Description
Tech Policy Press is a nonprofit media and community venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. The Sunday Show is its podcast.
You can find us at https://techpolicy.press/, where you can join the newsletter.
Episodes
- 2025 / 2 / 2The Dangerous Combination of Technology and CapitalismJustin Hendrix speaks with Jathan Sadowski, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; co-host of This Machine Kills, a weekly podcast on...
- 2025 / 1 / 28DeepSeek Prompts a RethinkIf Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s efficiency and performance achievements stand up to scrutiny, it could have big implications for the AI race. It could call into question the strategic approach that the...
- 2025 / 1 / 26Evaluating Trump's First Moves on TechFrom Executive Orders on AI and cryptocurrency to "ending federal censorship," President Donald Trump had a busy first week in the White House. Justin Hendrix discussed the news with Damon Beres, a senior...
- 2025 / 1 / 19What's New at RightsCon? And How to Free Our FeedsThis episode features two segments. First, we hear from Nikki Gladstone, director of Rightscon, the annual conference organized by Access Now on issues at the intersection of human rights and...
- 2025 / 1 / 18The Dumbest Timeline: The Supreme Court Rules on TikTokToday- Friday, January 17, 2025 - the US Supreme Court delivered its order upholding the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a law...
- 2025 / 1 / 12Addressing the "Cursed Equilibrium" of Social Media AlgorithmsLast fall, Cornell University PhD candidate Cristiana Firullo gave a presentation at the Trust and Safety Research Conference at Stanford University during a session on understanding algorithms and online...
- 2025 / 1 / 5What to Watch on US State Tech Policy in 2025Even as the new year ushers in a new administration and Congress in the US at the federal level, dozens of states are kicking off new legislative sessions and are expected to pursue various tech policy goals....
- 2024 / 12 / 22Imagining 2025 and Beyond with Dr. Ruha BenjaminThis week’s guest is Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and Founding Director of the IDA B. WELLS Just Data Lab. Benjamin was recently...
- 2024 / 12 / 15How to Remedy Google's Search MonopolyThis close to the end of 2024, it’s clear that one of the most significant tech stories of the year was the outcome of the Google search antitrust case. It will also make headlines next year and beyond as the...
- 2024 / 12 / 8Petra Molnar on Migration in the Age of Artificial IntelligenceMass migration presents a challenge to democracy in multiple ways. Chief among them is that anti-immigrant sentiment often plays a major role in the advance of illiberal and anti-democratic politics. We've...
- 2024 / 12 / 8Towards Resilience: A Conversation with Kate Starbird About the Future of Online Elections DiscourseKate Starbird is a professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and director of the Emerging Capacities of Mass Participation Laboratory at the University of Washington, and co-founder...
- 2024 / 12 / 1Evan Greer Asks the Tech Accountability Movement to Draw a LineAt its November 21st "Summit of the Future of the Internet," billionaire Frank McCourt's Project Liberty hosted a panel discussion featuring Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, on a...
- 2024 / 12 / 1Robert Gorwa Tackles the Politics of Platform RegulationRobert Gorwa is the author of a new book titled The Politics of Platform Regulation: How Governments Shape Online Content Moderation, published by Oxford University Press. (The book is available open access-...
- 2024 / 11 / 24Documenting the Assault on Disinformation and Hate Speech ResearchDuring his recent campaign, President-elect Donald Trump made various promises consistent with the ongoing effort by Elon Musk and MAGA Republicans to target researchers and civil society groups that study...
- 2024 / 11 / 17The Race for AI SupremacyParmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology regulation, artificial intelligence, and social media. Her new book, Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World tells a...
- 2024 / 11 / 10Salvation, Abundance, Apocalypse: Is Technology the World's Most Powerful Religion?These days, if you see someone with their head bowed, you’re much more likely observing them staring into their phone than in prayer. But from digital rituals to the promises of abundance from Silicon Valley...
