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You Can't Antitrust Anyone These Days · Ctrl-Alt-Speech

• 0:00
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike, let's be honest.
• 0:00
  Ben Whitelaw: Finding a prompt to start every episode of this podcast is getting to be a pain in the ass.
• 0:06
  Mike Masnick: No, no, it's wonderful.
• 0:09
  Mike Masnick: Come on.
• 0:09
  Mike Masnick: We learn all sorts of new things about new services, new apps.
• 0:15
  Mike Masnick: It's great.
• 0:17
  Ben Whitelaw: I I, it's a pain in my life.
• 0:20
  Ben Whitelaw: It really is, but I'm gonna stick with it for now cause I know you like it and, and it seems to be a, consistent part of what we do.
• 0:28
  Ben Whitelaw: So we'll continue until otherwise stated.
• 0:31
  Ben Whitelaw: But I found a treasure trove of that prompts, I believe, and that is the Apple 2025 App Store Awards.
• 0:39
  Ben Whitelaw: It's like a kind of gold mine,
• 0:40
  Mike Masnick: There we go.
• 0:42
  Mike Masnick: We learn about new apps.
• 0:44
  Ben Whitelaw: Other app stores are available.
• 0:46
  Ben Whitelaw: I feel like we have to say at the start of the podcast, this is not a sponsored segment, although it definitely should be.
• 0:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, anyway, one of the
• 0:55
  Mike Masnick: wants to sponsor the prompt, please, please get in touch.
• 0:58
  Ben Whitelaw: please.
• 0:59
  Ben Whitelaw: anyway, one of the apps in this year's long list is a photo sharing app called Retro, which is, kind of like Instagram for hipsters, basically.
• 1:09
  Mike Masnick: wasn't that what Instagram originally was?
• 1:12
  Ben Whitelaw: yeah, I think so.
• 1:13
  Ben Whitelaw: I think it's Instagram as was.
• 1:16
  Ben Whitelaw: but the kind of nice feature about it is that you can take your photos, which need no caption.
• 1:22
  Ben Whitelaw: There's none of the kind of posturing that comes with, Instagram captions.
• 1:26
  Ben Whitelaw: You can just upload your photo, but you can also turn those photos into postcards that you send.
• 1:31
  Ben Whitelaw: To your friends.
• 1:32
  Ben Whitelaw: So one of the prompts on the app is to send a postcard.
• 1:37
  Ben Whitelaw: So who would you send a postcard to and what would it say?
• 1:41
  Mike Masnick: Oh my goodness.
• 1:42
  Mike Masnick: Um, well, you know, I was out last week, and I traveled to Boston, and I went to a very interesting conference, one day conference, about trust and safety related districts or dealing with misinformation.
• 1:55
  Mike Masnick: Was, the topic of the event.
• 1:57
  Mike Masnick: And we in this building up on the top floor and we had a beautiful view of the river that runs through Boston from.
• 2:04
  Mike Masnick: back bay area of Boston over to Cambridge.
• 2:06
  Mike Masnick: We had this beautiful view of Cambridge, so I would probably take a picture of that, send it to you and show you what you were missing while you were recording an excellent podcast with, our guest host Kenji last week, which I then listened to on the flight back.
• 2:21
  Mike Masnick: It was very enjoyable, but, you know, had, had a little trust and safety related travel.
• 2:26
  Mike Masnick: What, who, what about you?
• 2:28
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm glad you sent me a postcard.
• 2:29
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm, I'm sad it wouldn't say wish you were here, but don't worry about that.
• 2:32
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, I would send a postcard to, probable listener of control, speech and, long time topic, of the podcast, mark Zuckerberg.
• 2:40
  Mike Masnick: Oh yeah,
• 2:41
  Ben Whitelaw: and I would say, mark, this is probably the first time that you have relaxed in 2025, um, enjoy, this week from wherever you are.
• 2:51
  Ben Whitelaw: you must be, must be mightily relieved after what, we're gonna talk about very shortly.
• 3:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation.
• 3:11
  Ben Whitelaw: It's November the 20th, 2025, and this week we're talking about the big meta antitrust case, the eus Digital Regulation Progress Report.
• 3:20
  Ben Whitelaw: US state laws facing platform pushback.
• 3:23
  Ben Whitelaw: My name is Ben Whitelaw.
• 3:24
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm the founder and editor of Everything Moderation, and I'm joined with Mike Masnick, who doesn't send his co-host podcasts from wherever he is in the world, which, you know, I don't want people to judge you for Mike, but that's, it's, it's quite telling was waiting by the door.
• 3:43
  Mike Masnick: well, you know, everything is digital these days, so, you know, it's, it's an internet era.
• 3:49
  Mike Masnick: I'm sorry that you live in that old fashioned analog era, but, uh, what, what can we do?
• 3:54
  Ben Whitelaw: Well, talking of which, I mean, I'm quite old fashioned, I think in many ways.
• 3:58
  Ben Whitelaw: And I, I've actually got a postcard in front of me that I, thought I'd maybe get your thoughts on,'cause I, I want to do something with it.
• 4:04
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 4:05
  Ben Whitelaw: we didn't talk about this before we
• 4:06
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, this is, I am, I have no idea where we're going.
• 4:09
  Ben Whitelaw: No, I found a podcast in a thrift shop,
• 4:13
  Mike Masnick: Postcard, not a podcast.
• 4:15
  Mike Masnick: It would be cool if you found a podcast in a thrift shop, but,
• 4:18
  Ben Whitelaw: God.
• 4:19
  Ben Whitelaw: I found a postcard in a thrift shop, in a charity shop in the UK hidden in a frame that I bought.
• 4:27
  Ben Whitelaw: And the pod, the pod, the postcard Dix, a scene of the Moscow Kremlin, as it's called on, on the back of the postcard.
• 4:36
  Ben Whitelaw: So it's a kind of snowy scene with a Kremlin with some trees in front of it, and it says Russian winter on it.
• 4:42
  Ben Whitelaw: And there's a, kind of some writing on it, and I'm gonna kind of explain a bit about it.
• 4:46
  Ben Whitelaw: 'cause I want to get your thoughts on how I can reach this person.
• 4:50
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 4:50
  Ben Whitelaw: Using the internet that you say is, is so powerful and, new.
• 4:55
  Ben Whitelaw: so the, postcard says, dear mom and dad, weather very cold food is beyond description.
• 5:00
  Ben Whitelaw: Metro Underground is very different from the northern line.
• 5:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Mr.
• 5:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Gorbachev is now president.
• 5:05
  Ben Whitelaw: See you soon.
• 5:06
  Ben Whitelaw: Love Linda.
• 5:07
  Ben Whitelaw: There is a stamp on it with the date, 1984,
• 5:11
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 5:12
  Ben Whitelaw: and there's no address.
• 5:13
  Mike Masnick: Oh my goodness.
• 5:14
  Ben Whitelaw: So this, postcard has been written but not sent over 20 years ago,
• 5:20
  Mike Masnick: 30 years ago.
• 5:21
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 5:21
  Ben Whitelaw: And the woman
• 5:23
  Mike Masnick: 40 years ago.
• 5:25
  Ben Whitelaw: 40 years ago can't, can't even do the maths.
• 5:29
  Ben Whitelaw: and I wonder, I want to find Linda.
• 5:31
  Ben Whitelaw: Basically I want to find her to see if she wants me to post her postcard to her or to her mom and dad.
• 5:41
  Ben Whitelaw: I just think it's an amazing find.
• 5:43
  Ben Whitelaw: and you know, there was always, in the early days of Twitter, there was always those really lovely stories of people finding.
• 5:50
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 5:50
  Ben Whitelaw: Long lost friends or reuniting teddies with, childhood loss on a train, that kind of thing.
