inaugural Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches and writes about information privacy, free expression and civil rights. She is the vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit devoted to fighting for civil rights and liberties in the digital age, and in 2019 she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on cyberstalking and intimate privacy. Her latest book, The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age, published by W.W. Norton and Penguin Vintage UK, was released this month.

In this episode of the podcast, we present two segments that explore how the combination of media, platforms, politics and people play out in Latino communities in the U.S., particularly at crucial moments for democracy, such as at election time. The first segment is with individuals who are leading efforts to understand and confront mis- and disinformation targeting Latino communities:Roberta Braga, Director of Counter-Disinformation Strategies at EquisJaime Longoria, Manager of Research and Training for the Disinfo Defense League at Media Democracy Fund.And the second segment is a discussion with two researchers at the University of Texas at Austin who spent the summer talking specifically to Latino users of WhatsApp about how the political discourse plays out in their communities on that widely used messaging app, and wrote about it for Tech Policy Press as part of a special series of essays on race, ethnicity, technology and elections:Inga Kristina Trauthig, Ph.D., Research Manager of the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas at AustinKayo Mimizuka, Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Media Engagement and a Ph.D. student in the School of Journalism and Media at The University of Texas at Austin.

In recent episodes of this podcast we’ve explored the policies and practices of the social media platforms with regard to elections. In this week’s episode, we’ll hear two segments on this theme. First, an interview with Daniel Kriess, an Associate Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a principal researcher at the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. With Ph.D candidate Erik Brooks, Daniel is the author of Looking to the Midterms: The State of Platform Policies on U.S. Political Speech, a recent post at Tech Policy Press.In the second segment, we zoom out and discuss the trajectory of tech company policies on elections over the last twenty six years with Katie Harbath and Collier Fernekes, authors of a recent report for the Bipartisan Policy Center that was based on an archive of public announcements made by the firms. Katie is a former Facebook public policy director and now leads Anchor Change, a consultancy she started after leaving the tech company. Collier is a research analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Earlier this year, an investigation published in the New Yorker by Ronan Farrow suggested that commercial spyware called Pegasus, developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is being used by governments in at least 45 countries around the world, including by U.S. and European intelligence and law enforcement services. The technology permits government agents to gain access to the contents of cell phones by exploiting flaws in device operating systems and software. In this episode, we hear from three individuals in Bangkok, Thailand; pro-democracy activists who have seen their community targeted with Pegasus, part of a range of activities intended to discourage dissent and limit free expression:Yingcheep Atchanont, a program manager at iLawRuchapong Chamjirachaikul, advocacy officer at iLawDarika Bamrungchok, a program manager at Thai Netizen

Regular users of social media platforms are well aware that they often produce toxic discourse. Scholars continue to produce results that bring clarity to the mechanisms by which digital and social media exacerbate partisan and identity-based conflict. A better understanding is crucial for keying in on what platforms should be held responsible for, devising better policy, and potentially designing solutions. A new peer-reviewed paper from Petter Törnberg, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, contributes to this understanding by developing a computational model that “suggests that digital media polarize through partisan sorting, creating a maelstrom in which more and more identities, beliefs, and cultural preferences become drawn into an all-encompassing societal division.” 

Last week, President Joe Biden’s White House published a 73-page document produced by the Office of Science and Technology Policy titled Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work for the American People. The White House says that “among the great challenges posed to democracy today is the use of technology, data, and automated systems in ways that threaten the rights of the American public.“ The Blueprint, then, is “a guide for a society that protects all people from these threats—and uses technologies in ways that reinforce our highest values.”To discuss the blueprint and the broader context into which it was introduced, Tech Policy Press spoke to one expert who had a hand in writing it, and one external observer who follows these issues closely. Joining the discussion are Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a professor of computer science and data science and director of the Data Science Initiative at Brown University, who recently completed a 15-month appointment as an advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Alex Engler, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he researches algorithms and policy.

Some of the most controversial debates over speech and content moderation on social media platforms are now due for consideration in the Supreme Court. Last month, Florida’s attorney general asked the Court to decide whether states have the right to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their services, after Florida and Texas passed laws that challenge practices of tech firms that lawmakers there regard as anti-democratic. And this month, the Supreme Court decided to hear two cases that will have bearing on interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally provides platforms with immunity from legal liability for user generated content. To talk about these various developments, Justin Hendrix spoke to three people covering these issues closely. Guests include:Brandie Nonnecke, Director of the CITRIS Policy Lab at UC Berkeley and the Director of Our Better WebJameel Jaffer, Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia UniversityWill Oremus, a news analysis writer focused on tech and society at The Washington PostThe guests also made time to discuss Elon Musk’s on-again, off-again pursuit of Twitter, which appears to be on-again, and how his potential acquisition of the company relates to the broader debate around speech and moderation issues. 

