Big fans of Lucas’ work. Congratulations!

Ok now Joseph has to come on the podcast as a guest host

Orban defeated: Good morning and goddamn it's a beautiful day All of a sudden, after months of total darkness, there is hope.

Good morning and goddamn it's a beautiful day iandunt.substack.com/p/orban-defe...

X head of product Nikita Bier tweet: All aggregators had their payouts reduced to 60% this cycle. We will add another 20% deduction in the next cycle. It became abundantly clear: flooding the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait everyday crowded-out real creators and hurt new author growth. The next step is to assign a permanent deduction to habitual bait posters who use BREAKING"on every post. 66 X will never infringe on speech or reach-but we will not compensate for manipulation of the program or our users.

Everyone knows that if old Twitter did this, Elon and Nikita would be screaming about censorship, right? And all the fanboys would agree.

(Also, this is yet another reason why having actual trust & safety people is helpful, even though Elon falsely claimed their only job is to "censor" people).

Agreed, it’s not exactly a precise diagnosis

I’m as guilty as anyone of ignoring this fact. Thank you for the reminder

A very fair critique. It’s not just the positive view of masculinity that’s missing, it’s the monetisation model too

I enjoyed that part too

Ooo I would love to be in that class. Any readings you’d recommend?

Also RIP The Correspondent (English edition). What could have been

Just realised its author, @simonvanteutem.bsky.social, is on here too

The market failure beneath the manosphere [FREE TO READ] Confronting the misogyny and get-rich-quick schemes of influencers means talking openly to young men about success

It’s the most FT thing in the world to describe the manosphere as a market failure but it somehow doesn’t detract from this very good piece as.ft.com/r/c3d11403-b...

And yes, I’ll be using sporting metaphors to hawk my wares for the foreseeable future.

With @masnick.com on international duty, I led the line in this week’s Ctrl-Alt-Speech and was given excellent supply from both flanks by Twitch’s Fadzai Madzingira. We pressed high on teen usage of character chatbots and Greek social media bans. Tune in!

podcast.ctrlaltspeech.com/2315966/epis...

Public Copy of 2026 Platform Regulation Syllabus Foundations of Internet Speech Platform Regulation Schedule and assignments I experimented this term with allowing students to choose topics for five “deeper dive” sessions later in the class, out ...

Here is the syllabus from the most recent iteration of my Stanford Law School class on platform regulation.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

1/

Great point, could almost be safe by then

Also my ten-month-old was crying for a few minutes of the episode but our producer @leighb.bsky.social has made it like that never happened and everything was super chill

Age Old Questions - Ctrl-Alt-Speech In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:It's official: Australia's teen social media ban isn't working, yet (Crikey)...

I’m not saying lawmakers pretend regulating online speech is easy. But this week’s Ctrl-Alt-Speech with @masnick.com is a reminder not to trust any elected official who does. www.buzzsprout.com/2315966/epis...

Age Old Questions - Ctrl-Alt-Speech In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:It's official: Australia's teen social media ban isn't working, yet (Crikey)...

I’m not saying lawmakers pretend regulating online speech is easy. But this week’s Ctrl-Alt-Speech with @masnick.com is a reminder not to trust any elected official who does. www.buzzsprout.com/2315966/epis...

Quote from FT article in which judge Rita Lin calls decision to designate Anthropocene a supply chain risk ‘Orwellian’

The sweet, sweet irony of a US federal judge calling the US administration ‘Orwellian’ for attempting to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk. Perfection.

as.ft.com/r/cd800700-0...

App Store text with distorted face emoji update circled in red

Apple releasing a ‘distorted face’ emoji this week — of all weeks — is so apt

Apple rolls out UK age checks for iPhone users [FREE TO READ] Move follows pressure from government on smartphone makers to do more to protect children online

Here’s the free to read story via @timharford.ft.com as.ft.com/r/17b2ac25-0...

Apple rolled out UK age checks in this week’s update. Whether you think that’s good or bad, surely it merits mention in update notes? I’m in the UK and this is what I see before updating

Thanks for sharing the good word Lee!

Make it happen Mike

Money for Nothing and Clicks for a Fee - Ctrl-Alt-Speech In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t ...

This week's Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Money For Nothing & Clicks for a Fee

podcast.ctrlaltspeech.com/2315966/epis...

This week, @benwhitelaw.bsky.social and I talk about the impact of prediction markets on journalism, and how it's distorting truth more than helping reveal it.

I’m not a Pocket Casts user but I’m able to play the latest episode (albeit without being logged in). Wonder if there’s something else affecting it?

It's more the reaction that I knew it would elicit in my fair co-host. Didn't want to do that to him

Our latest episode went places....

Meanwhile, the UK government has voted down an amendment that would allow for an immediate social media ban for under 16s. However, it is reportedly considering new regulatory powers that would allow ministers to update technology rules without full parliamentary scrutiny. According to Politico, amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill and Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill would allow ministers to move "at pace" to keep individuals safe by, yep, restricting access to internet services. Apparently called Henry VIII clauses, because of their power, it begs the question: do we want Nigel Farage or his Reform ministers potentially wielding such powers?

This musing in @benwhitelaw.bsky.social’s weekly newsletter brings to mind a scenario someone recently noted: we’re building legal mechanisms whereby, for example, RFK Jr gets to decree what is health information, what is not, where it can be read, where it must be taken down, and who can read it.