Best David Bollier Podcasts (2025)

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Stephanie Rearick on Building Social Wealth through Mutual Aid 45:14

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8h ago45:14

45:14

As the capitalist economy grows more expensive and predatory, Stephanie Rearick and her colleagues are building an alternative social economy that meets people’s needs through care and cooperation. As founder of the Madison Mutual Aid Network Cooperative and Dane County Timebank in Wisconsin, Rearick is a leading champion of mutual aid projects as …

1
Defending Digital Rights in the Surveillance Era (with Jillian York) 57:37

11h ago57:37

57:37

We need a more diverse approach to internet governance, says Jillian York, the director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). At the EFF, Jillian has studied the global impact of social media policies and advocated on behalf of global activists and others whose voices are often suppressed. Today on Revo…

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What's Love Got to Do with Education? A Conversation with Dr. Laura Penn, Khadija Shahper Bakthiar, Jamie Bristow and Andrea Hiott 1:10:06

5d ago1:10:06

1:10:06

As we think about systems change, it's all too easy to get caught up the technical design of new institutions and 'system architecture'. But if we are being asked to consider a qualitatively different way governing, convening, educating, distributing resources - all of the fundamentals of society -then perhaps we can start by asking: What has LOVE …

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Enshittification and “Breaking Kings” (with Cory Doctorow at Web Summit) 21:31

9d ago21:31

21:31

In this live interview recorded in November at Web Summit 2025 in Lisbon, Cory Doctorow returns to Revolution.Social to talk about building alternatives to “enshittified” digital platforms. "Apps are websites that are illegal to protect your privacy while you use them," Cory explains. "The reason companies are so horny to get you to use their apps …

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"Our Mission Is To Keep Flickr Pictures Visible for 100 Years" (with George Oates) 53:13

15d ago53:13

53:13

Designer, community-builder, and Flickr co-creator George Oates is now the executive director of the Flickr Foundation, which is working to preserve the platform's 21 years of photos for the next 100 years. She helped create Flickr's community guidelines, designed its nested privacy controls, and launched the Flickr Commons program, which partners …

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Vine Revisited and The Fight Against AI Slop 20:33

17d ago20:33

20:33

Rabble and Alice Chan, Revolution.Social’s host and executive producer, talk about the launch and overwhelming reception to diVine, a new social video app that resurrects the six-second looping format of Vine and features archived original Vine content. This time, however, the app is built on open protocols and a promise to focus on real content ma…

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Rewilding Education - A Conversation with Prof. Hilary Cremin 47:16

19d ago47:16

47:16

The idea of rewilding is now a common topic of conversation in response to the depletion of biodiversity and natural habitats for local wildlife and widespread industrialisation and globalisation of food production. What about if we asked the same question in relation to the industrialised and standardised education system? What would it take to re…

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Building Human Rights Into the Social Web (with Mallory Knodel) 50:37

22d ago50:37

50:37

Mallory Knodel is the executive director of the Social Web Foundation and former CTO of the Center for Democracy & Technology. Her roots go back to the activists, anarchists, and dreamers who built the open web, and then lost control of it to big business.“Especially in the smaller circles of digital human rights organizations and so on, [they] rea…

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How to Overthrow Dictators Without Violence (with Srđa Popović) 1:23:30

29d ago1:23:30

1:23:30

Political activist Srđa Popović led the movement that overthrew Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000. Since then, his organization, Canvas, has trained activists in over 50 countries how to build successful nonviolent movements—and he says most people misunderstand how change actually happens. “When we start working with them, they often say…

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Education as a Commons - A Conversation with David Bollier 46:43

1M ago46:43

46:43

As many regular listeners to the podcast know, on this channel we have been exploring the new kinds of educational institutions that are emerging in response to the challenges that our legacy institutions are facing. For the last 250 years we've gotten used to compulsory standardised schooling being provided at scale by either the state, as public …

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The Future Requires a Politics of Relationality 46:55