• 5:56
  Ben Whitelaw: do you think that's possible?
• 5:57
  Ben Whitelaw: what's your hope for me?
• 5:58
  Ben Whitelaw: Funny, Glenda?
• 5:59
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I think it is, there's not much to go on there, but that, that is a fun one.
• 6:05
  Mike Masnick: Um, I would certainly post it to Blue Sky and see, see what we can get.
• 6:11
  Mike Masnick: Obviously it's a little bit smaller audience than some other platforms, but Blue Sky is one that I think would delight in trying to help you, find, Linda and find out about her magical trip to Moscow,
• 6:22
  Ben Whitelaw: yeah,
• 6:23
  Mike Masnick: years ago.
• 6:24
  Mike Masnick: I would be down for that.
• 6:25
  Mike Masnick: And I think
• 6:26
  Ben Whitelaw: yeah.
• 6:26
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 6:26
  Mike Masnick: that's kind of interesting.
• 6:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Maybe we make that, part of the controlled speech, uh, mission, uh, and, and I, I.
• 6:33
  Mike Masnick: But that's, I think that's actually like, you know, this is a cool reminder of what the internet it was supposed to be good for, what we liked about the early internet was exactly.
• 6:41
  Mike Masnick: Those, kinds of things.
• 6:43
  Mike Masnick: And so let's see if we can, we can track down Linda.
• 6:46
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 6:47
  Ben Whitelaw: And if any listeners know Linda or are Linda, get in touch with us.
• 6:53
  Ben Whitelaw: podcast@controlaltspeech.com.
• 6:56
  Ben Whitelaw: And if you have any ideas about how we can reunite the postcard with Linda, please let me know.
• 7:00
  Ben Whitelaw: that's our postcard segment.
• 7:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Done.
• 7:02
  Ben Whitelaw: Quite, quite an extensive one.
• 7:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, we should let listeners know, Mike, that we don't have an episode next week'cause it's Thanksgiving.
• 7:08
  Ben Whitelaw: But we do have something exciting coming out on the feed next week, which, is a great conversation that I had with, a really experienced trust and safety professional.
• 7:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Definitely look out for that.
• 7:18
  Ben Whitelaw: It's something a bit different, but we think listeners will like that.
• 7:21
  Ben Whitelaw: And, we've also, it's worth noting had a, a number of episodes that have been sponsored in recent weeks.
• 7:28
  Ben Whitelaw: we've had some really great conversations on the back of our weekly news roundup, and we'd like that to continue, wouldn't we?
• 7:35
  Mike Masnick: Yes, absolutely.
• 7:37
  Mike Masnick: So, you've heard some of the conversations we've had with AVADA or CCIA in recent weeks, definitely get in touch.
• 7:46
  Mike Masnick: and, you know, we talked about sort of the model that we used for sponsorships earlier this year.
• 7:51
  Mike Masnick: There was an episode in August.
• 7:52
  Mike Masnick: if anyone wants to listen to that or on the website, control alt speech.com, we have a page about the sponsorships.
• 7:59
  Mike Masnick: but you know, we're always looking for creative ways to, to keep the podcast going and do creative compelling sponsorships that, people actually wanna listen to.
• 8:08
  Mike Masnick: that are valuable and, interesting to our audience, not just, pitching mattresses or whatever it is that, that podcasts do these days.
• 8:17
  Mike Masnick: and so we've been really thrilled with, the sponsors that we've had, recently stepped up.
• 8:21
  Mike Masnick: a lot of it from us talking about this and, uh, we have some more coming.
• 8:26
  Mike Masnick: I know we have some more scheduled as well, but, uh, we are, you know, as we start to look into the new year, we are certainly looking for more sponsors to step up and join us on the episode and have a conversation.
• 8:39
  Mike Masnick: And so please, please look into that.
• 8:41
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 8:42
  Ben Whitelaw: definitely if anybody wants to get in touch, as Mike said, website control speech.com and our email address podcast@controlspeech.com.
• 8:51
  Ben Whitelaw: go into our stories now, Mike, we, we found it tricky to kind of decide what to cover today.
• 8:55
  Ben Whitelaw: There's a lot of stuff going on.
• 8:57
  Ben Whitelaw: we're gonna start with a story that we actually talked about back in April, which was hinted at, at the top of the episode, the big meta antitrust story.
• 9:05
  Ben Whitelaw: And at that point, the trials are just about to kick off.
• 9:08
  Ben Whitelaw: And if you remember, you made a prediction, which, I don't know if you, remember.
• 9:13
  Mike Masnick: I don't remember exactly what I said.
• 9:15
  Ben Whitelaw: Well, I think basically it was, and you know, this is a nice thing to have played back to you, but you were right.
• 9:22
  Ben Whitelaw: You, you were essentially right.
• 9:25
  Ben Whitelaw: trial panned out as expected for listeners who didn't listen to that episode or haven't been tracking what's been happening this week, just help break down what's happened, what the implications of that big trial are.
• 9:36
  Mike Masnick: I mean, this was a case that, goes back like five years.
• 9:40
  Mike Masnick: you know, there were all these cases that were brought sort of towards the end of the first Trump administration and then were really picked up and run with by the Biden administration and Lena Kahan running the FTC.
• 9:50
  Mike Masnick: And there was this big focus on, sort of bringing down the big tech companies and using antitrust as the, as the tool to do that.
• 9:57
  Mike Masnick: And there was, I think, a fair bit of criticism of those earlier cases.
• 10:03
  Mike Masnick: and I think fairly so because they were rushed and sloppy and really seemed designed specifically to try and punish these companies for being big as opposed to.
• 10:17
  Mike Masnick: figuring out if there was an actual monopoly issue and an actual antitrust issue, and that, that came back to bite the FTC and the US government in this case directly.
• 10:27
  Mike Masnick: Because the issue was effectively was, Facebook in its purchase.
• 10:33
  Mike Masnick: It was Facebook at the time in its purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp.
• 10:37
  Mike Masnick: Was it violating antitrust rules and sort of, keeping its monopoly in place.
• 10:42
  Mike Masnick: And so the first step of any antitrust case is always, what is the market and is this provider actually a monopoly provider of that market?
• 10:52
  Mike Masnick: And the FTC and DOJ, their definition of the market in this case was so bizarre and just like struck everybody as obviously wrong an almost embarrassing way.
• 11:05
  Mike Masnick: So, you know, they sort of picked a few small companies like me.
• 11:09
  Mike Masnick: We, which I'm not even sure if it still exists.
• 11:11
  Mike Masnick: I mean, it was out there for a little while.
• 11:13
  Mike Masnick: you know, it was one of these ones that was out there and they said, oh, that's like, you know, those are the competitors in the space and they're too small.
• 11:19
  Mike Masnick: What was not mentioned as potential competitors to Facebook and Instagram was TikTok.
• 11:27
  Mike Masnick: And YouTube and they just sort of ignored those things and they sort of tried to define this, market of like social media as like keeping in touch with friends.
• 11:37
  Mike Masnick: And so when sort of confronted on this, they said, oh, you know, TikTok and YouTube are not about keeping in touch with friends and we're just talking about this market of keeping in touch with friends and family and.
• 11:48
  Mike Masnick: I, I mean, it's just such obvious nonsense.
• 11:50
  Mike Masnick: And the judge, it's, uh, judge James Boberg, who's he's been around forever.
• 11:56
  Mike Masnick: He is, you know, I was gonna say ancient, that's not very nice.
• 11:59
  Mike Masnick: But, you know, he's been a judge for a long time and he is pretty serious, thoughtful, fairly conservative in, a judicial sense, judge.
• 12:06
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, this case, like all antitrust cases goes on forever, but there had been some problems earlier on in the case.