- 2024 / 11 / 3What Kafka Can Teach Us About Privacy in the Age of AIToday’s guest is Boston University School of Law professor Woodrow Hartzog, who, with the George Washington University Law School's Daniel Solove, is one of the authors of a recent paper that...
- 2024 / 11 / 2Are Platforms Prepared for the Post-Election Period?On Tuesday, November 5th, the final ballots will be cast in the 2024 US presidential election. But the process is far from over. How prepared are social media platforms for the post-election period? What...
- 2024 / 11 / 2What Role Might Elon Musk Play in the Post-Election Period?If you’re trying to game out the potential role of technology in the post-election period in the US, there is a significant "X" factor. When he purchased the social media platform formerly known as Twitter,...
- 2024 / 10 / 27Unpacking the Principles of the Digital Services Act with Martin HusovecMartin Husovec is an associate law professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He works on questions at the intersection of technology and digital liberties,...
- 2024 / 10 / 27Three Perspectives on Generative AI and ElectionsIn this episode, Justin Hendrix speaks with three researchers who recently published projects looking at the intersection of generative AI with elections around the world, including:Samuel Woolley, Dietrich...
- 2024 / 10 / 20Secure Messaging Apps and Election IntegrityWith Sam Woolley, Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat and Inga K. Trauthig are authors of a new report from the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media...
- 2024 / 10 / 20Mary Anne Franks Challenges First Amendment OrthodoxyIn her new book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment, Dr. Mary Anne Franks challenges First Amendment orthodoxy and critiques “reckless speech,” which endangers vulnerable groups and...
- 2024 / 10 / 20Governing the Fediverse: A Field StudyA lot of folks frustrated with major social media platforms are migrating to alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky, which operate on decentralized protocols. This summer, Erin Kissane and Darius...
- 2024 / 10 / 19Election Meddling, Censorship, and More Bad News in 2024 Freedom on the Net ReportThe results in this year’s installment of the Freedom House Freedom on the Net report generally follow the same distressing trajectory as prior reports, marking a 14th consecutive year in declines in internet...
- 2024 / 10 / 18Independent Researchers and Journalists Mourn the Loss of CrowdTangleIn this episode, we're crashing a funeral... for CrowdTangle, a piece of software that allowed journalists and independent researchers to get insights into social media. Not our usual material, but this...
- 2024 / 10 / 13From King James to Google: Barry Lynn on the Antitrust RevolutionBarry Lynn is the executive director of the Open Markets Institute in Washington DC and the author of this month's cover essay in Harper's titled "The Antitrust Revolution: Liberal democracy’s last stand...
- 2024 / 10 / 11The Evolution of Online Political Advertising: A Conversation with Who Targets Me's Sam JeffersToday’s guest is Sam Jeffers, cofounder and executive director of Who Targets Me. Jeffers has spent several yearshas spent several years building a suite of capabilities to make political advertising more...
- 2024 / 10 / 6Unpacking New Mexico's Complaint Against Snap Inc.Last week, Wall Street Journal technology reporter Jeff Horwitz first reported on details of an unredacted version of a complaint against Snap brought by New Mexico Attorney General RaĂşl Torrez. Tech Policy...
- 2024 / 10 / 6Assessing Systemic Risk Under the Digital Services ActOne of the most significant concepts in Europe’s Digital Services Act is that of “systemic risk,” which relates to the spread of illegal content, or content that might have foreseeable negative effects on the...
- 2024 / 9 / 29AI Snake Oil: Separating Hype from RealityArvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor are the authors of AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference, published September 24 by Princeton University Press. In...
- 2024 / 9 / 25Assessing Platform Preparedness for the 2024 US ElectionThe Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) recently assessed social media platforms’ policies, public commitments, and product interventions related to election integrity across six major issue areas:...
- 2024 / 9 / 22Resisting the Tech Coup: A Conversation with Marietje SchaakeMarietje Schaake is the author of The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. Dr. Alondra Nelson, a Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, who served as deputy assistant to...
