An Investigation into Self-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material Networks on Social Media

MC Weekly News Roundup 10/24: Fun Facts about Railroads: This week Evelyn and Alex discuss severed fiber-optic cables in France, Kiwi Farms v2.0, worrying moves to crack down on online content in Turkey and Brazil, and how Republicans are going after our last line of defense against an unusable inbox: spam filters. Also Alex reveals Evelyn’s lack of knowledge about 19th Century Railroad regulation. by Moderated Content

27 min listen

Texas vs. Platforms … vs. The First Amendment: Last week the Fifth Circuit upheld a Texas social media law that, among other things, prevents platforms from discriminating against users based on their viewpoint. The leading opinion declared that a bunch of things we thought we knew about how the First Amendment and content moderation work are wrong. Next stop: the Supreme Court. evelyn talks with Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, and Genevieve Lakier, Professor of Law and the Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar at the University of Chicago, about what the ruling said and what it means—to the extent that’s decipherable. by Moderated Content

64 min listen

The Supreme Court Takes up Section 230: Earlier this month, the Supreme Court granted cert in two cases concerning the scope of platform liability for content on their services: Gonzalez v. Google, about whether platforms lose section 230 immunity when they recommend content to users, and Twitter v. Taamneh, about whether platforms can be found to have aided and abetted terrorism if they are found to have been insufficiently aggressive in removing terrorist content from their sites. The cert grants were a surprise, and the cases are complicated. Evelyn sat down with Daphne Keller, the podcast’s Supreme Court Correspondent, to dig into the details. by Moderated Content

53 min listen

MC Weekly Update 11/21: Bot Populi, Bot Dei: Evelyn and Alex talk about the latest Musk shenanigans, why the flight to decentralized platforms isn’t solving all our content moderation problems, account hijacking at Meta, and what to make of the discussion of the security risks of TikTok. Also, Evelyn learns the results of the Big Game. by Moderated Content

28 min listen

Musk Flips the Bird: Evelyn and Alex talk about, what else, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. He says he’s freed the bird, but there’s a whole bunch of restraints he clearly hasn’t thought about. He’s got some not-so-fun meetings and phone calls coming up. by Moderated Content

35 min listen

MC Weekly News Roundup 11/7: The Elon Musk JD Program: Evelyn and Alex discuss Musk's "just tweet through it" approach to Twitter ownership; the pros and cons of the great Mastodon Migration; Rumble pulling out of France over demands it block RT; the Intercept's (poor) reporting on DHS-Platform collaboration,; what to expect with the Midterms (GO VOTE!); and check in on legislative developments in India and the UK. by Moderated Content

33 min listen

Content Moderation in the Stack: When we talk about content moderation, we often focus on companies at the application layer of the internet, like the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. But there are a whole bunch of other companies in the internet stack that have the power to knock things offline. So what is similar or different about content moderation when it moves into the infrastructure layers of the internet? Evelyn spoke with Alissa Starzak, the Vice President and Global Head of Public Policy at Cloudflare and Emma Llanso, the Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project to explore this increasingly pressing question. by Moderated Content

64 min listen

“Elon puts rockets into space, he's not afraid of the FTC”: Come for the discussion of whether Musk is going to find himself in hot water with the FTC, stay for the discussion of privacy and data security regulation more generally. Evelyn discusses Twitter’s data security problems and what this says about privacy regulation more generally with Whitney Merrill, the Data Protection Officer and Privacy Counsel at Asana and long-time privacy lawyer including as an attorney at the FTC, and Riana Pfefferkorn, a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. by Moderated Content

51 min listen

MC Weekly Update 1/16: Looking at the Evidence: Alex and Evelyn get Josh Tucker, a professor at New York University, and Solomon Messing, a Visiting Researcher Georgetown University, to talk them through the results of two major studies about the effects of online speech; they also discuss Twitter cutting off API access; public universities cutting off TikTok access; Apple promising more transparency about app store take-downs, and an update from the courtrooms. by Moderated Content

44 min listen

MC’s Weekly Update: Everyone’s Interested in Content Moderation: Stanford’s Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos bring you the latest in online trust and safety news and developments, including two new Supreme Court cases, a Chinese influence operation targeting the US ahead of the mid-terms and PayPal’s accidental foray into content moderation discourse. by Moderated Content