• 12:13
  Mike Masnick: The fact that it only went to trial so many years later is, you know, partly because, the case was so weak early on and they had to file an amended complaint, but they never really got around this issue of sort of how you define the market.
• 12:24
  Mike Masnick: And that's where the case ended basically.
• 12:26
  Mike Masnick: The judge looked at it and said, the market definition is wrong, and obviously Facebook.
• 12:32
  Mike Masnick: And Instagram compete with TikTok and YouTube and that's only grown over time.
• 12:38
  Mike Masnick: And part of the argument is that, you know, if you're trying to bring an antitrust case, it's not just at the moment when the case was brought, but where we are now and today and going into the future.
• 12:49
  Mike Masnick: Because if the service no longer has a monopoly, then there's not much remedy here because there's no monopoly to fix.
• 12:57
  Mike Masnick: And the argument is that when you define this market properly, it includes TikTok and YouTube.
• 13:03
  Mike Masnick: And in that situation, META'S properties are not a monopoly in that market and therefore there's no antitrust issue.
• 13:11
  Mike Masnick: And you know, I know that a lot of people got really mad about this, but generally there were people who were just, mad about meta and like, you can be mad about meta and I don't like meta in particular, and I don't like Facebook or Instagram.
• 13:26
  Mike Masnick: I don't really use them.
• 13:28
  Mike Masnick: I think it would be nice if they were less powerful, but I think there are other ways to deal with that rather than antitrust.
• 13:35
  Mike Masnick: Antitrust is such a sort of blunt force instrument for trying to deal with these issues.
• 13:40
  Mike Masnick: And here you know, it was one of these things where I think a lot of people in power, just wanted to damage Mark Zuckerberg and meta, and the only tool that they saw was antitrust.
• 13:50
  Mike Masnick: And so they brought a case and it was a weak case and it took five years.
• 13:53
  Mike Masnick: And, knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars for the judge to be like, you know, this is just a really bad case.
• 14:00
  Mike Masnick: and, you know, he is very thorough in the ruling.
• 14:03
  Mike Masnick: and just walk through bit by bit, like, look, under this law, the arguments that you're making, they're just not valid.
• 14:09
  Mike Masnick: And so, you know, it's a huge win for, for meta.
• 14:12
  Ben Whitelaw: And kind of talk us through how How the FTC would've tried to define the market?
• 14:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Were they, were they trying to make it small enough that Facebook was an oversized player in it?
• 14:22
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 14:22
  Mike Masnick: So that's, that's the thing that always happens.
• 14:24
  Mike Masnick: It's, it like every antitrust case goes through this, process because, the definition of the market is everything.
• 14:29
  Mike Masnick: Because in order to be a monopoly player in the market to, violate antitrust rules, there has to be a monopoly.
• 14:38
  Mike Masnick: and you know, the question is always, well, what market are you monopolizing?
• 14:41
  Mike Masnick: And you can go broad or narrow and like, the broadest market would be like the market for attention, right.
• 14:48
  Mike Masnick: You know, you could argue that that is a, a market, but then like, you know, that's gonna be almost impossible to monopolize.
• 14:53
  Mike Masnick: and so then you sort of try and narrow it down, but it has to be.
• 14:57
  Mike Masnick: At some level of reality, right?
• 14:59
  Mike Masnick: It's like, the tools that you use on your phone for entertainment or whatever.
• 15:04
  Mike Masnick: Like there has to be some sort of definition of the market that makes sense.
• 15:08
  Mike Masnick: And here what the judge was saying was that, that did not happen.
• 15:12
  Mike Masnick: or the FTCs argument was, just on its face, silly.
• 15:16
  Mike Masnick: And in fact, this happens in, in some.
• 15:19
  Mike Masnick: Antitrust cases because it's, it's such an integral part of, making the case.
• 15:23
  Mike Masnick: and you know, the FTC or the government or whoever's bringing the case is always going to try and argue for the most narrow market because that's how you would define a market in which somebody has, you know, we saw the same thing to some extent with the Google case that, I mean, there's multiple Google cases, but like, you know, there are cases of like, is it the ad market that you're talking about?
• 15:42
  Mike Masnick: And then, if you just talk about the overall ad market, that's huge.
• 15:46
  Mike Masnick: If you talk about the digital ad market, that's different.
• 15:48
  Mike Masnick: And so there are all different Parts to how you define it.
• 15:51
  Mike Masnick: And it's like, in an ideal situation, the government is gonna wanna bring a case that basically defines the market as, the weird thing that this one company does, because therefore you absolutely have a monopoly on it.
• 16:03
  Mike Masnick: Right?
• 16:03
  Mike Masnick: But that's also silly.
• 16:04
  Mike Masnick: And so, part of the, trick to being a judge in an antitrust case is sort of balancing those two things and figuring out what is, what is the actual market here?
• 16:14
  Mike Masnick: Is there real competition?
• 16:16
  Mike Masnick: And you know, what the judge found here is like, there is obviously competition and in fact, like it's kind of interesting, he calls out the, ban of TikTok in India.
• 16:24
  Mike Masnick: And in India.
• 16:25
  Mike Masnick: What happened was then users.
• 16:27
  Mike Masnick: Flock to, Instagram and Facebook and said like, oh, look, you know, there's evidence that there was competition when, TikTok was around, more people were using TikTok.
• 16:38
  Mike Masnick: And so there are all these different elements in there that he goes to, to point out that there, clearly are competitors.
• 16:44
  Mike Masnick: And also there, there's this element of, of it being a really dynamic market.
• 16:48
  Mike Masnick: And that was something that I thought was interesting too because it came out in the Google case, even though in the Google case, the one that that's concluded now, they were found to be a monopolist in that case, which I thought was a little bit of a, a close call at least on that one.
• 17:01
  Mike Masnick: I think there's another Google case that was a stronger antitrust case.
• 17:06
  Mike Masnick: but they did find that there was a monopoly over the sort of tying, we don't have to get into it, but like the search tying stuff.
• 17:12
  Mike Masnick: but when it came to remedies, the judge sort of admitted, you know, the market has really shifted.
• 17:16
  Mike Masnick: When we started this case, Google search, you know, you could argue that it was a monopoly, but now, like the AI stuff has become so big and so popular and it's really chipping away at Google search dominance.
• 17:29
  Mike Masnick: And so the fact that you have these dynamic markets suggest that, maybe antitrust isn't the necessary remedy to make sure that there's continued competition.
• 17:38
  Mike Masnick: and so both of these cases I think, sort of shows the fairly dynamic nature of the internet market.
• 17:43
  Mike Masnick: That's not to say that, there aren't potential antitrust issues, but again, this was just a very poorly argued case and a poorly set up case.
• 17:50
  Mike Masnick: and ended up with, meta, I'm sure very happy, even if, you know, they spent five years arguing over this.
• 17:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I wonder if Zuckerberg got in his hydrofoil and had a, had a spin around in celebration.
• 18:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, I mean, I've gotta say, Mike, this is a, bit of a personal blow in the sense that I always thought that kind of antitrust was one of the, one of the ways to help alleviate some of the serious trust and safety issues that we talk about on the podcast every week.
• 18:16
  Ben Whitelaw: Right?
• 18:16
  Ben Whitelaw: We come back time and time again to the issue of, scale being the challenge and how, it's only after platforms get to a certain scale and size that it becomes particularly hard to, mitigate harm in the, in the ways that, we see and hear about in the stories we cover.
• 18:33
  Ben Whitelaw: And so there's also the, you know, when we, when we talk about regulation, this idea of.
• 18:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Size being a kind of moat for platforms and, and how some of these bigger platforms are asking for regulation as a way to kind of maintain their stronghold.
• 18:46
  Ben Whitelaw: So I always thought that antitrust was a way to address some of that.
