The Dynamist

In the digital world, there is an enduring tension between privacy and security. What is our right to privacy from the government or the companies whose services we use? What rights does our government have to surveil us in the name of national security? Most of us have a general understanding of the basic tradeoff in the Internet era—you give up some data in exchange for free or freemium services like Gmail or social media apps like Instagram. But the data marketplace goes well beyond the Big Tech players we’re most familiar with, and the depth and breadth of these processes, and the players involved, are often much harder to pin down.What role do data brokers play and what sorts of data do they have access to? Is our data simply for sale to the highest bidder? Can even the chips in car tires be used to spy on people?Joining us to discuss all of this is Byron Tau, whose investigative work has shone a light on the connections between tech companies and government surveillance. His latest book, "Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State," uncovers the extensive ways our data are used to watch and influence us as the American public. Byron is also a reporter at NOTUS, a new publication covering politics and policy from the Albritton Journalism Institute, and an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University. 

Is the Internet broken? The original promise of this great invention is that it would offer a platform for free information exchange, empowering individual users worldwide. It would spread democracy and knowledge. It would surface the best and brightest from around the world. It would empower individuals over elites.Many, including our guest, argue that is not the Internet we have today. It seems everyone has gripes about Big Tech—from concerns around misinformation and censorship to the impact of social media on youth mental health. Underlying these policy issues is the issue of who controls our data and the flow of information. Have the economic benefits of the Internet been distributed fairly? Will AI lead to more competition or cement the dominance of incumbent firms? Is there a way to have the conveniences of today’s Internet without the downsides?Evan is joined by Frank H. Mccourt, Jr, Executive Chairman of McCourt Global and author of Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age. He is also the founder of Project Liberty. Project Liberty is a far-reaching effort to build an internet where individuals have more control over their data, a voice in how digital platforms operate, and greater access to the economic benefits of innovation.

On March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 352 to 65 on the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. This bill is aimed at forcing ByteDance, a Chinese tech company, to divest its subsidiary TikTok or face a ban of the popular social media app in the U.S. In practical terms, if a suitable divestiture doesn’t happen, the bill would require Apple and Google to remove it from their app stores—and web hosting companies, advertisers, and others wouldn’t be able to do business with TikTok. This would make it far more difficult, if not impossible, for any American to access it.TikTok has been through a political whirlwind since the Trump Administration first began an effort to ban TikTok or force a divestiture in 2020. Despite growing concern among lawmakers and bills introduced in recent years, TikTok seemed to have dodged a bullet, especially when President Biden joined the app last month. However, TikTok’s fortunes took a drastic turn when the recent bipartisan bill emerged and gained widespread support.The saga raises a lot of questions. To what extent does Chinese influence, and money, affect our politics? How have the positions of Biden, Trump, and other political figures evolved on the issue? And what will this all mean for the bill’s prospects in the notoriously slower and more deliberative U.S. Senate? Evan is joined by friends of the pod Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, and Nathan Leamer, CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies. 

Are you an Android user? Have you been ridiculed for the dreaded green text bubble, or been accused of “messing up the group chat?” In December, the tech company Beeper tried to bridge the Android-iPhone divide. They launched Beeper Mini, an app that gave Android users access to iMessage functionality. The app immediately took off, gaining over a hundred thousand downloads in the first few days and reaching the top-20 app chart on the Google Play Store. But just a couple of days later, Apple shut the app down, citing security concerns and the potential for privacy risks. This brouhaha caught the attention of US lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who criticized Apple's actions as potentially anti-competitive. A bipartisan group in Congress has requested the Department of Justice investigate Apple's conduct towards Beeper, suggesting that it may violate antitrust laws. The Beeper situation reflects a broader debate around app store competition, security and privacy, and the competitive dynamics between major tech platforms and third-party developers. Are app stores monopolistic? How might Beeper’s story influence the future of antitrust when it comes to Big Tech? Evan is joined by Eric Migicovsky. Eric is the co-founder of Beeper and a central player in the ongoing discussions around Apple and its app store. Prior to that, he founded the smartwatch company Pebble, and was a partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. Read Beeper’s blog post about their situation with Apple here.

