Putting Some Meat On The Bans

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In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Niklas Eder, co-founder and co-CEO of User Rights, a designated out of court dispute settlement body under the Digital Services Act which reviews complaints from users whose social media posts have been deleted or moderated. Together, Ben and Niklas discuss:

• UK to lay out social media curbs for 16 and 17 year-olds (POLITICO)
• ‘What’s the point?’ Teenagers give their verdict on Britain’s social media curfew (The Guardian)
• EU moves towards social media ban for children (Financial Times)
• They Helped Women Fight Online Abuse. They Were Barred From the U.S. (The New York Times)
• Discord confirms AI moderators have banned thousands over harmless images (Mashable)
• Federal Court Suspends Trump Immigration Policy Targeting Technology Researchers (Knight First Amendment Institute)

And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters, they cover:

• EU threatens Meta with fines over 'addictive' Facebook and Instagram (BBC News)
• Commission preliminarily finds the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook in breach of the Digital Services Act (European Commission)
• The Question of Legality and the Function of the Commission’s Preliminary Findings Against Meta (Verfassungsblog)

Our fun links this week are a lawn mowing game for post-World Cup stress relief and the Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers because we need more satire right now. 

This episode is sponsored by PwC, whose upcoming 2026 Trust and Safety Outlook Report explores the forces reshaping how organizations are approaching online safety and integrity. In our special bonus chat, Ben sits down with Dan Hays, Principal Partner of Strategy& (part of the PwC network), to talk about the future of trust and safety and get a sneak peek at some of the themes in their report before its release next week at TrustCon.

If you’re already a Patreon supporter, you can get the extended episode on Patreon.

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Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).