• 18:51
  Ben Whitelaw: do you see any pattern between the kind of Google cases and this meta cases that suggests that that isn't the case anymore?
• 18:59
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, so, you know, my views on antitrust are, a little, a little bit nuanced and like everything, um, I think antitrust is a, is a useful tool for dealing with, markets that are not competitive.
• 19:15
  Mike Masnick: I have never been convinced that, they were the right tool for internet companies.
• 19:21
  Mike Masnick: That's not to say I don't think some of the internet companies are too big.
• 19:25
  Mike Masnick: I do.
• 19:26
  Mike Masnick: That's not to say I don't think we need more competition.
• 19:28
  Mike Masnick: I do, but I always felt that antitrust was probably the wrong tool for that.
• 19:33
  Mike Masnick: And I think these two cases, the concluded Google case and then this, meta case kind of show why not only did it take.
• 19:41
  Mike Masnick: Five years for both of those cases to actually come to a decision.
• 19:44
  Mike Masnick: But the, the market had shifted so much in that time that it, you know, it was the wrong tool and it's such a, blunt tool for this kind of thing.
• 19:55
  Mike Masnick: I think that there are better approaches including, regulatory and policy approaches that encourage more competition, and encourage changes to the market more naturally than using a tool like antitrust.
• 20:09
  Ben Whitelaw: Right, you mentioned the kind of other ways to deal with it that aren't antitrust.
• 20:15
  Ben Whitelaw: What would you suggest?
• 20:17
  Ben Whitelaw: options are there available, I guess?
• 20:19
  Mike Masnick: I mean, there's a lot.
• 20:20
  Mike Masnick: And, some of this is, is in this paper I keep threatening to release and then never actually finish.
• 20:27
  Mike Masnick: Uh, though I'm really trying desperately to finish it.
• 20:30
  Mike Masnick: So I, I don't want to preview everything that's in that paper, but obviously, like, I.
• 20:37
  Mike Masnick: I don't know if this is needs the bell, but like, you know, I believe an approach with interoperability and the ability for there to be more competition within a single network is actually really important.
• 20:51
  Mike Masnick: And I think that there are ways that you can create incentives for there to be more competition.
• 20:56
  Mike Masnick: You know, the, the sort of larger summary of the paper that I, I will at one day release with a whole bunch of very specific policy proposals is building out incentives, rather than mandates.
• 21:09
  Mike Masnick: You know, I think that it's very easy for regulators.
• 21:12
  Mike Masnick: To look for mandates to say, you have to do this and you have to do that, and you have to, do all of these specific things to get us to our goals.
• 21:21
  Mike Masnick: and antitrust is a form of that.
• 21:23
  Mike Masnick: It's, you know, using litigation because we have this law saying, you have to do this, you have to be, this si you know, you can't take over a market.
• 21:31
  Mike Masnick: I think the problem with sort of mandates in all these things is that the, both the companies figure out ways around it and the markets figure out ways around it so that they're not as effective in the long run.
• 21:43
  Mike Masnick: and we're gonna talk about this, I think in our next story as well, in terms of like the way Europe is now looking at the various mandates and regulations that they've put in place where they become ineffective is they just sort of create.
• 21:55
  Mike Masnick: you know, something that isn't, isn't helpful for anyone.
• 21:58
  Mike Masnick: maybe for good reason and maybe for thoughtful reasons.
• 22:01
  Mike Masnick: But I think if you can structure incentives so that, that the companies themselves actually have incentives to be better players in the world, that are, are better for the, the users including enabling more competition specifically across the board, which then leads to more innovation.
• 22:18
  Mike Masnick: I think that is a better result, but it's, it's one that involves more nuance, uh, and complexity and sort of thinking through second order effects.
• 22:27
  Mike Masnick: I think it's very easy to say, I see this, this is bad.
• 22:30
  Mike Masnick: This company's too big.
• 22:31
  Mike Masnick: We have to break it up.
• 22:32
  Mike Masnick: Or, I see, this, they're collecting too much data.
• 22:35
  Mike Masnick: Therefore we have to put laws in, in place for, for specifically saying, don't collect so much data.
• 22:40
  Mike Masnick: everyone is doing this sort of first order thing.
• 22:42
  Mike Masnick: I see something that's bad, let's ban it.
• 22:44
  Mike Masnick: And same thing with like, you know, banning phones in schools or social media in school.
• 22:49
  Mike Masnick: Like all of the things are, it, it's, it's the, the very, you know, you only think through one step ahead and you don't think through the eventual consequences of that.
• 22:58
  Mike Masnick: And I would like to see a world in which we think through more comprehensively, what is the world that we want to see and how do we get there?
• 23:06
  Mike Masnick: And just telling companies do this or do that is not necessarily going to work.
• 23:11
  Mike Masnick: And that's sort of the problem that we keep coming up against w with, almost all of the regulations that we see that, fail and things like these antitrust trials, and like I hesitate to, well I don't hesitate that much to criticize'em, but like, I think that they're being done for good reason.
• 23:27
  Mike Masnick: And I think that the complaints that people have that, push these laws and push for antitrust settlements and, and whatnot.
• 23:34
  Mike Masnick: I understand where they're coming from and I agree with their sense of the problem, but I disagree with their, solutions because I don't think they're effective.
• 23:43
  Mike Masnick: I think they, you know, they look good and they feel good upfront, which is what happened with this particular case, but they're not effective on the backend.
• 23:50
  Mike Masnick: and I would prefer to have, solutions that actually, are effective and, change the world in a better way.
• 23:56
  Ben Whitelaw: yeah.
• 23:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Work all the way through.
• 23:57
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 23:58
  Ben Whitelaw: I, I'm sure there are second order effects that I haven't thought about, um, in terms of what a successful antitrust case against meta would've, you know, what would've happened.
• 24:08
  Ben Whitelaw: And, so I think it's a, it's a fair point.
• 24:11
  Ben Whitelaw: when you do get ran to publishing that, uh, that, that paper we'll have something to talk about here on the podcast.
• 24:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh, you mentioned the kind of eus approach to regulation, Mike, and that's something that we're gonna talk a bit about now, I suppose whilst, um, there is certain, a certain approach to regulation taking shape in the us which involves quite a lot of litigation.
• 24:31
  Ben Whitelaw: which again, we're gonna come onto in the podcast.
• 24:33
  Ben Whitelaw: The EU has kind of taken stock week as it reviews how the Digital Services Act has been performing since it was launched about 18 months ago.
• 24:44
  Ben Whitelaw: So it has put out an evaluation report, essentially about how it interacts with other forms of European legislation.
• 24:52
  Ben Whitelaw: And it's an interesting kind of moment in time because, the DSA has got a lot of.
• 24:57
  Ben Whitelaw: A lot of stick in some quarters has got a lot of, had a lot of pressure from people, in the US administration.
• 25:03
  Ben Whitelaw: It's become a bit of a talking point in its own right, and this is.
• 25:07
  Ben Whitelaw: Essentially the EU doing a bit of a progress report really on how it's going so far.
• 25:13
  Ben Whitelaw: It comes at a really interesting time, I think, in European policymaking because there is a kind of broader existential crisis.
• 25:20
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, it is fair to say about competition and innovation in Europe.
• 25:26
  Ben Whitelaw: Like, like the kind of eternal question of why there is no, successful, tech startups in Europe is something that, has been occupying a lot of Brussels recently.
• 25:36
  Ben Whitelaw: And it comes on the back of a big report by Mario Draggy, who is a former ECB head who said that, you know, Europe was lagging behind US and China because it had created this kind of myriad, forms of regulation that was stifling companies in the European block.
• 25:53
  Ben Whitelaw: or so on the back of that, the commission did.