Many conservatives lament a decades-long stagnation of innovation. As Peter Thiel once quipped, “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” The rise of AI and other transformative technologies may augur an end to this stagnation, according to thinkers like Marc Andreessen, who joined The Dynamist recently to discuss techno-optimism. Others, of course, are more pessimistic. Will we end the Great Stagnation? Will we build the sci-fi future of our dreams? And where does the hurly-burly of politics fit into this conversation? Our guest today, James Pethokoukis, recently wrote The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. Jim is a senior fellow and the DeWitt Wallace Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, where he analyzes US economic policy, writes and edits the AEIdeas blog, and hosts AEI’s Political Economy podcast. He is also a CNBC contributor and writes the Faster, Please! Substack. We’re also joined by FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas and Research Manager Robert Bellafiore. Robert recently reviewed James’ book for The New Atlantis. Jon has written extensively about the politics of innovation, including for Compact and American Affairs. 

Debate on upcoming Supreme Court cases regarding online free speech and state regulation of Big Tech. Insights on controversial content moderation by companies like Meta and Twitter. Discussion on Florida and Texas laws targeting political bias. Arguments from NetChoice and states representatives. Exploration of balancing free speech with regulation in the tech industry.

One of the ways the Chinese government looks to exert influence is by changing the behavior of businesses and individuals who operate in China. Remember the firestorm that occurred when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sent a tweet in support of the Hong Kong protests? NBA games were taken off the air in China, and a series of profuse apologies on the part of the NBA and its partners followed. As tensions rise between the U.S. and China, so do the tensions for businesses trying to operate in China. The nation of 1.4 billion people represents the biggest market in the world and an enormous source of potential revenue. But those who do business in China must play by China’s rules, so what are the tradeoffs? How far is too far? What role, if any, should the U.S. government play in regulating American businesses’ relationship with and dealings in China?Evan is joined by Chris Fenton, a movie producer and author of Feeding The Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business. Today, Chris advises companies, brands, and Congress on how to navigate the America-China relationship and co-hosts US Congressional Member delegations in China. 

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee brought the CEOs of major tech companies like Meta and TikTok to answer questions about the impact of social media on children—from concerns about bullying and mental health to sexual exploitation. Lawmakers around the country and the world have been increasingly focused on this and other issues under the broader umbrella of digital privacy. Europe has led the Western world in enacting regulations that privacy advocates herald while critics warn they stifle innovation.We’re 30 years into widespread adoption of the commercial Internet, yet Congress has failed to pass any sort of comprehensive legislation around digital privacy. There’s broad agreement that America needs a national privacy law, so why don’t we have one? In the meantime, a growing number of U.S. states have filled the void with bills like the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. How have these laws impacted the tech landscape? How do they impact global internet practices, and shape principles around online free speech and innovation?Evan and FAI Director of Outreach Luke Hogg are joined by Jennifer Huddleston, technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute. Her work covers a range of topics, including antitrust, online content moderation, and data privacy. For more, see her recent piece on online safety legislation.NB: A previous version of this episode was missing content, which has been restored.

Our government agencies are hopelessly out of date. Public documents are stored in backroom file cabinets, instead of being digitized and posted online. As FAI Senior Economist Samuel Hammond has noted, “We validate people’s identity with a nine-digit numbering system created in 1936. The IRS Master File runs on assembly from the 1960s.” The deliberations of the government and its agencies are often inaccessible to the general public. And without this information, nearly everything becomes harder. How do you hold government institutions accountable when their activity and data are buried under layers of bureaucracy? How do we improve the collection, organization, and distribution of government information, as well as public information in general? And how will the arrival of new technologies like artificial intelligence help (or hurt) with that goal? Evan is joined by Jamie Joyce, Director at Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, and Founder of the Society Library, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution that builds tools and develops products to improve the information ecosystem. She’s also a board member at WikiTongues, an internet archive dedicated to the preservation of world languages.

The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the tech companies violated the newspaper’s copyrights by training ChatGPT on millions of Times articles. The decision in this case could have enormous implications for journalism and AI tools like large language models, and the lawsuit could go to the Supreme Court. While OpenAI says such training is “fair use,” the Times says the companies “seek to free-ride” on its journalism. How will the case be decided, and how will the outcome affect the next decade-plus of journalism and AI development? Fundamentally, should companies like OpenAI be allowed to train on copyrighted material without compensating creators?Joining us to discuss all of this today are Matthew Sag and Zach Graves. Sag is a Professor of Law in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science at Emory University Law School. He is an expert in copyright law and intellectual property, and a leading authority on the fair use doctrine in copyright law and its implications for AI. Graves is the Executive Director at the Foundation for American Innovation. He was recently invited to participate in the Senate’s AI Insight Forum.