Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discusses the recent spate of attacks on end-to-end encryption—and free speech more broadly—in the United Kingdom and United States. Links: U.K. Orders Apple to Let It Spy on Users’ Encrypted Accounts Tech Policy Podcast 356: The UK Targets End-to-End Encryption The UK’s state-funded anti-encryption propaganda The UK H…

Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez (Law & Chaos) discuss the Trump administration’s renditions to El Salvador, its purges of Justice Department lawyers, and other heinous things you should worry about. Links: Law & Chaos Trump v. J.G.G. (SCOTUS) Noem v. Abrego Garcia (4th Cir.) Trump docket w/ CourtListener links The Constitutional Crisis Is Here…

In a crossover episode with the Rethinking Antitrust podcast, Bilal Sayyed (TechFreedom) questions our host, Corbin Barthold, about the presidential removal power, Humphrey’s Executor, the FTC, the Trump administration, and the Roberts Court. Note: This episode was recorded just before the D.C. Circuit issued an interlocutory order addressing the p…

Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s director of litigation, discusses the many, many lawsuits NetChoice has brought to defend free speech on the Internet. Topics include: Texas’s HB 20: time to create a 100,000 page record NetChoice speaks for you! California’s building code for the Internet “Addictive”: you keep using that word . . . Targeting social medi…

Anupam Chander (Georgetown Law) discusses the many bad precedents—legal, geopolitical, and otherwise—that we’ll be living with in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the TikTok ban. Links: TikTok v. Garland Opens the Door to Global Censorship Harvard Law School Rappaport Forum: TikTok and Free Speech The National Security Internet Te…

Jeffrey Fisher (Stanford Law) argued the TikTok case before the Supreme Court, on behalf of a group of U.S. TikTok users. He and host Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discuss the SCOTUS TikTok ruling that should have been. Links: U.S. TikTok Petitioners’ Opening Supreme Court Brief Tech Policy Podcast 394: Tech and Trump 2.0 Tech Policy Podcast 371: S…

TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold, Andy Jung, and Santana Boulton continue their discussion of the many, many things going on in AI innovation, competition, and regulation. Topics include: The Lina Khan AI crackdown (that we averted) What’s next for the FTC and AI? (More) AI culture war 600 state AI bills (might be 600 too many) Blackpilled about Europ…

TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold, Andy Jung, and Santana Boulton take you on a tour of the many, many things going on in AI innovation, competition, and regulation. Topics include: First signs of AI escape velocity? Automated luxury libertarianism The Trumpian vibe shift AI culture war The AI $$$$ bonfire The one-week DeepSeek freakout Is regulation f…

Maggie Miller (Politico) discusses the Chinese Communist Party’s sweeping cyberwar on the United States. Topics include: What is Salt Typhoon? The CCP is on the phone Holiday break > national security Volt Typhoon (it gets worse!) Is the Trump team taking this seriously? Save CISA! The CCP ♥️ the Thucydides Trap Links: We Need to Talk About Salt Ty…

Orin Kerr (Stanford Law) discusses his new book “The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in Our Online World.” Topics include: The un-original Fourth Amendment Should crooks just not carry smartphones? Do originalists cheat on the 4A? SCOTUS 4A rulings as equilibrium adjustment Content vs. metadata The mosaic theory (is unworkable) Apply…

Ari Cohn (FIRE) and Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) preview the biggest tech policy issues of the Trump II administration. Topics include: TikTok ban: still unconstitutional Trump’s bonkers TikTok brief Was it worth it, Brendan Carr? Obsolete rules for obsolete TV networks Carr & Sec. 230: not how any of this works Andrew Ferguson plays MAGA Mad Libs…

From October 31, 2022 (Episode 331): Emma Llansó discusses the history and importance of Section 230. Links: The Third Circuit’s Section 230 Decision In Anderson v. TikTok Is Pure Poppycock Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading FastBy TechFreedom

Herbert Hovenkamp (Penn Law and Wharton) shares his thoughts on the progressive antitrust movement, the government’s antitrust campaign against Big Tech, the 2023 Merger Guidelines, the famous tech antitrust cases of the past, and more. Links: Charting Antitrust’s Future Antitrust Policy After Biden Structural Antitrust Relief Against Digital Platf…

Jonathan Adler (Case Western Law) and Ari Cohn (FIRE) discuss the FDA’s war on vaping and the Supreme Court case FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments. Topics include: The (comparative) health case for vaping Yet another moral panic Kids take risks! The bungling FDA A disappointing oral argument Fine points of administrative law Will the Trump ad…

Samantha Lai (Carnegie Endowment) discusses the state of federated social media (Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, etc.). Topics include: A map of the fediverse What makes Bluesky new? Tools for tiny moderators Turning the dial of centralization “Community” or “echo chamber”? Will one platform “win” the fediverse? The beauty of exit The beauty of the unk…

Geoff Manne (International Center for Law & Economics) and Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discuss the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple. Topics include: The DoJ’s case: five weird tricks Apple: closed from the start Let’s talk about green bubbles … Refusal to deal or exclusionary conduct? A well-defined product market (for once…