• 25:56
  Ben Whitelaw: went through a process that it caused a kind of digital omnibus, which I think sounds like a doctor who Christmas special, but is, essentially a kind of package of changes to how existing regulation works to simplify them and streamline them so that companies don't have as, as many kind of check boxes to tick and, forms to fill in.
• 26:16
  Ben Whitelaw: And actually that came out yesterday, which we're not gonna go into, but kind of in incorporates changes to the much discussed AI act, GDPR, which we occasionally touch on.
• 26:27
  Ben Whitelaw: And, essentially that package of changes from what I've read, goes further than expected in terms of kind of simplify things.
• 26:34
  Ben Whitelaw: So there's, there's a existential, moment within the EU around its digital policymaking.
• 26:40
  Ben Whitelaw: And so this report comes out a time where, you know, you might expect the EU to say, actually the DSA is a little.
• 26:46
  Ben Whitelaw: Overly complex or a little cumbersome.
• 26:49
  Ben Whitelaw: there are parts of the report that, say that the DSA could be improved, but broadly speaking, it says that the DSA compliments most of the EU laws out there.
• 26:59
  Ben Whitelaw: and I'll give you a few nuggets before I ask you to weigh in and, and get your thoughts, Mike.
• 27:04
  Ben Whitelaw: So the report says about how, most of what the DSA has rolled out so far has worked in practice.
• 27:10
  Ben Whitelaw: so for example, the categorization that here they set up of the very large online platforms and the very large online search engines has broadly worked.
• 27:19
  Ben Whitelaw: And the, number of users that it has set for those platforms of 45 million has, Worked fairly well and it talks about Temu and she and as platforms that, didn't have an EU presence at all back when the DSA was being drafted and all of a sudden has got enough users to become flops, that are eligible.
• 27:38
  Ben Whitelaw: it did say that the categorization itself is, could be overly simple because platforms are increasingly a mixture of search platforms and social platforms and, increasingly e-commerce as well.
• 27:49
  Ben Whitelaw: So they may need to review that in time, but that has kind of worked fairly well.
• 27:54
  Ben Whitelaw: There is some duplication it notes, That has often means that platforms have conflicting obligations and have to, I guess as Mario Draggy kind of noted, have to do more, to comply with the regulations.
• 28:07
  Ben Whitelaw: So examples it gives are around transparency, reporting, uh, reporting about terrorist content, what it calls dark patterns, which appear not only in the DSA but in other legislation as well.
• 28:17
  Ben Whitelaw: and there are some kind of other evidence there, but what's notable Mike, is really the fact that, while other countries kind of, I guess figure out how they want to regulate platforms, not only has the EU launched the DSA, but it is also in the process of kind of refining it, through this report and through other mechanisms.
• 28:34
  Ben Whitelaw: What did you make of, the, story from your active, and you know the kind of details of the report?
• 28:40
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 28:41
  Mike Masnick: Um, here's a surprise for you, Ben.
• 28:43
  Mike Masnick: Uh, I, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna praise the EU
• 28:46
  Ben Whitelaw: What?
• 28:47
  Mike Masnick: briefly here.
• 28:50
  Ben Whitelaw: Oh my God.
• 28:52
  Ben Whitelaw: It's finally happened 20th of November, 2025,
• 28:57
  Mike Masnick: um, the thing that I appreciate here is their willingness to kind of look at how does the law work in practice.
• 29:04
  Mike Masnick: and, and I include the omnibus, as well, which includes, by the way, which is worth mentioning because this comes up in so many discussions, especially among Americans.
• 29:12
  Mike Masnick: It's not just the GDPR, and the AI Act, but it also is the EPR Act, which is the thing that people, think.
• 29:20
  Mike Masnick: they think the GDPR is the thing that requires all of the cookie approvals, but no, that's the EPR Act and they're looking at that, including the, the whole like checkbox nonsense.
• 29:30
  Mike Masnick: so what I appreciate is the willingness of the EU to, take a step back and say, are these laws that we put in place working?
• 29:38
  Mike Masnick: that is not something that often happens in the us.
• 29:41
  Mike Masnick: We put in place laws and then we wipe our hands and we say, we are done with that until something else bad happens, you know, a decade or two down the road, and then suddenly it's, we'll, we'll consider a different law.
• 29:56
  Ben Whitelaw: C would still be slapping themselves on the back after 18 months.
• 29:59
  Ben Whitelaw: They'd be they.
• 30:01
  Mike Masnick: Absolutely.
• 30:02
  Mike Masnick: Absolutely.
• 30:03
  Mike Masnick: You know, EE except in the worst, worst cases, unless something goes really, really bad.
• 30:07
  Mike Masnick: So look, so I, I really appreciate the EU process here.
• 30:11
  Mike Masnick: and, you know, and I have talked about before, like I actually appreciated the process that, that the EU went through with the DSA and, the DMA in terms of like, they're pretty thoughtful about actually writing these bills, even if I think that the end result is not what I would've done.
• 30:25
  Mike Masnick: and I think has problems along the lines of the problems I was talking about in our first story, of the kind of mandates, But I appreciate the fact that they're looking at these things.
• 30:34
  Mike Masnick: Of course, it's leading to a whole bunch of people screaming and complaining, like, oh my gosh, you're like giving in to tech lobbyists and, and then the tech lobbyists are saying, oh my God, you're not doing enough.
• 30:47
  Mike Masnick: We're, you know, it's still, there's only a, a step, you know, there's all this sort of back and forth on these things, but I appreciate the fact that they're willing to look at these things and recognizing, maybe some of the compliance costs that we've, dumped on these companies is really bad and not very helpful.
• 31:02
  Mike Masnick: And sort of figuring out are there ways that we can streamline things?
• 31:05
  Mike Masnick: Which again, was like, part of the approach more with the DMA than, than the DSA was like, can we simplify the regulations?
• 31:14
  Mike Masnick: So that companies aren't held back.
• 31:15
  Mike Masnick: In that case it was more, each member state having different regulations around this.
• 31:20
  Mike Masnick: can we sort of, but then sort of this recognition that maybe there are ways that we can simplify these laws, still get the supposed benefits of them, without the, overregulation and, over compliance costs that lead to the problem that you're talking about, which is that there are, I wouldn't say no successful European companies, you know, but, but it's definitely limited and it is a limiting factor for companies that, it's tough to operate in the eu and, I think everybody recognizes that.
• 31:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Just on to kind of put a number on those compliance costs.
• 31:54
  Ben Whitelaw: There is, buried in the report, towards the end, a bullet that says that compliance costs were between 15 and 30% of internal legal and IT resources.
• 32:06
  Ben Whitelaw: So like an an additional,
• 32:08
  Mike Masnick: Yeah,
• 32:08
  Ben Whitelaw: chunk of cash on top of, you know, what it would usually take to run the business, which I was surprised at kind of how significant that was, frankly.
• 32:16
  Ben Whitelaw: and speaks to, you know, why companies are, pushing back.
• 32:19
  Mike Masnick: yeah.
• 32:20
  Mike Masnick: and honestly, I would ask for what benefit, right?
• 32:24
  Mike Masnick: and that's not to say that the laws are totally useless.
• 32:26
  Mike Masnick: And I think there are elements of these laws that have been useful and are interesting experiments, but the thing that they need to be are experiments where we can see where they work and where they don't, and then learn from that and adjust.
• 32:39
  Mike Masnick: And, and so that is why, I'm willing to praise the EU for trying to look through these things and adjust.
• 32:45
  Ben Whitelaw: I sense A, but
• 32:48
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I mean, I don't think that I, I agree that I don't think they're going to go far enough, and I think that they're gonna get pressure to, it's the EU way on these things.
• 33:02
  Mike Masnick: Just, you know, I don't think that they can actually comprehend what is necessary to build a successful tech company.
