Best Techdirt Podcasts (2025)

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Venture Capital Is Eating The World 45:30

Play Pause

4d ago45:30

45:30

It was nearly 400 episodes ago when Catherine Bracy joined the podcast for a two part discussion to talk about Silicon Valley culture and what investors are willing to fund. Now, more than a decade later, Catherine has released a new book, World Eaters: How Venture Capital Is Cannibalizing The Economy, which takes even closer look at the basic ince…

1
Banning Kids From Social Media Isn’t the Answer (with Pamela Wisniewski) 55:18

2d 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…

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

9d 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…

1
An Insider's View Of Decentralized Social Media 55:27

11d ago55:27

55:27

As you know, we talk a lot about decentralization and protocols over platforms. When it comes to decentralized social media in particular, one person who has been working on it since the earliest days is developer Rabble, who was around at the very beginning of what would become Twitter and has worked on many decentralized social media efforts, and…

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

16d 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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The New Generation Of Independent Journalists 41:24

18d ago41:24

41:24

Techdirt recently passed its 28th anniversary as an independent online media outlet. Once, it looked like such outlets might take over, but then most were scooped up by traditional media or grew into more traditional companies themselves. But now we're seeing a new generation emerge, especially via newsletters on platforms like Substack, and one su…

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

23d 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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DuckDuckGo Wants You To Have More Control Over AI 51:17

25d ago51:17

51:17

By Techdirt

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

1M 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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The Fictional Censorship Cinematic Universe 1:01:42

1M ago1:01:42

1:01:42

Last year, Renée DiResta joined us on an episode of the podcast to talk about her book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, all about the people who have crafted a massive fictional narrative about the state of social media and government's involvement in content moderation. Now that Jim Jordan is celebrating Google's recent le…

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

1M 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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The Many Problems With The FTC's Pornhub Settlement 1:06:22

1M ago1:06:22

1:06:22

Last week, we published three separate posts that looked at the FTC's recent settlement with Aylo, the parent company of multiple adult websites including, most famously, Pornhub. Those posts, written by Stanford HAI policy fellow Riana Pfefferkorn, examined the legally complicated but very important issues that arise from the settlement forcing Ay…

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

1M 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

2M 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…

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

2M 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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Copyright And The First Amendment Collide At The Supreme Court 45:55

2M ago45:55

45:55

In what feels like something of a throwback to much earlier days of Techdirt, the Supreme Court is getting into the weeds of the DMCA. Cox v. Sony is a case centered around questions of repeat infringers and intermediary liability, and we've submitted an amicus brief from the Copia Institute, written by Cathy Gellis. This week, Cathy joins the podc…

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

2M 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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The Eternal September 52:56

2M ago52:56

52:56

We've got a cross-post episode this week, with Mike's recent appearance on the Computer Says Maybe podcast hosted by Alix Dunn. The discussion starts out looking at decentralization and Bluesky, then goes way beyond that into the early days of the internet and the concept of the Eternal September. You can listen to the whole conversation here on th…

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

2M 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…

1
Blacksky Demonstrates The Promise Of Open Social Media Protocols 58:29

2M ago58:29

58:29

The goal of Bluesky and the ATProtocol, and of the push for protocols over platforms in general, has always been to see more people building their own communities in a modular fashion. One of the most interesting projects demonstrating this potential is Blacksky, created by Rudy Fraser, which started as a custom feed within Bluesky but has grown in…

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

2M 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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Why Data Portability Is Crucial For The AI Future 45:16

2M ago45:16

45:16

As we've been thinking and writing about the intersection of democracy and technology, especially burgeoning AI technology, we always come back to the core issues of user control and user freedom. Recently, Chris Riley of the Data Transfer Initiative wrote an excellent piece for Tech Policy Press about the need for data portability in personal AI t…

Techdirt Podcasts

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Techdirt

Techdirt

1
Revolution.Social

Rabble a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath

1
Walled Culture

Walled Culture

1
Venture Capital Is Eating The World 45:30

1
Banning Kids From Social Media Isn’t the Answer (with Pamela Wisniewski) 55:18

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

1
An Insider's View Of Decentralized Social Media 55:27

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

1
The New Generation Of Independent Journalists 41:24

1
“Think Like a Commoner" Author David Bollier on the Commons & Why Open Platforms Aren't Enough 57:34

1
DuckDuckGo Wants You To Have More Control Over AI 51:17

1
“The Etymology Nerd” Adam Aleksic on Algospeak, AI Slop, and the End of Writing 58:48

1
The Fictional Censorship Cinematic Universe 1:01:42

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

1
The Many Problems With The FTC's Pornhub Settlement 1:06:22

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

1
Bonus: Cory Doctorow on Sci-Fi Influences & the Social Media Bill of Rights 20:33

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

1
Copyright And The First Amendment Collide At The Supreme Court 45:55

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

1
The Eternal September 52:56

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

1
Blacksky Demonstrates The Promise Of Open Social Media Protocols 58:29

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

1
Why Data Portability Is Crucial For The AI Future 45:16