On September 21, Justin Hendrix moderated a panel discussion for the McCourt Institute at a pre-conference spotlight session on digital governance ahead of Unfinished Live, a conference on tech and society issues hosted at The Shed in New York City. The topic given by the organizers was Digital Governance and the State of Democracy: Why Does it Matter? Panelist included:  Erik Brynjolfsson, the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) and Director of the Stanford Digital Economy LabMaggie Little, Director of the Ethics Lab at Georgetown UniversityEli Pariser, Co-Director of New_Public, an initiative focused on developing better digital public spaces; andEric Salobir, the Chair of the Executive Committee, Human Technology Foundation, a research and action network placing the human being at the heart of technology development

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that concern whether tech platforms can be held liable for user generated content, as well as for content that users see because of a platform’s algorithmic systems. In deciding to hear Gonzalez et al vs. Google and Taamneh, Mehier et al vs Twitter et al, the Court will broach the question of whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be narrowed, and whether it still immunizes the owners of websites when that algorithmically “recommend” third-party content into a user’s feed.To learn more about these cases and the potential implications of the Court’s decision, Tech Policy Press spoke to an expert on tech and internet law: Anupam Chander, the Scott K. Ginsberg Professor of Law and Technology at Georgetown University.

The former President and his supporters continue to sow doubt in the outcome of the 2020 election, and in the election system more generally. Now, with the the 2022 midterm elections just a month away, a number of observers are perplexed at the posture of large social media platforms, where false claims continue to fester and efforts to mitigate misinformation always seem puny compared to the scale of the problem. This week we hear from three experts who are following these issues closely: Nora Benavidez, Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights, Free PressPaul Barrett, Deputy Director, Center for Business & Human Rights, NYU Stern School of BusinessMike Caulfield, Research Scientist at the Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington

In a new paper-- "The uselessness of AI Ethics," published in the online edition of the journal AI and Ethics, Luke Munn, points to over 80 lists of AI ethical principles produced by governments, corporations, research groups and professional societies. In is paper, he expresses concern that most of these ethics statements deal in vague terms and lack any kind of actual enforcement. But in critiquing attempts at defining an ethical code for AI, he is not suggesting we let the technology develop in a technical vacuum. On the contrary, he wants us to think more deeper about the potential problems in deploying AI. In this episode of the podcast, Mark Hansen, Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and a professor at Columbia Journalism School, speaks with Munn about his ideas, which are part of a growing movement that sees the problems with AI less in purely computational terms, but instead as an area of social science.

As content moderation and other trust and safety issues have been, to put it mildly, at the fore of tech concerns over the last few years, it’s interesting to take a step back and look at the various conferences, professional organizations and research communities that have emerged to address this broad and challenging set of subjects. To get a sense of where trust and safety is as a field at this moment in time, Tech Policy Press spoke to three individuals involved in it, each coming from different perspectives:Shelby Grossman, a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory and a leader in the community of academic researchers studying trust and safety issues as co-editor of the recently launched Journal of Online Trust and SafetyDavid Sullivan, the leader of an industry funded consortium focused on developing best practices for the field called the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership; andJeff Allen, co-founder and chief research officer of an independent membership organization of trust and safety professionals, the Integrity Institute.

A series of reports published this summer by Article 19- working with UNESCO and with funding from the European Union- take an in-depth look at how social media platforms operate in a global context, documenting a lack of understanding of cultural nuances and local languages, insufficient mechanisms for users and civil society groups to engage on moderation, a lack of transparency, and a power asymmetry that leaves local actors feeling powerless.To learn more about the project and its recommendations, in this episode we hear from four individuals involved in the drafting of the reports:Pierre François Docquir, Head of Media Freedom, ARTICLE 19, who led the project globally;Roberta Taveri, an ARTICLE 19 program officer who played a role in delivering the research on Bosnia and Herzegovina;Catherine Muya from ARTICLE 19 East Africa, who focused on Kenya, andSherly Haristya, PhD, an independent researcher who conducted the research on Indonesia.

