The Dangers of Censorship

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The president held up a copy of the New York Post with me on it in the Oval Office as he announced an executive order restricting censorship by Silicon Valley companies. His name is Joelle Roth and he's the one that said that mail-in balloting, you look mail-in. No fraud, no fraud really. And after the January 6th attacks of the Capitol, he lost his Twitter account too. He'd expected the criticism, but not that he would be the target. But soon you will realize that what his harassers were doing was much more effective.

In a congressional hearing this week, OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, appeared to be on the same page as lawmakers: It’s time to regulate A.I. But like so many other proposals to regulate tech, will it actually happen? The Times’s technology reporter Cecilia Kang helps us understand whether Congress will actually act, and what that could look like.

Then, Casey talks with Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, before and after Elon Musk took over the company.

On today’s episode:

Cecilia Kang is a reporter at The New York Times covering technology and regulation.
Yoel Roth is the former head of trust and safety at Twitter.

Additional reading:

Sam Altman urged Congress to pass legislation to regulate A.I., including the proposal that A.I. developers should be required to get licenses from the U.S. government to release their models.
Casey Newton reported for This American Life on Roth’s time at Twitter, before and after Musk took over.