• 33:09
  Mike Masnick: and so they're never going to make it as easy as other countries are.
• 33:15
  Mike Masnick: you know, and there is this other, the other element, and we sort, you sort of mentioned a little bit, but like right now with the US administration, as much as I am not happy with the current US administration and their view of just about everything.
• 33:28
  Mike Masnick: They're putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the eu.
• 33:32
  Mike Masnick: I think somewhat hypocritical because they're, a lot of the stuff that they're complaining about the EU doing and how the DSA is a censorship bill, which is an exaggeration, at the same time that they're trying to censor companies here in the US and doing all the things that, Jim Jordan falsely claimed that the Biden administration had done.
• 33:52
  Mike Masnick: you know, now the Trump administration is doing happily and eagerly, but I, do wonder how much of what is happening in the EU now is actually a result of the pressure from the Trump administration and JD Vance going and screaming at them and, talking about all this stuff.
• 34:08
  Mike Masnick: know, the fact is if that is why they're doing some of this stuff, the Trump administration is never gonna be satisfied.
• 34:14
  Mike Masnick: They're just gonna continue to claim that the EU is terrible in doing awful things no matter what.
• 34:18
  Mike Masnick: and so, hopefully that's not why they're doing it.
• 34:21
  Mike Masnick: Hopefully they are doing it because of the legitimate concerns and the legitimate look at how do we actually make this better.
• 34:26
  Mike Masnick: but, I think it's important to take into account the sort of global context as well.
• 34:31
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Ben Whitelaw: that's a really interesting point is, you know, this, there's an element of what the EU is doing, which is designed to, allow it to compete and allow companies within the block to compete globally, particularly with the US and China and, to be pro innovation and to be kind of broadly, growth focused.
• 34:50
  Ben Whitelaw: there's also an element of, what the EU is doing or countries in the EU that is, is almost the opposite.
• 34:57
  Ben Whitelaw: and it's kind of anti-US and anti China and.
• 35:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Mark Scott, who's, who's a really, plugged in, former Politico journalist who writes his own substack, kind of writes about this really nicely in his, his Substack digital politics.
• 35:11
  Ben Whitelaw: And I, we'll share that in the show notes, there's also kind of a strong digital sovereignty play happening right now.
• 35:16
  Ben Whitelaw: And, and countries like France and Germany are trying to make sure that their companies are, big on the global stage, that they bring in the best talent that they have, all the kind of incentives to grow, to compete on the, international stage.
• 35:32
  Ben Whitelaw: And so there is, this almost bifurcation of.
• 35:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Digital policy in Europe where some countries are kind of going out on their own, but they're also part of a block that wants to kind of as a group of countries compete on the global stage.
• 35:44
  Ben Whitelaw: And it's slightly odd.
• 35:46
  Ben Whitelaw: Mark calls it the kind of Jekyll and Hyde strategy.
• 35:49
  Ben Whitelaw: and it's unclear, you where it'll end up.
• 35:51
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I mean, I think it's always been a challenge with sort of European approaches.
• 35:54
  Mike Masnick: I don't think that it doesn't feel particularly new.
• 35:56
  Mike Masnick: You know, there've always been these discussions.
• 35:59
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I, I, like a decade and a half ago, remember having this.
• 36:02
  Mike Masnick: Discussions with various European government folks who were like coming to Silicon Valley and you know, it was always the same thing.
• 36:09
  Mike Masnick: Like how do we build a Silicon Valley in our country that, creates globally relevant companies?
• 36:16
  Mike Masnick: and I, you know, I had a whole lecture that I would give them and they would talk about why Silicon Valley.
• 36:22
  Mike Masnick: Silicon Valley.
• 36:23
  Mike Masnick: And the end result of those conversations would always be, well, but we can't do that.
• 36:27
  Mike Masnick: It was like, well, good luck.
• 36:30
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 36:31
  Ben Whitelaw: What?
• 36:31
  Ben Whitelaw: What did they say they couldn't do?
• 36:32
  Mike Masnick: I mean, a lot of it was, so there have been all these studies and, I don't, we don't wanna go down this path'cause it's too, too long of a tangent.
• 36:39
  Mike Masnick: but, you know, a big part of it was actually the fact that.
• 36:42
  Mike Masnick: sharing of ideas between companies to build an entire industry is actually really important.
• 36:47
  Mike Masnick: For all the talk that we had about, like monopolies before evidence is that, sort of the success of Silicon Valley is driven by.
• 36:55
  Mike Masnick: The ability of people to leave companies and go elsewhere with their knowledge, which a lot of people, especially lawyers, freak out about and talk about, oh, you need non-disclosure agreements.
• 37:05
  Mike Masnick: You need non-compete agreements, you need all this stuff and you need patents and trademarks and, copyright to sort of lock in all this information.
• 37:12
  Mike Masnick: And yet the studies about why Silicon Valley was so successful is in large part because of, non-competes not being enforceable in Silicon Valley.
• 37:20
  Mike Masnick: And so you see different industries over and over again within Silicon Valley that develop and they develop because multiple companies, often with employees who left one and go, start another happen and you begin to build this, growing industry.
• 37:34
  Mike Masnick: but a lot of it's because of the, the movement of labor with the ideas that they take with them,
• 37:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Right.
• 37:39
  Mike Masnick: that allows for innovation and competition and all of these kinds of things that are, are actually really important.
• 37:44
  Mike Masnick: If you don't want to have like a single provider and that helps build up the industry.
• 37:49
  Mike Masnick: And the thing that people kept telling me, Europeans especially, was like, well, we don't like that.
• 37:55
  Ben Whitelaw: Right.
• 37:55
  Mike Masnick: we want people to have a job and sort of stick with it for a long time.
• 37:58
  Mike Masnick: And the idea that they would be leaving and take information with them or take other employees with them, that that's just not gonna fly in Germany, for example.
• 38:07
  Mike Masnick: and so, good luck, you know, but, but like, ha, having a single company, does not an industry make it can in some cases.
• 38:15
  Mike Masnick: Right.
• 38:15
  Mike Masnick: but having a single successful company usually doesn't develop the industry if you want.
• 38:19
  Mike Masnick: To be an industry town of some kind, where there's, you know, widespread innovation.
• 38:24
  Mike Masnick: You want multiple companies in that same area competing over the same, basic issues.
• 38:29
  Mike Masnick: And there you get the sort of the innovation race and the idea sharing and sort of people even, you know, even copying each other, but then building on it, oh, they did this.
• 38:37
  Mike Masnick: Well, we can do that, but better, is where you get the sort of flywheel effect of innovation that that seems to work and then builds out a larger industry.
• 38:46
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Ben Whitelaw: Good.
• 38:47
  Ben Whitelaw: Good to hear that Europe is still, asking that same question that they were asking
• 38:52
  Mike Masnick: Yep.
• 38:52
  Ben Whitelaw: 15 years ago.
• 38:53
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh, probably with the same answer.
• 38:55
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh, and, and response.
• 38:57
  Ben Whitelaw: okay, Mike?
• 38:57
  Ben Whitelaw: Well, that it's an interesting, Story nonetheless.
• 39:00
  Ben Whitelaw: I think there's a lot of parts to that.
• 39:02
  Ben Whitelaw: it's a fairly wonkish story.
• 39:04
  Ben Whitelaw: the report from the EU on the DSA is, is not, a very easy read, but I think it's an important one to, talk to listeners about.
• 39:11
  Ben Whitelaw: So glad we did that.
• 39:14
  Ben Whitelaw: got a few other stories to kind of note, we've got a few that you raised, Mike, around state-based laws that are getting some, pushback, similar kinds of laws, with elements of kind of age verification and data privacy issues that we've, we've touched on and all being kind of, facing platforms, pushback essentially.