25 min listen

MC Weekly Update 11/14: Elections and Elon, again: Evelyn and Alex talk about what the Election Integrity Partnership saw online in terms of mis- and dis-information around the midterms, and what the results might mean for tech policy. And... Elon. Sigh. What a week. Twitter's security team resigned -- what does this mean for compliance with an FTC consent order and... what does it mean for Twitter's security? Elon says they're turning off "microservices." That can't be good. What does it mean? And other exciting developments in the Musk/Twitter debacle. by Moderated Content

34 min listen

MC Weekly Update 1/23: A Dramatic Escalation in India v. Platforms: Evelyn and Alex discuss what should be a massive story about India's orders to platforms to take down content related to a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Modi. They also discuss the UK's Online Safety Bill; ChatGPT content moderation; the Republican battle against Gmail's spam filters; Trump's pending return to mainstream platforms; TikTok "heating" videos; and an update from Courtroom Corner. Thanks to our new sponsor, Gutter. by Moderated Content

32 min listen

MC Weekly Update 12/5: THE MODERATED CONTENT FILES: In this explosive, never-before-heard episode, Evelyn and Alex discuss the trust and safety implications of the AI text-generator ChatGPT, the expansion of a cross-industry database for removing non-consensual intimate images from platforms, a legal challenge to a new online hate speech law in New York, and….. The Twitter Files, of course. by Moderated Content

32 min listen

MC's Weekly Update: Down to The Wire v. Meta in India: This week, Evelyn and Alex went long on one of the weirdest tech reporting stories they've ever heard. Last week, The Wire—an Indian news outlet—released a bombshell report alleging it had seen internal Instagram documents evidencing improper influence by the Indian government over Meta. Meta denied the reports and what followed was a back and forth that got stranger and stranger as the saga went on... by Moderated Content

31 min listen

MC Weekly Update: Why?: Alex and Evelyn discuss trust and safety challenges for federated social media, following a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory about child safety problems in the fediverse. Also: Bluesky's flailing, Tw-... X's rebrand, a First Amendment challenge to Texas' TikTok ban impeding academic research, and more. by Moderated Content

44 min listen

MC Weekly Update 12/27: Trust and Safety Does Not Take Holidays: Alex and Evelyn sweat through the holidays to make sure you get your critical trust and safety news, including Congressional action on platform transparency (cameo by Nate Persily); TikTok and LastPass data breaches (yikes!); and, of course, Twitter mayhem (sigh). by Moderated Content

41 min listen

Meta Reinstates Trump's Accounts: Evelyn sits down with Nate Persily, Professor at Stanford Law School, and Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss Meta's decision that it is reinstating former President Trump's accounts. Nate is pragmatic, Alex is cynical, and Evelyn is a naive little formalist about it all. Here's their quick takes. by Moderated Content

26 min listen

MC Weekly News Roundup Halloween Edition: Evelyn and Alex reluctantly talk about Elon Musk and Twitter, again, before some updates about The Wire in India, the midterms at home, Meta's political ad transparency fine in Washington state, and the publication of the EU's mammoth regulation, the Digital Services Act. by Moderated Content

27 min listen

MC Weekly Update 11/28: Alex the Demon Overlord: Evelyn and Alex discuss how China’s censors are struggling to contain information about the ongoing protests, how they are going on the offensive, and why that offensive includes an image of Alex with horns.They also, of course, check in on Twitter with the weekly Elon Musk segment, and discuss US-backed information operations. by Moderated Content

26 min listen

MC Weekly Update 3/20: He's baaaaack!: Alex returns and he and Evelyn discuss: the rapidly escalating TikTok situation, and what the possible endgame is; the return of Donald Trump to Facebook and YouTube, just as he calls for people to protest and take the country back on Truth Social; more of the same over on Twitter and a few small updates in the Legal Corner. by Moderated Content

28 min listen

Tech Law SCOTUS Superbowl First Half: Gonzalez: Evelyn speaks with Moderated Content's Supreme Court correspondent Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, to discuss their quick takes on the Supreme Court oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google. by Moderated Content

