Ctrl-Alt-Speech

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:
Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story (Times of Israel)
Maybe Turning War Into a Casino Was a Bad Idea? (The Atlantic)
French music streamer Deezer battles deluge of AI fraud (Financial Times)
I hacked ChatGPT and Google's AI - and it only took 20 minutes (BBC)
US to Receive $10 Billion Fee for TikTok Deal, WSJ Reports (Bloomberg)
'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back (404 Media)
‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ (The Guardian)
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 week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:
Grammarly turned me into an AI editor against my will and I hate it (Platformer)
Grammarly has disabled its tool offering generative-AI feedback credited to real writers (Engadget)
Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature (Wired)
Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz. (NY Times)
Molly vs the Machines review – a powerful story of love, loss and the dangers of social media (Guardian)
UK: New Molly Russell documentary provides further evidence that social media needs complete redesign (Amnesty International)
WhatsApp is launching parent-linked accounts for pre-teens (TechCrunch)
Meta urged to boost oversight of fake AI videos (BBC)
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 a special episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Ben and Mike discuss (with apologies to Tay-Tay) the three eras of content moderation in the media and what comes next. 
Their conversation builds on Ben’s essay in the soon-to-be-published Trust, Safety, and the Internet We Share Multistakeholder Insights, a new book looking at the evolution of the Trust & Safety industry and how platform policies decisions are made. The pre-print is available online.
Together, they unpack three distinct phases: The Strange Fascination Era (2003–2015), when newsrooms powered platform growth and treated social media as an exciting new frontier; The “We’re Watching You” Era (2016–2020), when investigative reporting exposed online harms and pushed platforms to formalise Trust & Safety; and The Mask Off Era (2021–present), as platforms retreat from working with the media and the commitment to moderation waned.
We’ll be back next week with our regular episode. 
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, Ben is joined by Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, a podcast that makes sense of the rapidly changing world of tech. Together, they discuss:
After a deadly raid, an AI power struggle erupts at the Pentagon (Washington Post)
Following: Anthropic vs. The Pentagon (Platformer)
Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge (TIME)
Hackers Expose Age-Verification Software Powering Surveillance Web (The Rage)
Discord is delaying its global age verification rollout (The Verge)
Reddit fined £14m by UK data watchdog over age verification checks (BBC News)
How to evaluate Trust & Safety vendors (Everything in Moderation*)
Regulate platforms, not children – Commissioner urges caution over social media bans (Commissioner for Human Rights)
MPs reject total ban, want data housed locally (The Star)
Exclusive: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere (Reuters)
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 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.