Bullshit in a China Shop

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:
• TikTok Oral Arguments (supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_trans…) (Supreme Court)
• Biden administration looks for ways to keep TikTok available in the U.S. (nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-administr…) (NBC News)
• Trump considers executive order hoping to ‘save TikTok’ from ban or sale in U.S. law (washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/15/trump…) (Washington Post)
• TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban (techdirt.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-users-gleefully…) (Techdirt)
• Meta employees criticize Zuckerberg decisions to end fact-checking (cnbc.com/2025/01/07/meta-employees-criticize-c…) (CNBC)
• Meta moderators were already in Texas before Zuckerberg announced move, say ex-workers (theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/13/meta-mo…) (The Guardian)
• Not Many Meta Employees Will Have to Move to Texas After All (wired.com/story/not-many-meta-employees-move-t…) (Wired)
• Meta just flipped the switch that prevents misinformation from spreading in the United States (platformer.news/meta-ends-misinformation-enfor…) (Platformer)
• Brazil expresses concern over Meta’s changes to content moderation (aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/14/brazil-expresses-…) (Al Jazeera)
• EU reassesses tech probes into Apple, Google and Meta (ft.com/content/2c1b6bfd-ce73-451d-8123-0df9642…) (Financial Times)
• Despite DEI & content moderation reversals, advertisers won’t flee Meta (thedrum.com/news/2025/01/14/despite-dei-conten…) (The Drum)
• Meta’s ‘free speech’ overhaul sparks advertisers’ concern (ft.com/content/9b33c935-1da6-4c81-ab0b-cba8c78…) (Financial Times)
• French Woman Says AI Brad Pitt Scammed Her Out of $850K (hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/ai-bra…) (Hollywood Reporter)
• French TV show pulled after ridicule of woman who fell for AI Brad Pitt (theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/14/french-tv-sh…) (The Guardian)
• Why This OnlyFans Model Posts Machine Learning Explainers to Pornhub (404media.co/why-this-onlyfans-model-posts-mach…) (404 Media)
If you’re in London on Thursday 30th January, join Ben, Mark Scott (Digital Politics) and Georgia Iacovou (Horrific/Terrific) for an evening of tech policy, discussion and drinks. Register your interest. (docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScA8OWCTDYMko…)
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)).