- 2024 / 9 / 22Gary Marcus Wants to Tame Silicon ValleyGary Marcus writes that the companies developing artificial intelligence systems want the citizens of democracies “to absorb all the negative externalities” that might arise from their products, “such as...
- 2024 / 9 / 21Thierry Breton Resigns- What Does it Mean for European Tech Regulation?In 2019, Thierry Breton, a French business executive who became the France’s Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2007, was nominated by President Emmanuel Macron to become a member of the European...
- 2024 / 9 / 15Free Speech vs. Sovereignty?Paris Marx, a Canadian tech critic, recently authored a post under the headline "Pavel Durov and Elon Musk are not free speech champions: The actions against Telegram and Twitter/X are about sovereignty, not...
- 2024 / 9 / 15Understanding Systemic Risks under the Digital Services ActAt Tech Policy Press, we’re closely following the implementation of the Digital Services Act, the European Union law designed to regulate online platforms and services. One of the DSA’s key objectives is to...
- 2024 / 9 / 9Google Online Advertising Antitrust Trial Kicks Off In a DC CourtToday is Monday, September 9th. Today Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is presiding over the start of a trial in which the United States Department of...
- 2024 / 9 / 8Platforms and Elections: the Global State of PlayOn August 26th, Justin Hendrix moderated a panel convened by the Social Science Research Council at its offices in Brooklyn, New York. The panel was titled “Platforms and Elections: the Global State of Play,...
- 2024 / 9 / 8What's Going On In California?Thirty tech bills went through the law making sausage grinder in California this past session, and now Governor Gavin Newsom is about to decide the fate of 19 that passed the state legislature. The Governor...
- 2024 / 9 / 1Understanding the People Who Turn Lies Into RealityRenée DiResta, who serves on the board of Tech Policy Press and has been an occasional contributor, is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, published by Hachette Book Group...
- 2024 / 8 / 30Brazilian Judge Orders the Suspension of Elon Musk's XThe billionaire owner of the social media platform X, Elon Musk, has been in a prolonged dispute with a Supreme Court Judge in Brazil regarding X’s content moderation practices. Earlier this year, Judge...
- 2024 / 8 / 25A Conversation with Mark Surman, President of MozillaJustin Hendrix speaks with Mark Surman, President of Mozilla, about Mozilla’s work promoting open source AI, the importance of competition in the tech sector, and the regulatory challenges facing the...
- 2024 / 8 / 18Design Codes and the CourtsOn Friday, August 16, the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in NetChoice v. Bonta, partially upholding and partially vacating a preliminary injunction against...
- 2024 / 8 / 11New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez on His Lawsuit Against MetaRaúl Torrez was sworn in as New Mexico’s 32nd Attorney General in January 2023. Last December, Attorney General Torrez filed a lawsuit against Meta for allegedly failing to protect children from sexual abuse,...
- 2024 / 8 / 4Using AI to Engage People about Conspiracy BeliefsIn May, Justin Hendrix moderated a discussion with David Rand, who is a professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, the director of the Applied Cooperation Initiative, and an...
- 2024 / 7 / 28Data Workers, In Their Own WordsThe Distributed AI Research Institute, or DAIR—which seeks to conduct community-rooted AI research that is independent from the technology industry—has launched a new project called the Data Workers' Inquiry...
- 2024 / 7 / 21Silicon Valley Leaders Cast Their Lot with Donald TrumpIn the past week, multiple Silicon Valley billionaires announced endorsements of former President and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump. To dig a bit deeper into their motivations to support Trump and his...
- 2024 / 7 / 21The Future of Privacy in the Age of AIIt goes without saying that privacy and the creation of laws and regulations around it are fundamental to determining how we will live and work with technology, and whether technology operates in service of...
- 2024 / 7 / 14What Comes After Murthy v MissouriOn June 26, the US Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Murthy v Missouri, a cased that considered whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in its efforts to address COVID-19 mis- and...