Reimagining the Internet
Reimagining the Internet is a production of the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at UMass Amherst. The podcast asks scholars, activists, journalists, and artists what is broken on the internet and how to fix it.
Episodes
117. Alondra Nelson, Biden’s Head of Science and Technology Policy, talks AI, Trump’s research funding cuts, and how memes replaced Happy Days
Alondra Nelson is arguably the most important sociologist of science in America. She isn’t just a brilliant researcher of how race and racism has shaped public health in America, nor just a thoughtful, savvy tech policy maker. She is also someone with a gift for communicating research and ideas on these huge, important matters in […]
116. How should governments use technology? To build trust, says Eric Gordon
Eric Gordon has spent his career as an social scientists trying to understand how city governments can use technology to better engage their citizens. But he’s learned that technology doesn’t matter if governments aren’t willing to listen and citizens don’t feel listened to. Add to surveillance technology to the mix, and technology doesn’t seem to […]
113. Deleting Everything with Dan Saltman
Dan Saltman is the founder of Redact, one of the very few tools that lets you delete data across many of your social media accounts. So why are there so few projects that put users in control of their data, like Dan’s? This week on Reimagining, we talk about the legal, technical, and market obstacles […]
112. Governing the Fediverse: Erin Kissane talks her groundbreaking study into how Mastodon is run (Part 2)
Part two of our interview with Erin Kissane is a deep dive into her work on the Fediverse. Why do people use it, how do they govern, and how can you, dear listener, get your own healthy Fediverse community going? Plus Erin talks about Blue Sky a lot. Erin Kissane runs wreckage/salvage, helmed the COVID […]
111. How Facebook Stoked Civil War in Myanmar, with Erin Kissane
In part one of our interview with researcher, designer and, in her own words, “ancient Internet person” Erin Kissane, we look at what happens when a platform swallows a whole society’s media landscape but abdicates all responsibility to the people using it. In this case, we’re talking about Myanmar but it’s understandable if your mind […]
110. Is there hope for democracy in a social media-driven world? Nathan Schneider sees it every day.
Nathan Schneider has spent roughly 15 years as a journalist and academic trying to understand democracy in the 21st century through Occupy Wall Street, cooperatives, the blockchain, and currently, federated social media. This week on Reimagining, Nathan explains how poor democracy on major social media platforms has eroded our actual democratic governance, and how practicing […]
109. Evelyn Douek, please tell us what is going on with the First Amendment and social media
The TikTok ban decision passed down by the Supreme Court late last year is a clear violation of First Amendment precedent, but President Trump’s refusal to enact it as law is a constitutional crisis in the making. We brought Stanford Law professor, rising First Amendment star scholar, and Moderated Content host Evelyn Douek on the […]
108. Internet of Gifts: The 5th Annual Reimagining Holiday Special
Ho ho ho, five years of Reimagining the Internet holiday specials! For this year’s edition we’re spreading holiday cheer by showering our dear listeners with gifts. From good Wikipedia rabbit holes to the gift of network effects, everyone here at iDPI is offering something from the heart. Links to some gifts mentioned in this episode: […]
107. How could a PBS of the Internet cultivate a more human web? Laurel Schwulst on a lighter weight Internet (Good Web)
For the final episode of our Good Web series, artist, designer, and educator Laurel Schwulst joins Mike to talk through her proposal for a PBS of the Internet. She describes how a PBS-like body that intentionally crafts the spaces, software, and information for a public good could crucial for creating an environment that rewards curisoity […]
106. What You Need to Know About Web Accessibility with Lola Odelola (Good Web)
Building a Good Web doesn’t just mean making the current Internet a nicer place, but making an Internet that everyone can use. This week Lola Odelola (Lola’s Lab, formerly of Bocoup) joins the Good Web series to talk about the fundamentals of web accessibility and the fascinating process the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) uses […]
105. Slow and steady: how Are.na became the Good Web for artists, designers, and researchers who love unusual connections.
At 13 years old, Are.na boasts a healthy, creative community and stable finances while rejecting many of the hallmarks of popular social media platforms such as a focus on video, endless push notifications, or surveillant advertising. For this week’s edition of our Good Web series, founder Charles Broskoski sits with Mike to walk through what […]
104. MetaFilter turns 25 this month, a shining beacon of the Good Web. Reluctant owner Jessamyn West tells us how rusty tech and vibrant community keeps it vital.
