The Silence of the LLMs

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:
• The Darkest Web (youtube.com/watch?v=mNUku0jd4FA) (BBC)
• Federal agencies skirt Trump’s Anthropic ban to test its advanced AI model (politico.com/news/2026/04/14/anthropic-mythos-…) (Politico)
• Anthropic Opposes the Extreme AI Liability Bill That OpenAI Backed (wired.com/story/anthropic-opposes-the-extreme-…) (Wired)
• Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says (politico.eu/article/europe-should-stand-up-to-…) (Politico EU)
• Statement by President von der Leyen with Executive Vice-President Virkkunen on the digital age verification app (ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/…) (European Commission)
• Apple threatened to remove Grok from the App Store over sexualized deepfakes, letter says (nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-threat-remove…) (NBC News)
• A fake Ledger app on the Apple App Store drained $9.5 million in crypto (coindesk.com/business/2026/04/14/a-fake-ledger…) (Coindesk)
• India’s Decentralized System of Internet Censorship (techpolicy.press/indias-decentralized-system-o…) (Tech Policy Press)
• As Social Media Tears Society Apart, a New Crop of Scary Movies Focuses on the Horror of Content Moderation (variety.com/2026/film/features/horror-movies-s…) (Variety)
We’re still yet to find a Ctrl-Alt-Speech 2026 Bingo Card (ctrlaltspeech.com/bingo) winner — could this week be your lucky day? Play along!
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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)).