In this episode of the Tech Policy Press podcast, we’re going to explore how law enforcement and other government agencies in the United States acquire data drawn from commercial data brokers for investigative purposes, and the questions raised by these practices.This is an issue that is still at question in the nation’s courts and is under active discussion on Capitol Hill. For instance, this summer the House Judiciary Committee hosted a hearing it titled Digital Dragnets: Examining the Government's Access to Your Personal Data. At the hearing, experts witnesses testified that government agencies at all levels, including federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Defense (DOD), as well as state and local law enforcement are collecting a massive amount of personal data on American citizens, sidestepping constitutional protections against unwarranted search and seizure provided in the Fourth Amendment. The hearing included discussion of the proposed Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act, which would restrict government entities from engaging in such practices.But while the courts and Congress deliberate, government agencies are acquiring this information from software providers, including one such firm that was the subject of a recent investigative report from the Associated Press titled Tech tool offers police ‘mass surveillance on a budget. Today, I’m joined by the two reporters who spent months trying to understand how a little known company in Virginia goes about acquiring commercially available data and selling it to police in departments across the country- global investigative journalist Garance Burke and national investigative reporter Jason Dearen.

it is well understood that for all the shortcomings of the tech platforms’ approach to elections in this country, it’s much worse abroad, where often language and cultural barriers combine with fewer political and business incentives for firms such as Meta, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok to properly resource elections. Now, just weeks before a general election in Brazil that will decide that country’s next President, there are signs that disinformation is rife on the platforms, with many observers concerned about the potential for violence. To learn more, Justin Hendrix spoke to two experts involved in efforts to identify and mitigate disinformation in Brazil: João Brant, coordinator of desinformante, an initiative of the nonprofit Ponteio Comunicação, Information and Culture and the Instituto Cultura e Democracia in Brazil, and Flora Rebello Arduini, Campaigns Director at SumOfUs, a global activist community that seeks to curb the growing power of corporations.

A common theme on this podcast is the future, and the visions of the future that a certain set of Silicon Valley tech and venture accelerationists are working hard to advance. Today we’re going to hear from author and scholar Douglas Rushkoff about his latest book-Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires- which lampoons and deflates these characters, offering instead a humanist approach to defining the future by how we comport ourselves in the present.

This episode features a conversation with Bloomberg journalist Mark Bergen. He’s the author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination, from Viking. This is a business book, a history, and a contemplation of YouTube’s role in society all in one. Bergen explores how the company evolved into the massive juggernaut it is today, and along the way gives insight into concerning phenomena that we’ve discussed on this podcast in the past, such as the relationship between YouTube and violent extremism, misogyny, racism, white nationalism and a variety of other ills. The book pulls the curtain back on the internal dynamics and decisions that bring us to today. And it asks us to contemplate whether anyone- from Google’s leadership to regulators in any of the world’s governments- can truly get their heads or hands around YouTube. 

The Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research initiative of the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability, is focused on holding major tech companies to account– including Meta, the company that operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. For instance, TTP collected what it calls Facebook’s ‘broken promises’ on issues ranging from bullying and harassment to fraud and deception to violence and incitement. A new report released this month, Facebook Profits from White Supremacist Groups, says the company is “failing to remove white supremacist groups and is often profiting from searches for them on its platform,” exposing how it “fosters and benefits from domestic extremism.” To hear more about the findings in the report, Tech Policy Press spoke to Katie Paul, TTP’s Director.

In last Sunday’s podcast, I promised an occasional series of discussions on the relationship between social media, message apps and election mis- and disinformation. In today’s show, I’m joined by two guests who just did a deep dive into the issue, producing a 'score card' that compares the policies and performance of the tech companies on multiple dimensions for New America’s Open Technology Institute:Spandana (Spandi) Singh, a policy analyst at New America's Open Technology Institute, andQuinn Anex-Ries, a PhD candidate in American Studies at USC and an intern with the Open Technology Institute this summer.Their findings are summarized in a report, Misleading Information and the Midterms: How Platforms are Addressing Misinformation and Disinformation Ahead of the 2022 U.S. Elections. 

A little more than a year ago, a coalition of multidisciplinary researchers at Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia set out to crowd source ideas to address the political divide in what was dubbed the Strengthening Democracy Challenge. “Anti-democratic attitudes and support for political violence are at alarming levels in the US," said Robb Willer, Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and Professor of Sociology at Stanford, at the time of the announcement. "We view this project as a chance to identify efficacious interventions, and also to deepen our understanding of the forces shaping these political sentiments.”After reviewing more than 250 submissions from researchers, activists and others, the research coalition selected 25 interventions it deemed most promising to test against one another in an "experimental tournament" utilizing a sample of 31,000 U.S. adults. To learn more about the challenge, some of the promising projects that emerged from it, and whether tech platforms may play a role in efforts to address polarization, I spoke to Willer and his colleague, Jan Gerrit Voelkel, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University and also a member of the Polarization and Social Change Lab.

With the U.S. midterm election cycle about to kick into high gear, social media platforms are announcing updates to their civic integrity policies and approaches to countering election mis- and disinformation.In this week's podcast, we hear from election administrators themselves about the impact of election misinformation. This is the first in an occasional series Tech Policy Press will publish this fall on social media and election integrity. This episode draws audio from a panel discussion hosted by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform on August 11, 2022, that took place on the occasion of the publication of a majority staff report on the problem of election disinformation.