On this week’s episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss tricky antitrust decisions, Balaji’s Network State, the dynamics of content moderation, and more.

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LINKS:

Byrne’s writing: https://thediff.co

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X / TWITTER:

https://twitter.com/ByrneHobart (Byrne)

https://twitter.com/TurpentineMedia (Turpentine)

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Intro

(00:23) Paradox of antitrust in tech

(03:00) Consumer welfare vs. market dominance

(09:48) Lina Khan

(13:29) Sponsors: Babbel | Brave

(15:53) Corporate social responsibility and privatization

(20:28) AI trust and the impact of fake content

(26:48) Technical inputs into AI 

(31:40) Absurdity heuristic 

(32:24) Exploring intangible capital

(39:05) Network States and organizational challenges

(48:13) Politics and social media dynamics

(55:34) Conservative and progressive elites

(01:00:26) Wrap