Techdirt

We wanted to do an episode all about examining the tech policy platforms of the 2016 presidential candidates, but that proved impossible since one candidate's is vague and noncommittal while the other's doesn't exist at all. Since a nuanced discussion about robust tech policy platforms was probably a bit much to hope for from this election anyway, for this week's episode we're discussing what a great presidential tech platform should look like under less absurd circumstances.

Yup, we're doing it — we're tackling the much-derided controversy over Apple's decision to remove the analog headphone jack from the iPhone! I join this week's episode myself as a guest host, and in truth none of us really think it's any kind of "apocalypse" — but none of us are huge fans of the move either. We discuss the questionable technical advantages, the looming spectre of DRM, and more.

Edward Snowden deserves a pardon. We all know it — even if you believe he deserves to stand trial, the only option right now is an unfair trial on Espionage Act charges in which he'd be blocked from presenting a meaningful defense. A pardon from those charges is the only just choice. This week, we're joined by Trevor Timm, co-founder of the Freedom Of The Press Foundation, and returning guest Parker Higgins to discuss why Edward Snowden deserves a pardon, and the campaign to get him one deserves your support.

Data breaches that expose passwords are pretty much a fact of life at this point — and the effects are multiplied by the fact that many, many people reuse passwords no matter how much they know they shouldn't. As such, there's a big push to move to password managers, two-factor authentication, and even biometrics — because the simple fact is the password sucks. This week, we're discussing what if anything will succeed in replacing it.

Facebook's efforts to moderate content that appears on the social network have run into numerous problems, most recently with a famous war photo and a bunch of blog posts. Some have made absurd demands in response, such as giving old-school media editors special posting privileges, while others have objected to the idea of Facebook censoring any content whatsoever. But is that objection realistic? This week, we discuss the complicated question of Facebook moderation, and what the company's role can and should be.

As technology ushers more and more things towards the realm of "post-scarcity", an inevitable conversation has arisen around the very roots of capitalism and what this rapid change means for our economic systems at the most fundamental levels. But the answer is far from simple — is capitalism dying? Can it evolve? Is the whole question being framed incorrectly? This week, we discuss the notion of a post-capitalist world, what it might look like, and how close it actually is.

Not all Kickstarter campaigns are created equal. Even the mostly-good ones that eventually satisfy their backers are often plagued with delays and poor communication. But once in a while, there's a campaign that runs smoothly, communicates openly, and delivers a great product on time as promised — and Minaal is one company that pulled off such a campaign to launch its line of travel bags. This week, we're joined by co-founder Jimmy Hayes to discuss how they pulled it off and what their experience can teach us about other campaigns and the broader crowdfunding ecosystem.

Gawker's gone, and that's that. And yet, whenever we've expressed concerns over the billionaire vendetta that brought it down, we've faced a huge amount of pushback from people who had problems with the site and its reporting practices. This week, we're joined by Parker Thompson aka Startup L. Jackson for a friendly debate about whether the Gawker shutdown really is a big deal.

Ira Rothken is on the front lines of many major legal battles relating to copyright and piracy, including defending Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and, most recently, taking up the defense of Kickass Torrents operator Artem Vaulin. This week, Ira joins us on the podcast to discuss the ins and outs of these and other cases where the entertainment industry has come down hard on consumers and innovators.

The internet is built on a solid foundation of open protocols: TCP/IP, HTTP and SMTP especially, plus more modern entrants like RSS and BitTorrent. But even those aren't so new anymore, and it seems like the era of the open protocol might be coming to an end, supplanted by the drive to create proprietary closed platforms. This week, we discuss whether the open protocol is dead, and what that means for the future of the open internet.