Reimagining the Internet

danah boyd is so fascinated by data and society that she founded a research institute called Data and Society. We brought her on Reimagining this week to talk about one of her long-running research interests—the social lives of teens online—and ended up with a sprawling conversation that touched on everything from anti-trans culture wars to […]

Dr. Timnit Gebru's pioneering work in AI research, her controversial dismissal from Google, and her critique of large language models. The podcast also explores the environmental impact and biases in AI models, the importance of understanding data and representation, and the need for inclusive machine learning systems.

Jar Jar Binks, the human side of online harassment, restorative justice, the Friends writers room, solidarity with UPS, what life looks like in the creative gig economy after your show has won an Emmy. Dylan Marron (Ted Lasso, Welcome to Nightvale) joins us for a sprawling, poignant conversation about how social media has effected our […]

Dave Karpf, a scholar/activist, discusses the decline of accessible data, antitrust regulation, 'shitification', and the fragility of democracy in the digital age. He also explores rebellion and chaos in today's world.

When we had Tracy Chou on the show in 2021, she was rolling out software to give users a revolutionary toolset to block harassment on Twitter, and she was doing it with the Twitter corporation’s help. Fast forward to today, when she’s one of Time Magazine’s 2022 Women of the Year and her work has […]

We’re always told algorithms are going to change our world. And they do, but it always seems to be for the worse. Do we have any alternative to simply breaking the machines that have run afoul of our values and needs? We’re thrilled to welcome Ben Tarnoff back on the show to talk his calls […]

Do Spotify’s algorithms make a listener’s music taste, or does taste make the algorithm? Nick Seaver embedded himself as an ethnographer at a music recommendation software firm to learn about the the very real way very specific people influence the algorithms that power our automated world. Nick Seaver directs the program in Science, Technology, and […]

For our first ever episode talking about Amazon (somehow?), Logic Magazine co-founder Moira Weigel tells us what she learned about Amazon by spending years interviewing its third-party sellers. From hand sanitizer hoarding to Chinese vendors getting “dragon boated,” Moira gives us a fascinating look at a massive, unregulated economy. Moira Weigel is assistant professor in […]

We’re thrilled to launch a new tool today: a big interactive map of Reddit, showing how biggest subreddits on the site are connected with each other. Mike is joined by iDPI’s very own Jasmine Mangat and Virginia Partridge for a riveting tell-all about RedditMap.Social. You can visit the tool at RedditMap.Social, talk to other redditors […]

Legal expert Daphne Keller discusses EU Internet regulations and their impact on social media. Topics include content moderation, transparency, platform audits, concerns about government control, and balancing user protections with platform operations. The conversation also explores contrasting US and European approaches to content regulation, challenges for smaller online platforms, combating CSAM, and potential solutions like middleware for decentralized content moderation.