This week, we've got a cross-post episode of Mike's appearance on Kevin Williamson's How The World Works podcast. Kevin conducted a wide-ranging interview that covers some of the earliest days of Techdirt, the blog's evolution, and many of the important topics we cover today — and you can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode.
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1:07:26
The Political Power Of Mockery
In a world awash with misinformation and disinformation, those who spread and benefit from the chaos have worked hard to brand fact-checking and counterspeech as a form of censorship — and it's a worryingly effective tactic. But there's one type of counterspeech that is very hard to evade: mockery and satire. One person who knows that very well is Ben Collins, CEO of Global Tetrahedron, which purchased The Onion last year. This week, Ben joins us on the podcast to talk about the incredible power of mockery in the social and political landscape.
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58:12
The Fracturing Internet
Way, way back during the SOPA/PIPA fight, a very important part of the resistance against the bills was coming from infrastructure operators who explained how they were technically incoherent and dangerous. One prominent group was the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, co-founded by Christian Dawson. Today, with legislative amnesia setting in and new requirements for infrastructure-level site blocking rearing their heads, the Coalition has released a new report: DNS At Risk. This week, he joins us on the podcast to talk about the report and the ongoing dangers of attacks on the internet infrastructure.
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46:46
The FTC's Quixotic Social Media Inquiry
We've got a cross-post episode for you this week, courtesy of the Tech Policy Podcast by TechFreedom, hosted by Corbin Barthold. Both TechFreedom and The Copia Institute submitted comments on the FTC's inquiry into social media censorship, Corbin invited Mike and TechFreedom's Santana Boulton for a discussion all about what's going on. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week's episode.
Copia Comment: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/22/we-shouldnt-have-to-explain-to-the-ftc-why-content-moderation-is-so-crucial-to-free-speech-but-we-did/
TechFreedom Comment (pdf): https://techfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/TechFreedom-Comments-FTC-Political-Bias-Inquiry.pdf
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57:33
Blitzscaling For Tyrants
In something of a followup to our last episode about Elon Musk's playbook, today we're digging deeper into the comparison between Washington and Silicon Valley and what it tells us about DOGE. Johns Hopkins International Affairs professor Henry Farrell has been looking specifically at the concept of "blitzscaling", and this week he joins us on the podcast to talk about how Elon Musk and DOGE are bringing blitzscaling to government.
"Blizscaling for Tyrants" on Substack: https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/blitzscaling-for-tyrants
UK