Tech Policy Podcast

Many legislators and policymakers want to ban TikTok from the United States. They claim that the wildly popular social media platform endangers American national security. Although the critics are making a lot of noise, their argument for a ban is surprisingly shaky. What concrete threat does TikTok pose? What First Amendment obstacles stand in the way of a ban? TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold and Ari Cohn discuss.

What does China’s rise as a tech power mean for American national security? Jimmy Quinn, a writer for National Review, joins the show to discuss. He and Corbin debate the merits of a TikTok ban, consider the new House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and explore other aspects of the recent uptick in Sino-American competition. For more, follow Jimmy’s work at National Review Online. Also, check out Tech Policy Podcast #337: China and Domestic Surveillance. Correction: At 17:30, Corbin refers to “Senator Warren.” For once, he did not, in fact, mean to criticize Senator Elizabeth Warren. His intended target was Senator Mark Warner.

State governments are passing laws that seek to protect kids from social media. But maybe what we really need is to protect kids—and the Internet—from the government. Mike Masnick, founder and editor of Techdirt, joins the show to discuss California’s AB 2273, Utah’s SB 152 and HB 311, and the wider hysteria over minors and social media use. For more, see Mike’s recent article, “As The Social Media Moral Panic Continues, People Keep Highlighting How Much Value It Actually Provides.”

The Federal Trade Commission is making a lot of headlines. Much of that news revolves around the agency’s notable antitrust cases—such as its efforts to block Meta’s purchase of Within, to break up Facebook and Instagram, and to block Microsoft’s purchase of Activision. How aggressive is the FTC’s approach? What is its plan? Our guest is Bilal Sayyed, senior competition counsel at TechFreedom. He explains where the agency’s antitrust policy breaks new ground—and where it does not.

Three major Internet speech disputes are at, or barreling toward, the Supreme Court. In Gonzalez v. Google, the justices will consider the scope of Section 230. In 303 Creative v. Elenis, they will decide whether a company can be compelled to design a website against its will. And if they grant review (as expected) in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, the justices will rule on whether large social media platforms have a First Amendment right to editorial discretion. How do these cases fit together? Your humble host, Corbin Barthold, Internet Policy Counsel at TechFreedom, tries to figure it out.

Thanks to advancing technology, the police can now easily and cheaply monitor public spaces and identify, profile, and track individuals. Can the Fourth Amendment protect us from sweeping government digital surveillance? Nathan Wessler, a deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, joins the show to discuss. For more, check out the ACLU’s cert. petition in Moore v. United States, which argues that the police need a warrant to conduct 24/7 camera surveillance outside a home.

On February 21, the Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Gonzalez v. Google, the first Section 230 appeal the justices have ever heard. The future of the Internet hangs in the balance. Host Corbin K. Barthold discusses the case, the briefs, and what to watch for at the argument. Correction: As Corbin explains, the petitioners invoke some inapt authorities for the notion that Section 230 borrows the technical, defamation-law definition of the word "publisher." However, the Roommates decision (mentioned at 18:45) is not one of them. (A proper example would have been the Snap decision, discussed later in the episode.)

Liza Lin, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, is the co-author, with Josh Chin, of Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. She discusses the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to use technology to spur prosperity, quash dissent, and—above all—maintain its grip on power.

Bad tech policy is a bipartisan affair. Lately, though, the right has particularly excelled at it. TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold and Ari Cohn discuss the GOP’s obsession with supposed “Big Tech censorship,” its performative new “weaponization” subcommittee, its strange quest to turn spammy fundraising emails into a political cause, and more. The episode centers around Corbin’s and Ari’s article at Techdirt, “If You Believe In Free Speech, The GOP’s ‘Weaponization’ Subcommittee Is Not Your Friend,” and Corbin’s article for The Bulwark, “The Republican Project to Break Your Email Account.” The podcast Corbin mentions (8:24) is called Moderated Content. The McSweeney’s piece Ari cites (42:05) is “If I Emailed My Parents Like Democrats Email Me.”

Is screen time—television, smartphones, social media, video games—harming children? Elizabeth Nolan Brown, senior editor at Reason, returns to the show with some good news: probably not! She fills host Corbin Barthold in on the latest research. For more, see Elizabeth’s recent Reason online article 5 New Studies That Challenge Conventional Wisdom About Kids and Tech, as well as her December cover story for Reason magazine, In Defense of Algorithms. The two previous Tech Policy Podcast episodes Corbin mentions are #331: Section 230’s Long Path to SCOTUS and #309: Conspiracy Theories and the Internet.

