Sorry, This Episode Will Not Cheer You Up

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

• These look like Harris ads. Trump backers bought them (Washington Post)
• Facebook Took More Than $1 Million For Ads Sowing Election Lies (Forbes)
• Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine (CNN)
• Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way (New York Times)
• Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election (ProPublica)
• The U.S. Spies Who Sound the Alarm About Election Interference (New Yorker)
• This Is What $44 Billion Buys You (The Atlantic) 
• How Russia, China and Iran Are Interfering in the Presidential Election (New York Times) 
• Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide? (New York Times) 
• 'Sickening' Molly Russell chatbots found on Character.ai (BBC) 

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our sponsor Concentrix, the technology and services leader driving trust, safety, and content moderation globally. In our Bonus Chat, Dom Sparkes, Trust and Safety Director for EMEA, and David Elliot, Head of Technology, try to lighten the mood by discussing how to make a compelling business case for online safety and the importance of measuring ROI.

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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).