Teen But Not Heard

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by guest host Bridget Todd, a technology and culture writer, speaker and trainer and host of two great podcasts, There are No Girls on the Internet (tangoti.com) and IRL: Online Life is Real Life (irlpodcast.org). Together, they cover:
• AI Models And Parents Don’t Understand ‘Let Him Cook’ (404media.co/ai-models-and-parents-dont-underst…) (404 Media)
• Trial reveals flaws in tech intended to enforce Australian social media ban for under-16s (theguardian.com/media/2025/jun/20/social-media…) (The Guardian)
• Inside /r/SGExams: Meet the young volunteers behind 1 of S’pore’s largest online forums for students (straitstimes.com/singapore/inside-rsgexams-mee…) (Straits Times)
• The people who clean up your TikTok feed are starting to fight back (restofworld.org/2025/tiktok-moderators-turkey) (Rest of World)
• Man with real-life girlfriend and child proposes to AI chatbot after programming it to flirt: ‘I think this is actual love (nypost.com/2025/06/19/us-news/father-chris-smi…) (New York Post)
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)).