Metafilter contains the seeds for everything from Twitter to Reddit to comments sections on blogs, and it’s older than podcasts, the blog boom, Facebook, and well, basically everything online. Owner Jessamyn West sat down for a deep conversation with Mike about how MetaFilter’s reliance on community-focusd governance and person-scale moderation has helped it achieve its […]
103. How did Vermont’s favorite civic social network turn into a climate disaster response network overnight? Michael Wood-Lewis Tells Us About His Local Good Web
Michael Wood-Lewis from Front Porch Forum joins us for this second (maybe third?) appearance to help us kick off our Good Web series, where we’re highlighting the successful people building a better, smaller Internet. Michael was gracious enough to have producer Mike Sugarman up to the FPF offices in Burlington, VT to give us an […]
102. Cory Doctorow Coined “Enshittification.” He Sees 4 Ways to End It.
To kick off our Good Web series, Cory Doctorow joined us for a deep dive into his enshittification theory, and how regulation, labor power, competition, and user self-help will make it a thing of the past. We also got him to tell us a little bit about his new novel The Bezzle. Cory first joined […]
101. Reframing Digital Safety with Diana Freed: For Survivors and Youth, The Biggest Threats Come From Everyday Tech
CW/TW: Intimate partner violence, child exploitation Diana Freed has spent the past several years radically reframing the threat model in cybersecurity with groundbreaking research into how domestic abusers utilize everyday technology like smart phones and tracking apps. Diana sits down with us to talk about digital safety for survivors of intimate partner violence and youth, […]
100. A Better Internet for Humans with Ethan Zuckerman and Mike Sugarman
For the 100th episode of Reimagining the Internet, Ethan and Mike sit down for a conversation about a human-scale Internet, the threat of an LLM ouroboros destroying our online commons, and Ethan’s fantasies of swithing to urban planning. We want to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been listening to Reimagining the […]
99. Do You Want to Use Data to Fight for Justice? Catherine D’Ignazio Wrote the Book For You
A fearsome feminist movemnet has sprung up in response to an epidemic of feminicide in South America, achieving change thanks in large part to an innovative data activism campaign. Cathering D'Ignazio of the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT wrote a wonerful book that doesn't just chronicle the movement, but acts as a handbook for using data in fights for justice.
98. UMass’s very own Brian Levine is one of the foremost cybersecurity experts on CSAM. Here’s how he thinks we can make the Internet safer for children.
Trigger/content warning: child sexual abuse materials, sexual exploitation of children, and trauma stemming from sexual abuse. Brian Levine has a storied career as a computer scientist working in cybersecurity. Earler, pivotal work in privacy has given way to his current all-hands-on-deck fight against the spread of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) online. Ethan and Brian […]
Rewind: Timnit Gebru Looks at Corporate AI and Sees a Lot of Bad Science
Rerun of episode 85 from August, 16 2023 Timnit Gebru is not just a pioneering critic of dangerous AI datasets who calls bullshit on bad science pushed by the likes of OpenAI, or a tireless champion of racial, gender, and climate justice in computing. She’s also someone who wants to build something different. This week […]
Rewind: Ted Lasso’s Dylan Marron wants to redeem Jar Jar Binks
This is a rerun of episode 84. Jar Jar Binks, the human side of online harassment, restorative justice, the Friends writers room, solidarity with UPS, what life looks like in the creative gig economy after your show has won an Emmy. Dylan Marron (Ted Lasso, Welcome to Nightvale) joins us for a sprawling, poignant conversation […]