1M ago46:55

46:55

At a time when the superstructures of modern civilization seem terminally messed up, the authors of 'Relationality: An Emergent Politics of Life Beyond the Human' argue that we must start a new conversation about the nature of being and modern myths of the self. Anthropologist Arturo Escobar, cultural studies scholar Michal Osterweil, and biologist…

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Banning Kids From Social Media Isn’t the Answer (with Pamela Wisniewski) 55:18

1M ago55:18

55:18

Pamela Wisniewski is one of the leading researchers on how social media affects teens, working at the UC Berkeley-affiliated International Computer Science Institute. In an era of moral panics around youth online safety, she believes the solution is to empower teens and teach them resilience, rather than restricting them. "We treat it as if our tee…

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Jeff Jarvis on the Death of Mass Media, Twitter vs. UberMedia, and Section 230’s Brilliance 1:07:13

1M ago1:07:13

1:07:13

In books like The Web We Weave and podcasts such as Intelligent Machines, journalist and educator Jeff Jarvis — formerly the director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York — has traced the history of media from the Gutenberg press to AI. And he says that today’s attempts to clamp down on the inte…

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Learning as If Life Depended on It - A Conversation with Olli-Pekka Heinonen 46:35

2M ago46:35

46:35

There are a lot of people searching right now, including me, including this podcast, searching for different ways in and through many of the global challenges that we are facing. And as many people will conclude, education and learning are central to these questions of how we find our way! How do we learn together, across generations, in communitie…

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Harper Reed on Building for Obama, Social Media for Bots & Why Tech Isn't Always the Solution 1:12:48

2M ago1:12:48

1:12:48

2389 Research CEO Harper Reed was previously the CTO of President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, where he helped redefine modern political technology. Before that, he was CTO of Threadless, the crowdsourced T-shirt company that accidentally invented crowdsourcing. Harper has spent his career building systems that bring people together onl…

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“Think Like a Commoner" Author David Bollier on the Commons & Why Open Platforms Aren't Enough 57:34

2M ago57:34

57:34

When a community wants to organize itself, it might decide between private ownership and state control. David Bollier has spent decades arguing that that’s a false binary, and that there is a better way: The commons."The commons is as old as humanity," David says. "It's kind of the default setting for coordination and governance. It's just in the p…

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Career and Life Pathways for Young People in Turbulent Times - A Conversation with Global Experts 1:32:53

2M ago1:32:53

1:32:53

One of our main roles as educators is to support and help our young people figure out who they are and how they want to contribute to the world. Given our current context of rapid technological change with social, technological and ecological challenges, questions about decisions for university, training and future options for young people is becom…

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“The Etymology Nerd” Adam Aleksic on Algospeak, AI Slop, and the End of Writing 58:48

2M ago58:48

58:48

Adam Aleksic, known to his social media followers as the “Etymology Nerd,” has built a massive audience by decoding the origins of words, accents, and memes. In his new book Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language, he talks about the ways our social media algorithms have accelerated the “context collapse” that changes the…

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Chris Smaje's Vision of a Post-Collapse Eco-Localism that Works 44:06

2M ago44:06

44:06

What might the world look like if capitalist growth and carbon emissions continue, and modern civilization collapses? Chris Smaje, a small farmer and writer in England, extrapolates from existing trends to sketch a vision of post-capitalist social economies. His new book, 'Finding Lights in a Dark Age: Sharing Land, Work and Craft,' envisions a wor…

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Rudy Fraser on Blacksky, Mutual Aid & Reclaiming Social Media 1:04:56

2M ago1:04:56

1:04:56

Rudy Fraser is the founder of Blacksky, a community-driven project building on top of the AT Protocol while remaining independent of Bluesky, where that protocol originated. At Blacksky, he and his team are applying the principles of mutual aid and community ownership to algorithms, moderation teams, and governance tools for the Black community, gi…

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Learning Peace to Resolve Conflict, not Remove It - A Conversation with Dr Luke Roberts 38:22

