378 episodes
Tech Policy Podcast TechFreedom
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- Technology
Tech policy is at the center of the hottest debates in American law and politics. On the Tech Policy Podcast, host Corbin Barthold discusses the latest developments with some of the tech world's best journalists, lawyers, academics, and more.
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From the Vault: Conspiracy Theories and the Internet
From January 10, 2022 (Episode 309): Joseph Uscinski (University of Miami) argues that the internet is not increasing the prevalence of conspiracy theories.
Links:
Don’t Blame Social Media for Conspiracy Theories—They Would Still Flourish Without It (https://tinyurl.com/whz5a9uk) -
375: Tech Facts and Fallacies
Robert Atkinson is president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. He joins the show to discuss his new book, Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths About Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy, co-authored with David Moschella.
Topics include:
- Tech panic: speeding-uppers vs. slowing-downers
- Tech and privacy: try living in an analogue village!
- The wicked problem of content moderation
- Is tech progress bad for the middle class?
- Is tech driving market concentration?
- “Industrial planning”: dirty words?
Links:
Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy (https://tinyurl.com/p93fypz5) -
374: Politics and Technological Change
Richard Morrison (Competitive Enterprise Institute) joins the show, in a crossover episode with the Free the Economy podcast.
Topics include:
- The history of podcasts
- The rise of micro media (find a thousand true fans!)
- Performative tech doomerism
- The idleness of romanticizing the past
- The quest for online community
- Conservatives in the Technium
Links:
Free the Economy (https://tinyurl.com/38r6jw7t)
Why Conservatism Failed (https://tinyurl.com/yru444f5)
The Quest for a Better Online “Community” (https://tinyurl.com/5f8twhny) -
#373: Porn and the First Amendment
It’s the episode you’ve been waiting for: TechFreedom’s Corbin Barthold and Ari Cohn talk about pornography and free expression.
Topics include:
- The Founding Fathers: epic porn fiends (j/k)
- Obscenity law, a brief history
- Do conservatives still want to ban James Joyce?
- “I know it when I see it”—Worst. Legal standard. Ever.
- Is there a moral case against porn? (Spoiler alert: No)
- The Fifth Circuit botches internet speech law
Links:
Tech Policy Podcast #360: Red States vs. Every SCOTUS Internet Precedent (https://tinyurl.com/4y4fwb9j)
A Reagan Judge, The First Amendment, And The Eternal War Against Pornography (https://tinyurl.com/2ba82bbe)
Texas Legislature Convinced First Amendment Simply Does Not Exist (https://tinyurl.com/4x8vyjkh)
Is Porn Harmful? The Evidence, the Myths and the Unknowns (https://tinyurl.com/59fzrxvd) -
#372: Spacesuits!
Ryan Scirocco is the spacesuit business development lead at Collins Aerospace. Collins, an RTX business, is, along with its partners ILC Dover and Oceaneering, developing a new generation of spacesuits for NASA. Ryan discusses everything that goes into keeping people alive in a freezing zero-gravity vacuum far outside the biosphere.
Topics include:
- A spacesuit is a mini-spaceship
- Space: it wants to kill you
- Spacesuit history
- What’s new? No more mirrors!
- Testing spacesuits on the vomit comet
- The ISS, the Moon, and beyond
Links:
Collins Aerospace Completes Key Spacesuit Testing Milestone (https://tinyurl.com/3nphfunp)
Space Symposium (https://tinyurl.com/yh27xsfc)
Tech Policy Podcast #349: The State of Space Exploration (https://tinyurl.com/yns72nwm) -
#371: So You Want to Ban TikTok
Corbin Barthold (TechFreedom) discusses, in exquisite detail, the First Amendment problems with H.R. 7521, the House bill to ban TikTok.
Topics include:
- Your First Amendment right to read crazy shit
- TikTok ban bros: throwing spaghetti at the wall
- Foreign broadcast-ownership rules: so passé
- “iT’S nOT sPEech, It’S CoNDuCt”
- H.R. 7521: Least. Tailored. Law. Ever.
- Banning media: it’s what the other guys do
- McCarthyism: so hot right now
Links:
A Breakdown of the Bizarre Factions Fighting Over the TikTok Ban Bill (https://tinyurl.com/yc25nbb9)
Tech Policy Podcast #344: TikTok and the First Amendment (https://tinyurl.com/5n7kd9f7)
Tech Policy Podcast #368: How the Government Gets Your Data (https://tinyurl.com/bdf5e25a)
Tech Policy Podcast #289: The History, Use, and Abuse of the Fairness Doctrine (https://tinyurl.com/dp98arda)
The only thing Congress can agree on is to ban TikTok!? (https://tinyurl.com/3fk954ye)