97. There are 14 billion videos on YouTube. Mr. Beast, we hereby challenge you to watch them all.
Our lab’s Ryan McGrady and Kevin Zheng are taking a victory lap around some amazing work they’re doing here at the lab. Ryan just published an article in The Atlantic about the research he’s leading to understand how big YouTube is and what exactly is on it, and Kevin recently debuted his amazing tool to […]
Rewind: The Netherlands’ most important sociologist is building the other DPI: the Dutch Public Internet
Rerun of episode 69 from February 15th, 2023. José van Dijck is arguably the preeminent sociologist in the Netherlands, conducting research about how online platforms have crept into public life that has proved foundational to European regulation like the Digital Services Act. Today on Reimagining the Internet, José talks to us about PubHubs, an attempt to build […]
Rewind: Third Wave Internet with Ben Tarnoff
Rerun of episode 81 from June 24th, 2023 We’re always told algorithms are going to change our world. And they do, but it always seems to be for the worse. Do we have any alternative to simply breaking the machines that have run afoul of our values and needs? We’re thrilled to welcome Ben Tarnoff […]
Rewind: iDPI’s New Manifesto: The Three-Legged Stool
From April 5th, 2023: We talk a lot about reimagining the internet here at iDPI, and that’s because it’s something we spend most of our time at the lab doing. We’re thrilled to share our new, banner white paper with you, and we hope you’re excited by our call to widen your own imagination if […]
96. Should All Old Passwords Be Forgot: The 2023 Holiday Special
It’s that wonderful time of year for one of our favorite lab activities here at iDPI: making the Reimagining the Internet holiday special. This year we decided to go for unmitigated optimism and making promises to ourselves we’ll definitely be keeping. That’s right, everyone here at iDPI made New Year’s resolutions for the Internet. Join us as […]
95. What’s the answer when workplace surveillance creeps into the home? Ifeoma Ajunwa says civil rights and organized labor
Ifeoma Ajunwa wrote the definitive book about how data is used to surveil and attempt to automate away workers. This week on Reimagining, Dr. Ajunwa tells us how a history rooted in eugenics and Henry Ford sending private detectives to workers’ homes led us to this moment when software is used as a cover for discriminatory hiring […]
94. How does Meduza’s Kevin Rothrock publish some of the best reporting about Russia? From far, far away.
Kevin Rothrock has been reporting on Russian culture and politics since the mid-aughts, and as the English-language editor of Meduza, he’s a crucial figure in helping the English-speaking West understand the day-to-day in Putin’s Russia during the war in Ukraine, and on the front lines too. This week on Reimagining, Kevin Rothrock tells us how […]
93. Reddit is powered by community moderators. We asked former senior mod Kethryvis if that can last.
When we call Christine Moelleberndt “queen of the moderators” we mean it. She just finished a 7-year stint at Reddit as a moderator of its moderators where she went by the user name kethryvis, and she’s been doing work like that since her days overseeing the community around the ’90s web comic User Friendly. This […]
92. Where’d all the music blogs go? with Emilie Friedlander
Emilie Friedlander got her start covering Western Mass music while living in France, and made a career as a music editor at the biggest online magazines like Pitchfork and VICE. This week on Reimagining, Mike asks her: where did all the music writing go? Emilie Frielander is cohost of The Culture Journalist with Andrea Domanick. […]
91. Global Voices has spent 19 years platforming bloggers in 52 languages. Georgia Popplewell, where does it go from here?
Georgia Popplewell has dedicated two decades to publishing local bloggers writing in 52 languages. What’s Global Voices fate in this strange era of the Internet? The long-time managing director of Global Voices joins the show to talk to her co-founder Ethan about the blogosphere of yore and why we’ll never stop needing global, local perspectives. […]
90. Are American politics more polarized than ever? Brendan Nyhan thinks social media just helps us see it more.
Brendan Nyhan spends a lot of time researching America’s political polarization and the strength of its democracy with the organization he founded, Bright Line Watch. In part 2 of our interview with him, he tells us how questions about the state of America’s democracy really need to be put in the context that we didn’t […]
89. Facebook scores your politics with a number. Brendan Nyhan figured out what they do with it. (Part 1 of 2)
Does Facebook make people’s politics more extreme? Do algorithms force us into bubbles? Does social media threaten American democracy? Political scientist Brendan Nyhan used his permission to research political data on Facebook as an opportunity to tackle these questions head on. In part one of our interview with Brendan, he tells us about his contribution […]
