Tech Policy Podcast

From November 8, 2020 (Episode 279): Billy Easley sits down with former host Ashkhen Kazaryan. They remind us of the value of the free and open Internet. Links: Revising the Law That Lets Platforms Moderate Content Will Silence Marginalized Voices Free Speech and Tech Policy at the US Supreme Court, 2025 (AEI Event)

Matt Perault (a16z) joins Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) for a wide-ranging discussion of AI bills, AI laws, and AI vibes. Part of the WLF-TechFreedom Tech in the Courts webinar series. Topics include: Why did the AI moratorium die? Activity in the states Regulate outcomes, not models? Next steps in Congress “Transparency”: so hot right now The AI panic Lawsuits Links: Recorded Tech in the Courts W...

Our host, Corbin Barthold, heads over to So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast. He talks with Nico Perrino and Ari Cohn of FIRE about the death of the AI moratorium, a bogus wrongful death lawsuit against Character AI, the FTC’s campaign of censorship against ad agencies, and the absurdities of Europe’s Digital Services Act. Links: Shownotes, courtesy of So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast

Richard Morrison (Competitive Enterprise Institute) joins the show for a Big Picture Episode on how AI could affect art, culture, and politics. Topics include: Take your Zyn and LSD Don’t rock out to this AI band What is AI slop? (What is art?!) Cultural elites hardest hit A brief history of tech panics Ban the prompt theory! The AI civil rights movement AI as counterculture Links: Big Yowie, AI s...

TechFreedom’s Jim Dunstan and Corbin Barthold discuss the NASA administrator vacancy, the  Artemis program, the NASA budget, SpaceX and Blue Origin, the moon and Mars, the FAA and NEPA, space regulatory sandboxes, and more. Links: “A Blueprint to Launch”: Regulatory Sandboxes for Outer Space Roadster location in space Tech Policy Podcast 372: Spacesuits! Tech Policy Podcast 349: The State of Space...

FTC commissioners Rebecca Slaughter, Alvaro Bedoya, and Bill Kovacic speak with hosts Bilal Sayyed and Jessica Melugin at the 2025 TechFreedom / CEI Policy Summit: Constitutional Limits of FTC, FCC & DOJ Interference in Media and Speech. Links: Constitutional Limits of FTC, FCC and DOJ | Day 1 Constitutional Limits of FTC, FCC and DOJ | Day 2 SCOTUS Should Not Hand Sweeping Removal Powers to this...

Maneesha Mithal (Wilson Sonsini) discusses the FTC’s investigation of social media companies. What’s going on behind the scenes? What’s the FTC likely to do now? How can platforms prepare? How much damage to the First Amendment can the FTC inflict? We cover all this and more. Links: Tech Policy Podcast 409: The FTC’s Quixotic Social Media Inquiry Tech Policy Podcast 406: The Take It Down Act (Is a...

Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Santana Boulton (TechFreedom) discuss the FTC’s “Inquiry on Tech Censorship.” Topics include: What are we doing here? The myth surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop Does the FTC know how terms of service work? Does the FTC know how cartels work? Content moderation is pro-free speech Jawboning on steroids Links: Copia Institute FTC comments (https://tinyurl.com/y6r2b82f) Tec...

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez speaks with TechFreedom President Berin Szóka at the 2025 TechFreedom / CEI Policy Forum: Constitutional Limits on FTC, FCC, and DOJ Interference in Media and Speech. Topics include: Nice broadcast license. Would be a pity if … Section 230 is good, actually Agency independence is good, actually How do you litigate regulation-by-threat? Edge providers =/= common carriers...

Vidushi Dyall (Chamber of Progress) discusses the remedies phase of the Google search antitrust trial. Will Judge Mehta order Google to sell Chrome? To license its search data? To stop paying Apple for default status? And: With AI advancing rapidly, why are we talking about any of this? Sorry about Corbin’s sound quality! He’ll be back in front of a proper microphone next episode. Links: Tech Poli...

Jess Miers (Akron Law) discusses the problems with the Take It Down Act—the federal bill that (ostensibly) targets non-consensual intimate imagery. Topics include: What does Take It Down (claim) to do? FFS, enforce the laws you have! “Sexually explicit content” (in a normal world) Brendan Carr is a preview of things to come Amy Klobuchar is asleep Is the “it” in Take It Down “all adult content”? T...

Eric Goldman (Santa Clara Law) discusses his new paper, “The ‘Segregate-and-Suppress’ Approach to Regulating Child Safety Online.” Topics include: The many kinds of online age-verification law Age verification as an information problem Fancy tech as deus ex machina Data collection today; state surveillance tomorrow What about devices and app stores? The internet and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs Chi...

Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discusses the recent spate of attacks on end-to-end encryption—and free speech more broadly—in the United Kingdom and United States. Links: U.K. Orders Apple to Let It Spy on Users’ Encrypted Accounts Tech Policy Podcast 356: The UK Targets End-to-End Encryption The UK’s state-funded anti-encryption propaganda The UK Has A Voyeuristic New Propaganda Campaign Against E...

Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez (Law & Chaos) discuss the Trump administration’s renditions to El Salvador, its purges of Justice Department lawyers, and other heinous things you should worry about. Links: Law & Chaos Trump v. J.G.G. (SCOTUS) Noem v. Abrego Garcia (4th Cir.) Trump docket w/ CourtListener links The Constitutional Crisis Is Here

In a crossover episode with the Rethinking Antitrust podcast, Bilal Sayyed (TechFreedom) questions our host, Corbin Barthold, about the presidential removal power, Humphrey’s Executor, the FTC, the Trump administration, and the Roberts Court. Note: This episode was recorded just before the D.C. Circuit issued an interlocutory order addressing the president’s removal power as to the NLRB and the MS...

Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s director of litigation, discusses the many, many lawsuits NetChoice has brought to defend free speech on the Internet. Topics include: Texas’s HB 20: time to create a 100,000 page record NetChoice speaks for you! California’s building code for the Internet “Addictive”: you keep using that word . . . Targeting social media = targeting the little guy Age-gating the Web: b...

Anupam Chander (Georgetown Law) discusses the many bad precedents—legal, geopolitical, and otherwise—that we’ll be living with in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the TikTok ban. Links: TikTok v. Garland Opens the Door to Global Censorship Harvard Law School Rappaport Forum: TikTok and Free Speech The National Security Internet Tech Policy Podcast 399: What the TikTok Ruling Shou...

Jeffrey Fisher (Stanford Law) argued the TikTok case before the Supreme Court, on behalf of a group of U.S. TikTok users. He and host Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discuss the SCOTUS TikTok ruling that should have been. Links: U.S. TikTok Petitioners’ Opening Supreme Court Brief Tech Policy Podcast 394: Tech and Trump 2.0 Tech Policy Podcast 371: So You Want to Ban TikTok Tech Policy Podcast 344:...

TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold, Andy Jung, and Santana Boulton continue their discussion of the many, many things going on in AI innovation, competition, and regulation.  Topics include: The Lina Khan AI crackdown (that we averted) What’s next for the FTC and AI? (More) AI culture war 600 state AI bills (might be 600 too many) Blackpilled about Europe Micromanaged deregulation (is not a thing) Will...

TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold, Andy Jung, and Santana Boulton take you on a tour of the many, many things going on in AI innovation, competition, and regulation.  Topics include: First signs of AI escape velocity? Automated luxury libertarianism The Trumpian vibe shift AI culture war The AI $$$$ bonfire The one-week DeepSeek freakout Is regulation futile? Links: Tyler Cowen on OpenAI’s Deep Resear...

Maggie Miller (Politico) discusses the Chinese Communist Party’s sweeping cyberwar on the United States. Topics include: What is Salt Typhoon? The CCP is on the phone Holiday break > national security Volt Typhoon (it gets worse!) Is the Trump team taking this seriously? Save CISA! The CCP ♥️ the Thucydides Trap Links: We Need to Talk About Salt Typhoon How Chinese Hackers Graduated From Clumsy Co...

Orin Kerr (Stanford Law) discusses his new book “The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in Our Online World.” Topics include: The un-original Fourth Amendment Should crooks just not carry smartphones? Do originalists cheat on the 4A? SCOTUS 4A rulings as equilibrium adjustment Content vs. metadata The mosaic theory (is unworkable) Applying the 4A to tomorrow’s tech today Links: The Dig...

Ari Cohn (FIRE) and Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) preview the biggest tech policy issues of the Trump II administration. Topics include: TikTok ban: still unconstitutional Trump’s bonkers TikTok brief Was it worth it, Brendan Carr? Obsolete rules for obsolete TV networks Carr & Sec. 230: not how any of this works Andrew Ferguson plays MAGA Mad Libs Ferg & antitrust: not how any of this works KOSA...

From October 31, 2022 (Episode 331): Emma Llansó discusses the history and importance of Section 230. Links: The Third Circuit’s Section 230 Decision In Anderson v. TikTok Is Pure Poppycock Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading Fast

Herbert Hovenkamp (Penn Law and Wharton) shares his thoughts on the progressive antitrust movement, the government’s antitrust campaign against Big Tech, the 2023 Merger Guidelines, the famous tech antitrust cases of the past, and more. Links: Charting Antitrust’s Future Antitrust Policy After Biden Structural Antitrust Relief Against Digital Platforms Breaking Up Google Would Be a Big Mistake Wha...