Daphne Keller (Stanford Cyber Policy Center) and Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) have a wide-ranging conversation about the impact of the EU’s Digital Services Act on content moderation, the costs and benefits of platform transparency, the pervasiveness of complexity, the work of James C. Scott, Germans’ abiding thirst for data, the Burmese heroin tr…

Marshall Kosloff (The Realignment) discusses the abundance agenda—what it is, what it could achieve, how it applies in various policy areas, how to build a political coalition around it, how to implement it, and more. Topics include: Abundance of what? Energy policy: wtf is going on Fixing defense procurement Fixing state capacity Building an abund…

From April 12, 2022 (Episode 317): Alec Stapp discusses the work, goals, and philosophy of his innovative new think tank, Institute for Progress. Topics include: Metascience: the key field you’ve never heard of Tech industry 🤝 policy wonks Alec’s theory of change How to evangelize for progress Baby making music (j/k not j/k) The need for an abundan…

Paul Grewal (Coinbase) takes us on a deep dive into all aspects of crypto regulation, litigation, and legislation. A crossover episode with the Washington Legal Foundation / TechFreedom Tech in the Courts series. Topics include: The elevator pitch for crypto Securities law: it’s not the New Deal anymore The inconsistent SEC SEC v. Coinbase / Coinba…

Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) provides a guided tour of the Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine. Topics include: Major questions: an introduction No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative Is major questions new? Stories we tell about Congress Welcome to the kludgeocracy Politics vs. expertise The Supreme Court cannot save us Links: West…

Sayash Kapoor (Princeton) discusses the incoherence of precise p(doom) predictions and the pervasiveness of AI “snake oil.” Check out his and Arvind Narayanan’s new book, AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference. Topics include: What’s a prediction, really? p(doom): your guess is as good as an…

Geoff Manne (International Center for Law & Economics) and Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discuss the many, many flaws in the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta (Facebook). A crossover episode with the Washington Legal Foundation / TechFreedom Tech in the Courts series. Topics include: - The ontology of Facebook - Social networking: it’s not 2008 …

TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold, Ari Cohn, and Santana Boulton partake in a summer doldrums bitchfest about recent and upcoming Supreme Court internet speech cases. Topics include: SCOTUS ducks in Moody v. NetChoice Hey, let’s *not* reward bad-faith legislating Justice Kagan: progressive traitor (and we love it) Justice Alito is mad What’s next for o…

Is AI a miracle? A threat? Will it free us? Enslave us? Both? Neither? What’s the future of AI and governance? AI and art? AI and elections? AI and social media? AI and the economy? AI and the world? Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast: AI and Everything. On this special episode, we present highlights from more than a year of conversations with lead…

Noah Smith (Noahpinion Substack) discusses techno-industrial competition with China and Russia. Topics include: American industry: we’re #2 :( Allies: no longer a luxury NEPA sucks A brief lesson about nickel The death of state capacity: greatly exaggerated? Will information destroy liberalism? Clowns to the left, clowns to the right Hey, let’s *no…

Brandon Kirk Williams (Lawrence Livermore) discusses quantum computing—the science behind it, its potential applications, the geopolitics surrounding it, and more. Links: The U.S. Must Win the Quantum Computing Race. History Shows How to Do It The U.S. Needs a Strategy for the Second Quantum Revolution…

Alice Marwick (UNC-Chapel Hill) discusses her new paper, “Child Online Safety Legislation: A Primer.” If you’re wondering, the article Corbin quotes at the top of the show is Zephyr Teachout, Ending Big Tech’s Child Exploitation (Compact Magazine). Topics include: Moral panic in the technical sense The Kids Online Safety Act: not about kids, not ab…

Berin Szóka (TechFreedom) and James Dunstan (TechFreedom) discuss the FCC’s recent orders on Title II common-carrier regulation and digital discrimination. Topics include: A hundred years of telecom law in four minutes The craziest story in the history of federal regulation FCC: Huzzah for crappy Internet (like in Europe)! SCOTUS: Congress must tac…

Arnold Kling discusses his recent article in Reason magazine, “Not Even Artificial Intelligence Can Make Central Planning Work.” Topics include: Why central planning is impossible The importance of prices What is AI good for? Will AI know us better than we know ourselves? What markets will AI disrupt? Social media and tribal gang-sign flashing The …

Renée DiResta (Stanford Internet Observatory) discusses her new book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Topics include: Social media influencers: the new media elite How do ideas take root? Influencers as exploiters of asymmetries Bullshit: an investigation Could platforms have stopped Stop the Steal? Fixing the expert class …

From January 10, 2022 (Episode 309): Joseph Uscinski (University of Miami) argues that the internet is not increasing the prevalence of conspiracy theories. Links: Don’t Blame Social Media for Conspiracy Theories—They Would Still Flourish Without ItBy TechFreedom

Robert Atkinson is president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. He joins the show to discuss his new book, Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths About Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy, co-authored with David Moschella. Topics include: Tech panic: speeding-uppers vs. slowing-downers Tech and privacy: try livi…

