We've written a lot about how AI can empower users when employed the right way, but how this is difficult when a few giant tech firms control the technology. One company that is trying to move in a different direction is DuckDuckGo with its Duck.ai offering. This week, DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg joins the podcast for a deeper dive into what the company is doing in the AI space.
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The Fictional Censorship Cinematic Universe
Last year, Renée DiResta joined us on an episode of the podcast to talk about her book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, all about the people who have crafted a massive fictional narrative about the state of social media and government's involvement in content moderation. Now that Jim Jordan is celebrating Google's recent letter about the Biden administration and spreading all sorts of false claims about what it says, Renée joins us again to talk about maddening irony and overall craziness of this narrative that just won't go away.
Last year's episode: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/09/techdirt-podcast-episode-397-the-people-who-turn-lies-into-reality/
Renée's book: https://www.reneediresta.com/books/
Our coverage of Google's letter: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/25/jim-jordan-celebrates-google-caving-to-his-pressure-in-letter-that-says-caving-to-government-pressure-is-wrong/
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The Many Problems With The FTC's Pornhub Settlement
Last week, we published three separate posts that looked at the FTC's recent settlement with Aylo, the parent company of multiple adult websites including, most famously, Pornhub. Those posts, written by Stanford HAI policy fellow Riana Pfefferkorn, examined the legally complicated but very important issues that arise from the settlement forcing Aylo to scan for CSAM. This week, Riana joins us on the podcast alongside TechFreedom president Berin Szoka, to go even deeper into the legal weeds and explain how this settlement could doom criminal CSAM cases.
Posts on Techdirt:
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/15/the-trump-ftcs-war-on-porn-just-ensured-that-accused-csam-offenders-will-walk-free/
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/15/the-ftcs-settlement-with-aylo-this-isnt-really-about-fighting-csam-and-revenge-porn/
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/18/the-worlds-most-popular-porn-site-is-a-government-agent-now-does-it-matter/
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Copyright And The First Amendment Collide At The Supreme Court
In what feels like something of a throwback to much earlier days of Techdirt, the Supreme Court is getting into the weeds of the DMCA. Cox v. Sony is a case centered around questions of repeat infringers and intermediary liability, and we've submitted an amicus brief from the Copia Institute, written by Cathy Gellis. This week, Cathy joins the podcast to discuss the Supreme Court's opportunity to fix the first amendment problems with platform copyright liability.
Copia Institute brief: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/something-good-the-supreme-court-could-do-finally-fix-the-first-amendment-problems-with-platform-liability-for-copyright-infringement/
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The Eternal September
We've got a cross-post episode this week, with Mike's recent appearance on the Computer Says Maybe podcast hosted by Alix Dunn. The discussion starts out looking at decentralization and Bluesky, then goes way beyond that into the early days of the internet and the concept of the Eternal September. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode.
New Zealand