88. Does Facebook change your politics? Talia Stroud is leading studies to find out.
Our first ever guest Talia Stroud is one of the principal investigators on a slate of social science research investigating Facebook’s impacts on the 2020 elections, and we’re thrilled to welcome her back to tell us about what her team is finding when they look at the funny things algorithms do, the pervasiveness of polarized […]
87. Before Laura Edelson was the DOJ’s chief antitrust technologist, Facebook deleted her account
Did Facebook influence how people voted in the 2020 elections? This month, we’re focusing on a recent spate of studies published in Science and Nature studying how Facebook’s algorithms handle political content. First up is Laura Edelson, who was banned by Facebook for her work studying its ads through her project at NYU, the Ad […]
86. danah boyd on freaks, geeks, queers, and lying to the US Census
danah boyd is so fascinated by data and society that she founded a research institute called Data and Society. We brought her on Reimagining this week to talk about one of her long-running research interests—the social lives of teens online—and ended up with a sprawling conversation that touched on everything from anti-trans culture wars to […]
85. Timnit Gebru Looks at Corporate AI and Sees a Lot of Bad Science
Timnit Gebru is not just a pioneering critic of dangerous AI datasets who calls bullshit on bad science pushed by the likes of OpenAI, or a tireless champion of racial, gender, and climate justice in computing. She’s also someone who wants to build something different. This week on Reimagining, we talk to the thrilling, funny […]
84. Ted Lasso’s Dylan Marron Wants to Redeem Jar Jar Binks
Jar Jar Binks, the human side of online harassment, restorative justice, the Friends writers room, solidarity with UPS, what life looks like in the creative gig economy after your show has won an Emmy. Dylan Marron (Ted Lasso, Welcome to Nightvale) joins us for a sprawling, poignant conversation about how social media has effected our […]
83. A History of Why the Internet Sucks Right Now with Dave Karpf
2010s online activism, the Reddit blackout, antitrust, academic data access, Newt Gingrich, enshitifcation. We brought scholar/activist Dave Karpf on to talk about his work leading fellow academics to fight for data access standards, and we ended up with a Reimagining greatest hits. Dave Karpf is associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs […]
82. Twitter Blocked Tracy Chou’s Anti-Harassment App. Now She Wants to Fix Your Browser.
When we had Tracy Chou on the show in 2021, she was rolling out software to give users a revolutionary toolset to block harassment on Twitter, and she was doing it with the Twitter corporation’s help. Fast forward to today, when she’s one of Time Magazine’s 2022 Women of the Year and her work has […]
81 Third Wave Internet with Ben Tarnoff
We’re always told algorithms are going to change our world. And they do, but it always seems to be for the worse. Do we have any alternative to simply breaking the machines that have run afoul of our values and needs? We’re thrilled to welcome Ben Tarnoff back on the show to talk his calls […]
80 *Slaps Roof of Algorithm* You Can Fit so Much Taste in This Thing with Nick Seaver
Do Spotify’s algorithms make a listener’s music taste, or does taste make the algorithm? Nick Seaver embedded himself as an ethnographer at a music recommendation software firm to learn about the the very real way very specific people influence the algorithms that power our automated world. Nick Seaver directs the program in Science, Technology, and […]
79 Taking Stock of the Everything Store with Moira Weigel
For our first ever episode talking about Amazon (somehow?), Logic Magazine co-founder Moira Weigel tells us what she learned about Amazon by spending years interviewing its third-party sellers. From hand sanitizer hoarding to Chinese vendors getting “dragon boated,” Moira gives us a fascinating look at a massive, unregulated economy. Moira Weigel is assistant professor in […]
78 We Mapped Reddit with Jasmine Mangat and Virginia Partridge
We’re thrilled to launch a new tool today: a big interactive map of Reddit, showing how biggest subreddits on the site are connected with each other. Mike is joined by iDPI’s very own Jasmine Mangat and Virginia Partridge for a riveting tell-all about RedditMap.Social. You can visit the tool at RedditMap.Social, talk to other redditors […]
77 Lawful But Awful and the Future of Social Media with Daphne Keller (part 2)
How do we get better moderated social media platforms without putting governments in control of who gets to say what? For our part 2 of our episode with Daphne Keller, we get Daphne to tell us what the current wave of EU Internet regulation will mean for the future of social media. Transcript Ethan Zuckerman: […]
76 Platforms v. Supreme Court with Daphne Keller (part 1)
If you want to understand anything about global Internet regulation, you’d be lucky to get Daphne Keller’s perspective on it. We’re thrilled to have the director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center on for a two-parter about regulating social media platforms. First off, a speed run through the Supreme Court cases that were designed to reshape […]
75 iDPI’s New Manifesto: The Three-Legged Stool