3M ago38:22

38:22

In 1981, the UN established the International Day of Peace to commemorate and strengthen the ideals of peace. In a time when both the influence of multilateral institutions like the UN is being questioned, and the peace we need is in rapidly shortening supply as violence becomes the norm, my guest this week is doing amazing work with communities to…

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Techdirt’s Mike Masnick on Growing Bluesky, Clueless Regulators & the Case for Optimism 1:14:48

3M ago1:14:48

1:14:48

Techdirt founder & editor Mike Masnick has long argued that the internet’s power should lie with its users. In his landmark 2019 essay, Protocols, Not Platforms, he laid out a vision for how decentralized systems could preserve free speech while avoiding the pitfalls of centralized control. That vision has since helped inspire Bluesky, where Mike n…

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Bonus: Cory Doctorow on Sci-Fi Influences & the Social Media Bill of Rights 20:33

3M ago20:33

20:33

We had more to talk about with Cory Doctorow than we could fit in this week’s episode. In this bonus ep, the science fiction author and internet rights activist talks to Rabble about being raised by science fiction in Toronto, and his one objection to the social media bill of rights: the right to “own” your connections to other people. “I think own…

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Cory Doctorow on Escaping Big Tech, Privacy Battles & “Enshittification” 1:08:42

3M ago1:08:42

1:08:42

Sci-fi isn’t about hypothetical technologies, but rather about challenging the social impact of that tech, says author and activist Cory Doctorow. And in the real world, we must be just as conscious of the societal impact of the tech products we use. “Apologists for Big Tech would like you to think that all of the properties of their platforms are …

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Moving Beyond Binaries in Learning, Loving, and Living - A Conversation with Andrea Hiott 53:07

3M ago53:07

53:07

I've been so looking forward to sharing this conversation as it is an area that I am particularly passionate about. I feel very strongly that the way we think and talk about learning, teaching and education is so rooted in Behaviorism and Cognitivism and the dominant language of training and metaphors of the brain as a computer. And there is a stil…

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Taylor Lorenz on Moral Panics, Tech Villains & Protecting Free Expression 1:04:58

3M ago1:04:58

1:04:58

Journalist and Power User host Taylor Lorenz has reported on the fall of Vine, influencers who accept "dark money," and the proliferation of far-right content on Substack, just to name a few.Today on Revolution.Social, she joins Rabble to talk about why governments, including the U.S., are advancing laws to restrict free speech online; the misleadi…

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Isabel Carlisle, Bioregioning as a Response to 'Gaia on the Move' 53:54

3M ago53:54

53:54

As climate change and other crises makes the economy and everyday life more precarious, innovative forms of bioregional action are needed to respond to 'Gaia on the move," says Isabel Carlisle, founder and director of the Bioregional Learning Centre (BLC) in Devon, England. Carlisle describes the importance of building local ecological expertise, p…

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Chris Messina on Hashtags, Google+ & the Unintended Consequences of Building Social Media 1:05:39

3M ago1:05:39

1:05:39

Chris Messina is best known for co-founding BarCamp and giving Web 2.0 the hashtag. Now on Revolution.Social, he joins Rabble to talk about the bigger picture of what has gone right, and wrong, with social media. In this episode, he and Rabble unpack why Google+ failed, the unintended consequences of hashtags, and how algorithms have reshaped our d…

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Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine on AI Slop, Quality Content & Social Media Fragmentation 1:11:38

4M ago1:11:38

1:11:38

After the introduction of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, the blogging platform Medium got ten times busier, says CEO Tony Stubblebine — and that was not a good thing. "Most of it was slop," he says. "Our job got a little bit harder on the filtering side. Actually, a lot harder on the filtering side." Luckily, Medium had already built human-ru…

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"Invisible Rulers" author Renee DiResta on Propaganda, Disinformation, & Online Abuse 1:17:17

4M ago1:17:17

1:17:17

Renee DiResta has spent a decade tracking how small groups can hijack global conversations — and why the same tactics still work today. The author of "Invisible Rulers" and a leading academic researcher on online influence, she joins Rabble on Revolution.Social to unpack the hidden forces shaping what we see — and believe — on social media. Drawing…