• 39:37
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 39:37
  Mike Masnick: And so, for all the mess of Europe, like the US is also a mess in terms of passing laws.
• 39:42
  Mike Masnick: And, and Congress is completely, immobilized and can't do anything.
• 39:45
  Mike Masnick: And so obviously the story of the last five years at least is that the states are trying to step up.
• 39:51
  Mike Masnick: they probably shouldn't be able to for variety of reasons like that.
• 39:55
  Mike Masnick: Maybe that's a controversial statement.
• 39:57
  Mike Masnick: But, under what's known as the dormant commerce clause, the states are not supposed to regulate things that are sort of interstate commerce, right?
• 40:06
  Mike Masnick: That's for the federal government.
• 40:07
  Mike Masnick: And the internet is sort of by definition, interstate commerce, right?
• 40:12
  Mike Masnick: And, and so it really feels like something that the federal government should be in the position to regulate.
• 40:16
  Mike Masnick: But they have completely, Congress doesn't do anything anymore, as you may
• 40:20
  Ben Whitelaw: No,
• 40:21
  Mike Masnick: And so the states are stepping up and they're pushing all these laws, and we've talked about plenty of them and why they're problematic.
• 40:27
  Mike Masnick: And we had, you know, the net choice cases that went all the way to the Supreme Court that put some limits on, on states, but states are they keep trying.
• 40:34
  Mike Masnick: And the big one now has been like, I.
• 40:35
  Mike Masnick: The child safety stuff and the age verification.
• 40:38
  Mike Masnick: There was the Supreme Court case, the Free Speech Coalition case earlier this year, which was about age verification, but that was specifically about age verification for adult content, in which that was deemed okay.
• 40:49
  Mike Masnick: I still think that ruling had problems, but it was in theory, limited to that.
• 40:54
  Mike Masnick: But a lot of states have taken that to say, oh, age verification is now fair game.
• 40:59
  Mike Masnick: And so we're doing that for social media in all different forms.
• 41:02
  Mike Masnick: And so California passed a law and Virginia passed a law and both of them are being challenged.
• 41:08
  Mike Masnick: and so that was the story this week.
• 41:10
  Mike Masnick: in both cases, I think, um, I might have the details wrong, the laws go into effect early next year, and so they're trying to get injunctions blocking them.
• 41:18
  Mike Masnick: The California law.
• 41:20
  Mike Masnick: It's interesting in that we have three different lawsuits, filed Meta, Google and TikTok.
• 41:26
  Mike Masnick: I think, rather than them all joining together, there was a, an earlier case by Net Choice, which is the trade group that represents those guys, which didn't go well.
• 41:35
  Mike Masnick: which the Ninth Circuit, judge who wrote the ruling did one of these horrifying, comparing them to tobacco kinds of things, which is just I, with every ounce of my being.
• 41:49
  Mike Masnick: It's like, no, if you're comparing it to tobacco, you've completely lost the plot.
• 41:53
  Mike Masnick: Um, but so that didn't go well.
• 41:55
  Mike Masnick: So now the individual companies have sued and they're sort of.
• 41:58
  Mike Masnick: There's some overlap between the lawsuits.
• 42:00
  Mike Masnick: They may get consolidated into a single case, which will often happen in, in these situations.
• 42:06
  Mike Masnick: Um, but they're, they're sort of arguing slightly different arguments for each one.
• 42:09
  Mike Masnick: We don't have to get into the specifics as the case moves forward that may become more interesting to follow, but they're sort of looking at that at the same time, net choice again, the trade group that has brought a lot of these cases, sued to block another similar law in Virginia, which has a one hour social media limit for children unless parents approve.
• 42:28
  Mike Masnick: And so there's an age verification component in there.
• 42:31
  Mike Masnick: In that case too, there was an oddity where, Virginia tries to claim that there's not an age verification.
• 42:37
  Mike Masnick: but then Governor Youngin, who is about to leave office, basically came out and said that you have to verify age to, which is, you know, not good for, for, for for Virginia's side of this argument.
• 42:49
  Mike Masnick: Uh, nacho is able to play up the fact that the governor admitted the thing that the law says it doesn't require.
• 42:56
  Mike Masnick: So, but you know, it's interesting, not surprising, but the tech companies are pushing back on these laws and sort of trying to figure out what, what are they actually required to do.
• 43:06
  Mike Masnick: And I think these laws have very serious First Amendment issues.
• 43:11
  Mike Masnick: Whether or not the courts recognize that is gonna be the big open question.
• 43:14
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, and I, the Virginia one I found very interesting in particular because it's kind of specified in the law the platforms can, should use ways of knowing what the user's, ages, including prompting the user to put in their date of birth, which obviously is easily gameable as, many will have known
• 43:34
  Mike Masnick: as my children will tell you,
• 43:36
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 43:37
  Ben Whitelaw: as, maybe even my very young child could, could probably almost guess.
• 43:42
  Ben Whitelaw: but the kind of, almost the way that the law was written means that it's not.
• 43:46
  Ben Whitelaw: It's not stated that that is the way to verify age.
• 43:50
  Ben Whitelaw: So there's a lot of kind of, it's very unclear.
• 43:52
  Ben Whitelaw: And that's left net choice with, I guess a, a worry that they could, do age assurance technology, age verification technology, which would have the privacy and kind of data issues that, that we know exist.
• 44:05
  Ben Whitelaw: So again, I think that that links to the DSA, stories in, in many ways because the, there is this trade off between having regulation that is broad enough and doesn't specify exact ways of dealing with, platform governance, but also leaving enough gaps.
• 44:21
  Ben Whitelaw: That platforms want to know how do I actually deal with this and can I be sure that you're not gonna make me do something I don't wanna do?
• 44:27
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 44:28
  Mike Masnick: So I mean, I think it'll be interesting to see how these cases play out.
• 44:31
  Mike Masnick: I think, the states are gonna just keep trying and the companies are gonna keep pushing back.
• 44:35
  Mike Masnick: And eventually, I'm sure we'll get another case that'll go to the Supreme Court and we will, finally get some more rules of the road.
• 44:42
  Mike Masnick: I do fear the kind of result of the original net choice case in California against this law, that, there's just such overwhelming hatred for, tech.
• 44:52
  Mike Masnick: You know, I think to go back to, to the first story, like Judge Bosberg in the meta case, actually was willing to look at this and not look at the look, well these companies are just bad.
• 45:01
  Mike Masnick: if you have a thoughtful judge who's willing to actually look through the issues, then hopefully we get, sensible rulings outta this.
• 45:07
  Mike Masnick: But I fear we might not.
• 45:10
  Ben Whitelaw: Right.
• 45:10
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 45:11
  Ben Whitelaw: Well hoping for that.
• 45:13
  Ben Whitelaw: Um.
• 45:14
  Ben Whitelaw: Another story that crossed our path this week.
• 45:16
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike was, an interesting one on TikTok, who have announced that they're going to give users the power to reduce the amount of content they see, AI content they see on their feeds.
• 45:27
  Ben Whitelaw: there's a couple of kind of initiatives that they've launched this, the ability to go into your settings and dial back how much AI content you see.
• 45:35
  Ben Whitelaw: they've also kind of ramping up the automatic de detection of AI content through systems that they built, but also integration with kind of industry-wide initiative called the CTPA, A Coalition for Content Provenance and Authority, which is multi-platform effort to try and detect, not just AI content, but content that is, missing disinformation of the most kind of difficult to track kind and.
• 46:00
  Ben Whitelaw: It is an interesting development from TikTok for two reasons.
• 46:03
  Ben Whitelaw: First is that this was announced at the European Summit that the, the company hosts around trust and safety each year.