We talk a lot about reimagining the internet here at iDPI, and that’s because it’s something we spend most of our time at the lab doing. We’re thrilled to share our new, banner white paper with you, and we hope you’re excited by our call to widen your own imagination if what’s possible in social […]
74 Do You Trust that Justice is Just? with Nathan Matias, Tracey Meares, and Tom Tyler (Trust episode 4)
Trusting justice means making it feel meaningful—people have to trust that justice systems are themselves just. To conclude our miniseries on Trust, we talk to Nathan Matias about how exactly people lost trust in Elon Musks’ Twitter, and revisit our recent interview with Tracey Meares and Tom Tyler about how procedural justice can convince can […]
73 How to Start a Guild with Kei Kreutler and T.L. Taylor (Trust episode 3)
Almost two decades ago, World of Warcraft gamers started gathering in guilds to share resources and organize raids. Did they create one of the most trustful types of communities on the entire Internet? This week on our trust mini-series, we talk about how artist and gaming communities cooperate with artist Kei Kreutler and sociologist of […]
72 Why Would People Trust Crypto? with Finn Brunton and Molly White (Trust episode 2)
Cryptocurrency is supposedly the basis of trustless economy, but in the past few years there were a lot of everyday people who entrusted it with everything. How did this happen? In this episode of our miniseries on trust, we talk to Finn Brunton about the deep history of crypto and Molly White about how the […]
71 Do We Trust the Internet? with evelyn douek and Primavera de Filippi (Trust episode 1)
Should governments regulate how Facebook moderates speech? Can you sanction an automated smart contract that’s used for international money laundering? Was it a coincidence that every social media platform banned Donald Trump at the same time? In the first part of our 4-part miniseries looking at trust online, we welcome evelyn douek, host of the […]
70 The Mars Rover Isn’t Stealing Our Data, with Janet Vertesi
Today on Reimagining, we welcome our first conscientious objector to Google—and our first ever NASA alum. Janet Vertesi joins for a fascinating conversation about her project to keep any data about her children off the web, and ties it in to tales about her old job as in-house ethnographer for the Mars Rover missions.
69 The Netherlands’ most important sociologist is building the other DPI: the Dutch Public Internet
José van Dijck is arguably the preeminent sociologist in the Netherlands, conducting research about how online platforms have crept into public life that has proved foundational to European regulation like the Digital Services Act. Today on Reimagining the Internet, José talks to us about PubHubs, an attempt to build a decentralized, privacy-focused social media network […]
68 Justice That We Can Trust with Tracey Meares and Tom Tyler
Why does the criminal justice system feel so unfair to those who interact with it? Why does Internet governance often feel so arbitrary? Legal scholars Tracey Meares and Tom Tyler believe that we need justice systems made up of fair processes designed first and foremost to help us trust that justice. This week on Reimagining, we're joined by the two cofounders of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale
67 Otherweb Cuts Junk from Your News Diet
Alex Fink think we already have enough information on the web: now it's time to make sense of all of it. He's built a fantastic tool called Otherweb that uses natural language processing to aggregate news from reputable outlets and filter out the junk. It even includes a search engine that can exclude any articles with affiliate links, hateful content, or lacking references. Oh and he's built all
66 It’s a Wonderful Internet: The 2022 Holiday Special
It's that time for our favorite tradition here at Reimagining the Internet: the holiday special. This year, Ethan has his finger hovering over a big red button to delete the entire Internet and his guardian angel talks him down.
A very special tanks to lab mates Ryan McGrady, Rebecca Curran, Kevin Zheng, Spencer Lane, Virginia Partridge, and Jasmine Mangat for joining.
65 This One Weird Trick for a Changing Society with Gal Beckerman
Why do social movements organizing online that spawn huge protests so rarely create radical change like movements of the past? Gal Beckerman argues that it's all about The Quiet Before, a sustained discourse where activists can organize and deliberate about how to enact the change they want to see. This week on Reimagining, Gal walks us through his new book, a history of radical movements.
64 Forgetful Advertising with Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci
How could we curtail one of the most ambitious surveillance operations deployed in human history? This week on Reimagining, our very own Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci explains his new paper co-authored with Ethan outlining a new model for online advertising that eschews invasive data collection. Chand’s and Ethan’s paper “Forgetful Advertising: Imagining a More Responsible Digital Ad
63 See Through AI Hype with Arvind Narayanan
Arvind Narayanan is a Princeton computer science professor who wants to make it easy for you to cut through the AI. In a fascinating and plain old helpful interview, Arvid runs through all the big claims made about AI today and makes them very simple to understand.