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Outgrowing Modernity - A Conversation with Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti and Manda Scott 1:30:43

4M ago1:30:43

1:30:43

To mark the moment and celebrate the release of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti's new book 'Outgrowing Modernity: Navigating Complexity, Complicity, and Collapse with Accountability and Compassion', we are so happy to be able to bring you this fantastic episode! It is the sequel to Vanessa's 'Hospicing Modernity', which was published in 2021 …

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Substack CEO Chris Best on Democratizing Media, Content Moderation & Freedom of Speech 56:04

4M ago56:04

56:04

"If you're a consistent advocate for freedom of the press, you will unfortunately have occasion to quarrel with every party and every side of the political spectrum," says Substack CEO Chris Best. As one of the most important platforms for independent writing online, and one of the only ones not reliant on advertising, Substack has sometimes attrac…

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Reimagining Development - A Conversation with Dr Uma Pradhan and Dr Peter Sutoris 39:23

4M ago39:23

39:23

What it means to be an educated person or have an educated population as a country is a big part of what informs the decisions around industrial, economic and education policy. But built into these questions are some fundamental assumptions about what it means to make progress or be developed as a society. And beneath that particular values about w…

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Why We Need a New Social Media Bill of Rights 20:50

4M ago20:50

20:50

Thanks for listening to Revolution.Social! in this bonus episode, recorded live at Web Summit Vancouver in May 2025, Rabble speaks with Penny Daflos, reporter for CTV News Vancouver. They discuss Rabble's work as part of the founding team at Twitter, why we need to reframe and create social media 'rights' for both developers and users, and how to c…

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Rabble Evan Henshaw-Plath: How Network Protocols Enable Digital Commons & Open Marrkets 57:42

4M ago57:42

57:42

Evan Henshaw-Plath, better known as Rabble, is a pioneering programmer for social media platforms and decentralized technologies. Here, Rabble explains how network protocols are critical infrastructure for enabling -- or impeding -- commons and open markets, not to mention privacy, free speech, and community control. Their ambition is a future in w…

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Yoel Roth on Banning Trump, Battling Bots & the Difficult Job of Trust & Safety 56:48

4M ago56:48

56:48

"Content moderation decisions are like assholes," says Yoel Roth, the former head of trust & safety for Twitter. "Everybody's got one." The underrated challenge of working in trust and safety is that every decision could affect millions of users, and the reasons for those decisions are often opaque. Today on Revolution.Social, Yoel and Rabble talk …

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Sparking Curiosity and an Ethic of Care Across Continents - A Conversation with Ramji Raghavan 42:36

4M ago42:36

42:36

As I explore different aspects of the education transition that we need globally, and is emerging, it is increasingly clear that schools (or what might replacement them) won't be the only thing required. There is a huge amount of possibility and power in a broader ecosystem of organisations and networks taking different roles in enabling a more cre…

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Kara Swisher on Tech Founders' Flaws & Why Social Apps Are the New Cigarettes 49:21

4M ago49:21

49:21

The founders of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter never cared about the lofty ideals they claimed, says longtime tech journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher. "I never thought they were idealistic. I thought they were there to make money," she says.Swisher, who co-hosts Pivot and also hosts On With Kara Swisher, likens tech giants to t…

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Going Back to First Principles to Replace "School" - A Conversation with Dr Kapono Ciotti 42:28

5M ago42:28

42:28

If we are going to radically rethink and perhaps replace schools as the dominant institutions of education, what are the first principles questions that we should be asking? And what is the cultural rootedness and traditions that might provide a sense of guidance for these questions? I can't think of a better person to be exploring this with than D…

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Jack Dorsey on Selling Twitter, Leaving Bluesky & What He's Building Next 50:04

5M ago50:04

50:04

Twitter never should have been a traditional tech company, says Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. Instead, it should have been designed as a protocol — like email, or podcasting.“That was the pure expression of it from day one,” Dorsey says. “And it was never really allowed to be that because it was on this fast track to becoming a pub…