Malcom Kyeyune is the author of The New Gnostics, an article in the autumn issue of City Journal’s print magazine. In the piece, Malcom examines the new quasi-religions taking shape on the Internet. “It’s hard to overstate,” he writes, “how full” today’s “Internet is with itinerant prophets, holy fools, hustlers, fraudsters, and soothsayers.” In this episode, Malcom tells us why he thinks this is happening. He also discusses the growing divide between workers and the Left, his problems with the “email class,” why he shitposts from an anon account, and more. Follow Malcom’s work at Compact, City Journal, and UnHerd, among other outlets.

The United States is entering a second golden age of space innovation. Can the country’s regulatory infrastructure keep up? For better or worse, the Federal Communications Commission is bidding to fill the void (so to speak). What moves is the FCC making? Is the agency acting within its legal authority? What can it do to help the American space industry succeed? James Dunstan, TechFreedom’s general counsel, joins the show to discuss. For more, see TechFreedom’s recent FCC comments on in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing. Jim’s 2017 testimony before the Senate space subcommittee, mentioned at 7:36, is available here.

Facial recognition technology is a powerful tool. Whatever we do with it—whatever rules we set around its use—we should proceed thoughtfully and cautiously, keeping a close eye on the costs and benefits of deploying it. Jane Bambauer, a law professor at the University of Arizona College of Law, joins the show for just such a thoughtful, cautious, cost-benefit driven discussion, with a focus on the use of facial recognition by law enforcement. For more, see Prof. Bambauer’s recent paper, Facial Recognition as a Less Bad Option, published by the Hoover Institution.

The Supreme Court has never heard a Section 230 case—until now. Earlier this month, the justices agreed to review Gonzalez v. Google, in which the plaintiffs argue that YouTube’s “targeted recommendation” of videos falls outside Section 230 immunity. How did we get Section 230? Why is it important? What would the Internet look like without it? Emma Llansó, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, joins the show to explain how Section 230 came to be, how it has been implemented over the last quarter century, why Congress’s one amendment of it (via FOSTA) was a disaster, and why the upcoming Supreme Court case is so crucial.

Independent federal agencies sit awkwardly in our constitutional structure. When they engage in aggressive overreach, therefore, they should expect to see their actions challenged in court. This episode centers around two such challenges. In Axon v. FTC, a case the Supreme Court will hear this term, the plaintiff challenges the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission’s internal tribunal. And in Consumers’ Research v. FCC, a set of cases currently in the federal courts of appeals, the petitioners challenge the Federal Communications Commission’s power to raise money without congressional oversight. Our guest is Trent McCotter, a partner with Boyden Gray & Associates and the director of the Separation of Powers Clinic at the C. Boyden Gray Center at Antonin Scalia Law School. He and host Corbin Barthold discuss Axon, Consumers’ Research, and the cases’ various implications for the separation of powers.

Will Rinehart is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. In this episode, a wide-ranging discussion of his work, he expands on whether the FDA should declare aging a disease, how to measure broadband access (and best allocate broadband funding), what we can learn from last year’s Facebook blackout, and why we need an abundance agenda. From the nitty-gritty details of policy to big-picture questions about our future, Will is thinking about it all. You can find out more about his various projects, including several he mentioned on the show, at his website.

What is driving Europe’s aggressive antitrust enforcement against American tech companies? Are there legitimate antitrust concerns? Or are all the fines, taxes, investigations, and restrictions better thought of as protectionist tariffs? Dirk Auer, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law & Economics, joins the show to discuss.

Is the end near? In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic—and with the specters of political violence, debt crises, secular stagnation, climate change, and resource depletion before us—the potential for societal collapse is (unfortunately) a hot topic. Is collapse inevitable? What are the signs that a society is on the road to collapse? Where are we along that path? Dr. Joseph Tainter, author of the seminal 1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies, joins the show to discuss these questions and more.

Content moderation is, as ever, an interesting, contentious, and fast-paced policy area. TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold, Andy Jung, and Santana Boulton sit down for a late-summer content moderation news roundup. They cover (among other things) Andy’s recent article on AB 2408, a misguided attempt by California to combat teenage social media addiction; YouTube’s recent Supreme Court brief in Gonzalez v. Google, a case about whether Section 230 protects algorithmic recommendations (spoiler alert: it does); Santana’s essay arguing that algorithms are speech protected by the First Amendment; and Corbin’s recent piece in Techdirt, “Two Dogmas of the Free Speech Panic,” a response to those who equate content moderation with “censorship.”

Hello from TechFreedom’s 2022 Policy Summit! The panelists at this year’s gathering discussed truth decay and misinformation, the collapse of trust in experts, and the future of free speech and social media. In this live recording from the event, Lawfare’s Quinta Jurecic explores those themes and more while discussing the January 6 Committee, Trump’s election “Big Lie,” the difficulty of combatting online extremism, the insanity that is Steve Bannon, and the fraying of American civic life. For more, see “The Great Rage,” a must-read essay Quinta published in The Atlantic.