• 46:12
  Ben Whitelaw: And that to me suggests that, you know, AI content is a trust and safety issue, as we well know.
• 46:17
  Ben Whitelaw: But like, and as for a company to, to announce that and to kind of obvious, I see, admit that, and, and to make that very clear is notable in a time where so many companies that are, building generative AI technology have not, made that link and who, who probably aren't thinking as much about safety as they should.
• 46:34
  Ben Whitelaw: So that was the first thing that struck me.
• 46:36
  Ben Whitelaw: And then in the context of what other platforms are are doing with social media and AI content, it's also very interesting, right?
• 46:42
  Ben Whitelaw: You know.
• 46:43
  Ben Whitelaw: You've got Sawa open ais social media feed, you've got METAS vibes, which is almost a hundred percent, generated
• 46:51
  Mike Masnick: is 100%.
• 46:52
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 46:52
  Ben Whitelaw: right?
• 46:53
  Ben Whitelaw: And, and as far as I know, there aren't the kind of controls and settings in those apps to allow you to, customize what you're seeing in the same way.
• 47:02
  Ben Whitelaw: so, so that's concerning for users of those apps and for internet users broadly.
• 47:08
  Ben Whitelaw: But it does show, I guess, a little bit of thought here, given by TikTok as to the dangers that come with, generative AI content that is, you know, allowed to proliferate without any kind of user controls and so that's credit to them for doing so.
• 47:21
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 47:21
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I, I'm a huge proponent of user controls and more user controls, the better, right.
• 47:25
  Mike Masnick: You know, pushing the decision making out to the users themselves, giving them more visibility into what it is that they're seeing, and giving them more ability to say, I don't want to see this kind of thing.
• 47:34
  Mike Masnick: I think is, is something that I'm, I, I always think is good and I think more companies should do.
• 47:39
  Mike Masnick: There's a question of how effective it is.
• 47:41
  Mike Masnick: You know, how well will they be actually be able to detect the AI.
• 47:44
  Mike Masnick: There are questions about how many people will use it defaults absolutely matter.
• 47:48
  Mike Masnick: you know, very few users actually go in and change these settings when given the opportunity.
• 47:53
  Mike Masnick: There are also questions about, you know, is it that lots of people say that they don't want AI content, but then we're seeing things like SOA and vibes and apparently so in particular is doing really well.
• 48:03
  Mike Masnick: So there's, clearly a market, to get back to market definition, there is clearly a market for AI generated content.
• 48:10
  Mike Masnick: and so it'll be interesting to see how this goes, but I think it's good that TikTok is thinking through this stuff and I think it's, it's a positive development and it's nice to see them give users more controls over, over their experience.
• 48:21
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 48:21
  Ben Whitelaw: Agreed.
• 48:22
  Ben Whitelaw: talking of kind of generative air concept, Mike, I'm being absolutely beset by babies playing with puppies.
• 48:31
  Ben Whitelaw: And I, and I honestly can't tell.
• 48:33
  Ben Whitelaw: my sense is that it's all generative ai, but I've got no way of telling.
• 48:36
  Ben Whitelaw: I dunno why They're always kind of, the babies are playing with flower and giggling.
• 48:40
  Ben Whitelaw: It's an odd genre
• 48:41
  Mike Masnick: I, I don't know what the algorithm is, has, has had for you as someone who I, we, we just fostered three puppies.
• 48:47
  Mike Masnick: We just got them all adopted.
• 48:49
  Mike Masnick: in the last week.
• 48:49
  Mike Masnick: I will say puppies are very naturally very, very cute.
• 48:53
  Mike Masnick: And, and so, you know, we're already discussing if we're gonna get another batch of puppies to, to foster.
• 48:59
  Mike Masnick: but, uh, you don't need AI to, to make puppies cute.
• 49:03
  Ben Whitelaw: No, gimme the real deal any day.
• 49:07
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, final story before we wrap up, Mike, is, actually a, a LinkedIn post from somebody in the trust and safety community that, you read, read a bit about, and whose musings are speaking to a lot of what we talk about on the podcast every week.
• 49:20
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, this is, uh, by Daisy Soderberg Rifkin, and it's posted on LinkedIn and we'll have it in the, in the show notes and it has a little bit of a clickbait title, I guess, but that's okay.
• 49:31
  Mike Masnick: We're okay with that.
• 49:32
  Mike Masnick: This is the most frustrating word for trust and safety professionals, and it definitely touches on something that we discuss all the time.
• 49:38
  Mike Masnick: And, in this case, we're gonna reveal the clickbait.
• 49:41
  Mike Masnick: The word that she, she is upset about is just, but not just the word, just, but in the context of how people who are outside of trust and safety look at trust and safety and say things like, why don't they just.
• 49:55
  Mike Masnick: Fill in the blank.
• 49:56
  Mike Masnick: Why don't they just verify a kid's age?
• 49:58
  Mike Masnick: Why don't they just get rid of all the misinformation?
• 50:00
  Mike Masnick: Why don't they just stop the bad people from doing bad stuff?
• 50:03
  Mike Masnick: All of these things that all of us who understand trust and safety to some extent, or people who work in trust and safety know that like everything, all the big questions in history and society fall into that word just right.
• 50:17
  Mike Masnick: The just implies that there is some simple thing that if only they turn the knob this way, or only if they flip the switch that way, you could fix all these things.
• 50:25
  Mike Masnick: And the reality is that humanity is messy and humanity does not fit into that just right.
• 50:32
  Mike Masnick: You know, I just, uh, had this conversation, uh, yesterday at another trust and safety related event, about like.
• 50:39
  Mike Masnick: how much the world would be nicer if people were just not assholes, right?
• 50:43
  Mike Masnick: Like, but unfortunately you have some percentage who are assholes and whether they're assholes on purpose or just by circumstance or whatever, trust and safety is really this, this issue of trying to deal with, with assholes kind of all the time.
• 50:58
  Mike Masnick: And, until we solve that, don't solve trust and safety.
• 51:01
  Mike Masnick: And so there is no, just do this.
• 51:04
  Mike Masnick: and the problem is that the media, and, certainly a lot of policymakers assume that, the reason these things are failing is because the companies don't wanna do just that.
• 51:15
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, I thought this was a really nice essay that, kind of gets into a lot of things that we talk about, about the difficulties of all this stuff.
• 51:21
  Ben Whitelaw: Exactly, and, and you know, she makes a point that that's the reason why, she, as a trusted safety professional, kind of speaks out and shares her knowledge about the trade offs and the incentives and the nuance, and she encourages others to do so.
• 51:34
  Ben Whitelaw: And it's also really why we started this podcast, frankly, it's the same, same reasoning is that, people need to understand.
• 51:42
  Ben Whitelaw: There is no easy answer that there is no kinda magic wand, and I think Daisy really sums that up really, really nicely.
• 51:50
  Ben Whitelaw: Good point to end, Mike.
• 51:51
  Ben Whitelaw: a, a fairly hopeful, tone to, to strike, at the end of control or speech.
• 51:56
  Ben Whitelaw: thanks Edward, ever for all of your, great responses for selecting those stories for us today and for sharing, what you think about them.
• 52:02
  Ben Whitelaw: we've talked about stories from you're active, from the Guardian, from the Verge, from digital politics.
• 52:08
  Ben Whitelaw: We couldn't do this podcast without those guys.
• 52:11
  Ben Whitelaw: go and read and subscribe and, support them wherever you can.
• 52:16
  Ben Whitelaw: as we talked about having more of the kind of nuance understanding about trust and safety and content moderation and internet regulation is, gonna be massive in the future.
• 52:24
  Ben Whitelaw: thanks for listening.
• 52:25
  Ben Whitelaw: Get in touch with us if you, want to hear more and we'll see you next week.
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