In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, a podcast that makes sense of the rapidly changing world of tech. Together, they discuss:

• After a deadly raid, an AI power struggle erupts at the Pentagon (Washington Post)
• Following: Anthropic vs. The Pentagon (Platformer)
• Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge (TIME)
• Hackers Expose Age-Verification Software Powering Surveillance Web (The Rage)
• Discord is delaying its global age verification rollout (The Verge)
• Reddit fined £14m by UK data watchdog over age verification checks (BBC News)
• How to evaluate Trust & Safety vendors (Everything in Moderation*)
• Regulate platforms, not children – Commissioner urges caution over social media bans (Commissioner for Human Rights)
• MPs reject total ban, want data housed locally (The Star)
• Exclusive: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere (Reuters)

Play along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card and get in touch if you win!

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at podcast@ctrlaltspeech.com and sponsorship enquiries to sponsorship@ctrlaltspeech.com. Thanks for listening.

In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Dr Blake Hallinan, Professor of Platform Studies in the Department of Media & Journalism Studies at Aarhus University. Together, they discuss:

• On Section 230’s 30th Birthday, A Look Back At Why It’s Such A Good Law And Why Messing With It Would Be Bad (Techdirt)
• An 18-Million-Subscriber YouTuber Just Explained Section 230 Better Than Every Politician In Washington (Techdirt)
• Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally (Discord)
• Media Literacy Parent's study (GOV.UK)
• EU says TikTok must disable ‘addictive’ features like infinite scroll, fix its recommendation engine (Techcrunch)
• We Didn’t Ask for This Internet with Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow (The New York Times)
• Despite Meta’s ban, Fidesz candidates successfully posted 162 political ads on Facebook in January 9 (Lakmusz.hu)
• Claude’s Constitution Needs a Bill of Rights and Oversight (Oversight Board)
• Account Closed Without Notice: Debanking Adult Industry Workers in Canada (ResearchGate)

Play along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card and get in touch if you win!

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at podcast@ctrlaltspeech.com and sponsorship enquiries to sponsorship@ctrlaltspeech.com. Thanks for listening.

In this special bonus for Ctrl-Alt-Speech listeners, we're cross-posting an episode from the Future Around And Find Out podcast hosted by Dan Blumberg with guest Kwaku Aning.

This week Dan and Kwaku dig into:

• The uncanny valley that is AI agents and Moltbook—the "Reddit" that agents built for themselves to complain about humans, create a religion, and behave in ways that freak humans out
• Anthropic takes aim at OpenAI with a Super Bowl ad that's spicy (for cubs and cougars alike)
• We read Claude's "Constitution" and ask: Should AI do what you ask it to do—or what it thinks you really want long-term?
• Why Dan switched from OpenAI to Claude (and what he learned about tone, capability, and custom projects)
• OpenAI scrambles; the market stumbles; Jensen Huang acts like Sam Altman is "just someone I used to know"
• How AEO (AI Engine Optimization) becomes critical in an AI-agent world—and what that means for brand, marketing, and search
• Why social media is already past (dark social won)
• Elon's pivot to humanoid robots, data centers in space, and other cool things we definitely need
• Are we setting higher ethical standards for machines than for tech leaders?

Subscribe to FAFO wherever you get your podcasts, or at futurearound.com

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast from Techdirt and Everything in Moderation. Send us your feedback at podcast@ctrlaltspeech.com and sponsorship enquiries to sponsorship@ctrlaltspeech.com. Thanks for listening.