26 min listen

MC Weekly Update 2/7: Requiem for the Bots: Twitter announced it is shutting down free API access, oh but wait it's okay bots distributing "good content" will still be allowed. Alex and Evelyn discuss that, and: NYT reporting on Twitter's progress dealing with child sexual abuse material; India's new Grievance Appellate Committees; Pakistan's temporary block of Wikipedia; Meta's denials of bias in moderating content related to the Ukraine war; some terrible ideas from lawmakers; and the upcoming hearing about jawboning at Twitter that will almost certainly include jawboning. by Moderated Content

30 min listen

MC Weekly Update 1/30: No One Expects the Copyright Order: Alex and Evelyn discuss updates to the story about the BBC documentary take-downs in India; the latest Twitter Files on the Hamilton 68 bot dashboard; TikTok's charm offensive and ... Oracle's (?!?) role; Apple's expansion of censorship for China to Hong Kong; and the Financial Times' admirable admission that it wants nothing to do with content moderation. by Moderated Content

35 min listen

MC Weekly Update 4/3: Behold, The Algorithm (or, parts of it, sort of): Alex and Evelyn chat with Sol Messing, Research Associate Professor at New York University with the Center for Social Media and Politics, about what to make of the open source info Twitter provided on its ranking algorithm. They also chat about the blue tick debacle, concerns about YouTube's treatment of political videos in India, and Midjourney's pretty not-okay approach to content moderation. by Moderated Content

31 min listen

MC Weekly Update 1/9: New Year, Same Trust and Safety Issues: Alex and Evelyn kick off 2023 with a rollicking tour through stories about: Meta's $400 million EU fine for privacy violations (cameo by Daphne Keller), Google's new appeals process for users flagged as uploading child sexual abuse material, WhatsApp introducing proxy servers, Twitter reinstating political ads, Meta's struggles to get out of politics, an Oversight Board decision about Iranian protests, information from the Jan 6 Committee about their findings to do with social media, and what's going on in Brazil. by Moderated Content

36 min listen

MC Weekly Update 3/13: Extremely Persuasive Dance Routines: SIO's Riana Pfefferkorn joins Evelyn this week to talk warrants for abortion related data and California laws post-Dobbs looking at ways to protect sensitive information; why the FTC asking Twitter for information about its privacy practices is totally unsurprising; an anti-Jawboning bill on the Hill; this week's TikTok tick tock; and a Utah "think of the children" social media bill. by Moderated Content

39 min listen

Tech Law SCOTUS Superbowl Second Half: Taamneh: Evelyn speaks with Moderated Content's Supreme Court correspondent Daphne Keller again to discuss the oral arguments in Twitter v. Taamneh, and the big elephant that was missing from the courtroom. by Moderated Content

36 min listen

MC Weekly Update 12/12: THE PROPAGANDA PLATFORM (?): Evelyn and Alex wonder if this podcast is the propaganda platform that Elon Musk has said Alex runs. Then they discuss Apple’s huge set of announcements about encryption this week and the balance between privacy and safety; their weekly check in on the Twitter files and how things took a dark turn; and the Meta Oversight Board’s long-awaited decision on Meta’s X-Check system. by Moderated Content

45 min listen

MC Weekly Update 2/13: Oversight Hearings, PART 1: Alex and Evelyn discuss the House Oversight Committee hearing last week about, supposedly, Hunter Biden's laptop. and why Alex was name-checked; Twitter's restriction in Turkey in the aftermath of the disaster; what to make of journalism finding bias in AI tools used to detect sexual suggestiveness; a China-linked deepfake information operation; The Balloon and geopolitics; and oh btw Donald Trump has his Facebook account back. by Moderated Content

30 min listen

New York Attorney General v. Blogging Law Professor re: Online Hate Speech: In the wake of the Buffalo shooting in May, New York passed a law imposing certain obligations on social media networks regarding "hateful conduct" on their services. It went into effect at the start of December and Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA Law who runs a legal blog, is challenging the law as unconstitutional. Evelyn sits down with Eugene and Genevieve Lakier from UChicago Law to discuss. by Moderated Content

53 min listen

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An Investigation into Self-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material Networks on Social Media

An Investigation into Self-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material Networks on Social Media

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