Richard Morrison (Competitive Enterprise Institute) joins the show, in a crossover episode with the Free the Economy podcast. Topics include: The history of podcasts The rise of micro media (find a thousand true fans!) Performative tech doomerism The idleness of romanticizing the past The quest for online community Conservatives in the Technium Lin…

It’s the episode you’ve been waiting for: TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold and Ari Cohn talk about pornography and free expression. Topics include: The Founding Fathers: epic porn fiends (j/k) Obscenity law, a brief history Do conservatives still want to ban James Joyce? “I know it when I see it”—Worst. Legal standard. Ever. Is there a moral case agai…

Ryan Scirocco is the spacesuit business development lead at Collins Aerospace. Collins, an RTX business, is, along with its partners ILC Dover and Oceaneering, developing a new generation of spacesuits for NASA. Ryan discusses everything that goes into keeping people alive in a freezing zero-gravity vacuum far outside the biosphere. Topics include:…

Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discusses, in exquisite detail, the First Amendment problems with H.R. 7521, the House bill to ban TikTok. Topics include: Your First Amendment right to read crazy shit TikTok ban bros: throwing spaghetti at the wall Foreign broadcast-ownership rules: so passé “iT’S nOT sPEech, It’S CoNDuCt” H.R. 7521: Least. Tailored.…

Daphne Keller (Stanford Cyber Policy Center) and Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discuss the Supreme Court oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri (government jawboning of social media platforms) and the NetChoice cases (state content moderation laws). Links: Six Things About Jawboning The Lies the 5th Circuit Told You About the Government ‘Pressuring So…

Samuel Hammond (Foundation for American Innovation) discusses his essays on “AI and Leviathan.” Can government institutions cope with the coming technological disruption of AI? Topics include: - AI’s trajectory - New Deal agencies in an AI world - Public Choice Theory vs. the AI juggernaut - Uber and micro-regime changes - Government as a network o…

Byron Tau (NOTUS) discusses his new book Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State. Topics include: Some history: four generations of data brokers The continuing evolution of data collection and technological surveillance The great danger: data fusion / comprehensive data profiles…

Brandon Gorrell (Pirate Wires) joins the show to discuss The White Pill, his optimistic (and mind-blowing) newsletter covering “the frontiers of tech, science, space, and more.” Topics include: Combatting the overwhelming negativity on social media. Lasers are amazing. Why space exploration? Did the Big Bang really happen? The Pirate Wires brand — …

It’s a big picture episode! One day (soon?), technology will enable convenient, low-cost gender transition. What does that say about human “nature”? What are the implications for society? What are (some) people getting so upset about? Jason Kuznicki (TechFreedom) joins the show to discuss. Gender as Essence and as Economic Choice Cosmos + Taxis iss…

Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Leigh Beadon (Techdirt) join the show to discuss their new report on the Internet’s (beneficial!) effect on art, entertainment, and culture. The Sky Is Rising: 2024 Edition Rather than Destroying Culture, the Internet Has Saved the Content Industries Filterworld Is a Confused Critique of Algorithms…

Liza Goitein (Brennan Center) joins the show to discuss the FISA Section 702 surveillance program. Why is it so contentious? Why is it such a hot topic now? Why and how should it be changed? And what does the Fourth Amendment have to say about it? Liza explains! Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): A Resource Page How Co…

TechFreedom’s Ari Cohn and Corbin Barthold discuss whether AI is going to spark an “infocalypse,” bring about the “collapse of reality,” and destroy our elections. Is AI about to “flood” our “screens” with “misinformation” that’s “dangerous to democracy”? Notwithstanding these quotes from recent press stories, the answer is probably no. Ari’s Senat…

From February 16, 2021 (Episode 284): Martin Gurri (Mercatus Center) discusses his book The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium Reality Comes KnockingBy TechFreedom

From March 2, 2022 (Episode 313): Robert Atkinson (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation) discusses the leftwing push to turn broadband into a heavily regulated utility. Anticorporate Broadband Populists’ Real Agenda: Destroy the Current Private-Sector System FCC Revives Common Carriage for the Internet Zombie FCC vs. Schoolhouse-Rock Su…

Blake Reid (Colorado Law) and Berin Szóka (TechFreedom) join the show to discuss the constitutional and policy implications of applying common carrier rules at different layers of the “tech stack.” Should broadband providers be forced to carry content? Should social media platforms? How about both? Or neither? Maybe the former, but not the latter? …

Brian Frye (Kentucky Law) joins the show to say bananas stuff about artificial intelligence, the history of authorship, the economics of copyright, why we’re all misunderstanding plagiarism, the mysteries of free will, and more. Apologia Pro Plagio Suo Should Using an AI Text Generator to Produce Academic Writing Be Plagiarism? Plagiarize This Pape…

Host Corbin Barthold discusses the campaign by states like Arkansas, Texas, and Utah to age-gate the Internet. As Corbin explains, these states are taking aim at a number of recent Supreme Court decisions, including Reno v. ACLU (1997), Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), and even (!?) 303 Creative v. Eleni…