Welcome back to Free Speech Friday! All across the internet, parents and lawmakers are calling for tech companies to verify users' ages online. They frame these efforts as a smart, reasonable, and harmless way to keep kids safe. But that's not what age verification does!!!Age verification efforts are a major threat to privacy, freedom, and the very idea of an open web. No one knows this better than Eric Goldman. He is the associate dean for research at Santa Clara University School of Law and co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute.He recently wrote a fantastic paper on age verification, soon to be published in the Stanford Technology Law Review. Today he's joining me for Free Speech Friday to talk about how age verification works online and how it's all ultimately a trojan horse for government control surveillance, and censorship. Eric's paper on age verification: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5208739***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ***** Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.usermag.cohttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzhttps://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social
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1:03:42
Elon Musk's God complex
As Elon Musk's influence has grown, so too has a darker, more troubling side of his persona: his rampant egomania.Faiz Siddiqui is a former colleague of mine at The Washington Post and he's the author of the new book Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk. In this episode of Power User we break down exactly how Musk's narcissism has evolved throughout his career, and the key moments that reveal just how deeply Elon's self-obsession has shaped his life and the future he claims to build. ***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ***** Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.usermag.cohttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzhttps://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social
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20:40
The Government Is Lying About Online Safety
Welcome back to my new series Free Speech Friday! :) Right now, lawmakers in congress are trying to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a dangerous censorship bill that would give the government unprecedented control over the internet and force platforms to spy on youth.KOSA claims to make kids "safer" online, but don't let the name fool you. This law would give the government unprecedented power to censor speech across the entire internet in the name of "protecting kids."From mental health support communities to LGBTQ forums, KOSA endangers the very spaces young people turn to for help, identity, and connection. KOSA isn’t about safety, it's about giving the government unprecedented control over speech. Ari Cohen is the Lead Counsel for Tech Policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and promoting free speech rights for all Americans. He joined me to break down KOSA and explain the many problems with the proposed law. If you believe in a free and open internet, please join me in sending a message to your lawmakers right now and tell them to reject KOSA:https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/censorship-wont-make-kids-safe***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ***** Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.usermag.cohttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzhttps://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social
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30:13
The case against logging off
Every week, there’s a new warning: TikTok is poisoning the youth, Facebook is radicalizing your uncle, and the only way to save ourselves is to log off.But what if that’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing? What if this push to disconnect isn’t about protecting us, but instead about disempowering us?Aidan Walker is a meme researcher and author of the Substack newsletter How to Do Things With Memes. Today, he joins me to talk about why we shouldn't log off and how the internet, for all its flaws, can be a powerful tool for change. The reality is that the internet—messy, chaotic, and algorithmically manipulated as it may be—is one of the only spaces where everyday people can assemble, communicate, and exert collective power. Governments, the media, and people in power want you to stay offline, because a public that is fragmented and disengaged is easier to control. People in power want you to believe that social media is nothing more than an addictive distraction, rather than the battleground where narratives are shaped, movements are built, and institutions are held accountable.***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ***** Subscribe to my newsletter:https://www.usermag.cohttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenzhttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzhttps://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social
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41:56
The Take It Down Act Is a Free Speech Killer
WATCH ALL FREE SPEECH FRIDAY EPISODES ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNELThe stated goal of the Take it Down Act is to combat non consensual intimate images (NCII), colloquially known as revenge p**n. This includes things like AI generated nude deep fakes and other explicit imagery shared without a person's consent. Cracking down on this seems great right? Sadly that's not what this law does. What the Take It Down Act *actually* does is make it so that anyone, at any time, can get content posted about them online that they don't like taken off the internet within 48 hours, no questions asked. Becca Branum, Deputy Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Free Expression Project has been fighting this law. She joins me to break down exactly how the Take It Down Act will function and the terrifying ways the Trump administration is already planning to weaponize it. ***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ***** Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.usermag.cohttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenzhttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzhttps://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social
Power User explores how technology and the internet are upending our lives and the world around us. Each week, tech journalist Taylor Lorenz explores everything from online fame to emerging platforms, viral phenomena, the creator economy, and much more. Tune in every Thursday for the most influential stories that Silicon Valley often ignores.
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