Backdoors and Backsteps

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben are joined by a group of students from the Media Law and Policy class at the American University School of Communication. Together they cover:
• U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts (washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple…) (Washington Post)
• US lawmakers respond to the UK’s Apple encryption backdoor request (engadget.com/cybersecurity/us-lawmakers-respon…) (Engadget)
• UK: Encryption order threatens global privacy rights (hrw.org/news/2025/02/14/uk-encryption-order-th…) (Human Rights Watch)
• Analysis: AI Summit emphasizes innovation and competition over trust and safety (dfrlab.org/2025/02/11/ai-summit-analysis-innov…) (DFR Lab)
• An overdue idea for making the internet safer just got the funding it needs (platformer.news/roost-open-source-trust-safety) (Platformer)
• Google-backed public interest AI partnership launches with $400M+ for open ecosystem building (techcrunch.com/2025/02/10/google-backed-public…) (Techcrunch)
• Britain dances to JD Vance’s tune as it renames AI institute (politico.eu/article/jd-vance-britain-ai-safety…) (Politico)
• Section 230 Still Works in the Fourth Circuit (For Now)–M.P. v. Meta (blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2025/02/section-…) (Eric Goldman)
• TikTok Opts to Not Take Section 230 Immunity Fight to the US Supreme Court (law.com/thelegalintelligencer/2025/02/06/tikto…) (Law.com)
• Shopify says risk of fraud, not Nazi swastika, was reason for Kanye West store takedown (thelogic.co/news/shopify-takes-down-kanye-west…) (The Logic)
This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.
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Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt (techdirt.com)) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation (everythinginmoderation.co)).