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Making Meaning, Not Making Sense - A Conversation with Sam Crosby 55:58

5M ago55:58

55:58

In the business of education someone telling you that something doesn't make sense is usually the moment to step in and explain, support and resolve the confusion. Helping young people make sense of the world Is our job isn't it? But what if making sense sometimes gets in the way of making meaning?! What is our job as educators in creating opportun…

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The Internet Doesn’t Have to Be Like This 3:35

5M ago3:35

3:35

Revolution.Social is a podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities, hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitter’s first employee. Guests will include Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey, journalist & podcaster Kara Swisher, science fiction author Cory Doctorow, a…

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Evaluating Competencies to Go Beyond Education - A Conversation with Michaela Horvathova 41:42

5M ago41:42

41:42

“Are we valuing what we measure or measuring what we value?” It's probably a familiar question to many of you. And this week we're taking a detailed and reflective look at the role of measuring complex competencies in our schools, as this is often a big part of the discussion about what needs to change in formal education. In previous episodes (Ep7…

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Gustavo Salas of Cecosesola: Prioritizing Commoning in a World of Capitalist Markets 32:59

5M ago32:59

32:59

Gustavo Salas describes the remarkable culture of commoning at Cecosesola, a federation of 30 rural and urban cooperatives in Venezuela that serves hundreds of thousands of people with fresh produce, healthcare, funerary services, and many other goods and services. Cecosesola's priority is to create spaces of trust, togetherness, and self-improveme…

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Learning to Relearn - A Conversation with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah 41:02

5M ago41:02

41:02

This week it is a huge pleasure to be able to bring you this cross-over episode with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah and his fantastic channel, #IdentityTalk4EducatorsLIVE (https://www.identitytalk4educators.com/podcast). Kwame's work is full of insights gained through his own practice as a maths teacher and educational coach and consultant, and through his ove…

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Shifting the Dark Matter of Education - A Conversation with Indy Johar and Adam Purvis 1:16:48

6M ago1:16:48

1:16:48

Which places might be the first movers in a radical educational shift? And by radical in this conversation we're not talking about small tweaks in the types of individual competencies and credentials we optimize for in our current version of schools. But a completely different set of logics, values, meaning and purpose for what education could be, …

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Ancient Wisdom Practices in Education - A Conversation with Bade Kucukoglu and Satheesh Namasivayam 46:48

6M ago46:48

46:48

This week, we're diving deep into a conversation that bridges ancient wisdom and modern learning. Joining Tim are two incredible thinkers and practitioners, Satheesh Namasivayam and Bade Kucukoglu. We explore how ancient wisdom practices—from dance, to creative arts, ritual and community performance —can inform and inspire us to create different ki…

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Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems - A Conversation with Adam Kahane 45:08

6M ago45:08

45:08

This week, it's a huge pleasure to welcome Adam Kahane onto the podcast to talk with Tim about the everyday habits and radical engagement that young people as well as educators and leaders, at all levels of our education systems, can learn in order to do the coordinated and constant work of transforming systems. Adam Kahane is a Director at Reos Pa…

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Jack Kloppenburg on Sharing Seeds in a World of Proprietary Agriculture 45:07

6M ago45:07

45:07

Jack Kloppenburg has been a leading figure in the fight to protect seed-sharing commons over the past forty years. It's a struggle that began in the 1980s as large ag-biotech companies have sought to make seeds privately owned and proprietary using all sorts of legal, technological, and market restrictions. Kloppenburg has been a professor at the U…

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We Need More Embodied Education! A Conversation with Arawana Hayashi, Prof Guy Claxton, Dr Akhil K. Singh, Emily Poel and Caroline Williams 1:13:04

6M ago1:13:04

1:13:04

This week we're exploring embodiment science in education with some of the worlds leading embodiment practitioners and cognitive scientists! We believe that this is one of the most important shifts happening in education globally, which is simultaneously so simple, and yet so hard to budge given the depths of the tendencies towards disembodiment, e…