62 Librarian Jessamyn West on the Classroom Where We Learn to be Human
In part 2 of our interview with Jessamyn West, the new MetaFilter owner tells us about her day job as a librarian in rural Vermont and her years spent working to close the digital divide. Inevitably, we talk about the library as a new battleground for right-wing reactionaries and its role as one of the few remaining public institutions.
61 Why Does a Librarian Own a Social Media Site That’s Been Around for Longer Than Facebook?
Jessamyn West is not just one of the web's favorite librarians, but the new owner of Metafilter, an incredibly long-running social network that dates back to a very different Internet. In the first part of our interview with Jessamyn, she tells us just how Metafilter has kept going and stayed healthy since 1999.
60 Googling like an Evangelical with Francesca Tripodi
What does Francesca Tripodi have in common with the Evangelical Christians she studied? They both do their own research, and they find lots of propaganda. This week on Reimagining, Francesca gives us a crash course on the sprawling conservative disinformation ecosystem.
59 Ben Tarnoff Wants an Internet for the People
Ben Tarnoff has a radical idea: unprivatize the Internet. The writer, Logic Magazine founder, and tech worker activist joins us to talk about his new book outlining what a truly public Internet would look like, from the fiber optic cables to the social media platforms platforms.
58 Will Google and Meta Control Africa’s Broadband? with Andrew Blum and Carey Baraka
Google and Meta have been spending a small fortune to lay undersea cables bringing more broadband to Africa. Journalists Andrew Blum and Carey Baraka join us this week to talk about their years-in-the-making article for Rest of World asking if those companies will control what Africans can and can't access onli
57 The Attention Economy with Vincent F. Hendricks and Camilla Mehlsen
Loads of stimulus, quick hits of dopamine, and no natural light: does this describe a casino or Facebook? The Danish philosopher Vincent F. Hendricks and digital media researcher Camilla Mehlsen join to walk us through their new book The Ministry of Truth, which explore how the attention economy incentivizes social media companies to make products […]
56 Brandy Zadrozny, NBC’s Conspiracy Theory Sleuth
Brandy Zadrozny just made one of our favorite podcasts of the year, NBC's Tiffany Dover is Dead, so we needed to get her on the show to talk about the ins and outs of debunking conspiracy theories with gumshoe reporting.
55 Internet of Goldfish with Bruno Patino
Bruno Patino thinks the economics of the Internet are set up to give us the attention spans of goldfish. In this week's episode, Bruno tells us why France, a country such good public broadcast media, has so much trouble reigning in corporate social media.
54 How do we reimagine Twitter?
With news that Elon Musk is purchasing Twitter, we recorded a rare hot takes episode. In addition to Ethan sharing his thoughts, we invited Deepti Doshi from New Public and Nathan Schneider on to talk about the need for platforms that bolster democracy.
53 Brandon Silverman, ex-Crowdtangle/Facebook: “legislation is coming”
Brandon Silverman developed a news analytics tool called Crowdtangle that was so good at tracking popular stories on Facebook that the company acquired it. Today on Reimagining the Internet, Brandon tells us how he’s working to regulate his former employer. Transcript Ethan Zuckerman: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Reimagining The Internet. I remain Ethan Zuckerman. […]
52 Cory Doctorow wants to set your Facebook data free
What the hell is "adversarial interopability"? Science fiction writer and prolific blogger Cory Doctorow thinks it's going to set you free from Facebook, letting you take your data and pictures wherever you want to go. And he believes surveillance capitalism is standing in your way.
51 It’s About Safety in Gaming with T.L. Taylor
were thrilled by her accounts of how gaming spaces are harbingers of social trends to come, online and off. Sometimes those are real problems like coordinated harassment, but sometimes those are collective solutions like distributed moderation and efforts to forge safe spaces.
50 How to Fix the Internet with EFF
this week to share an episode from our friends' podcast. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an excellent show hosted by Cindy Cohn and Danny O'Brien called How to Fix the Internet. Our show has a lot in common with theirs – in fact it has so much in common that they had Ethan on their show back in January. We're that interview today, and if you enjoy it, be sure to subscribe to How to Fix the
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49 Molly White Thinks Web3 is Going Just Great
Molly White thinks web3 is going just great and this week she tells us about the wash trades, rug pulls, and the opportunity for abusive airdrops on the blockchain. In her fascinating and often hilarious account, blockchain's early days are past
48 Jonathan Corpus Ong on Digital Labor in the Phillipines
What do Facebook content moderators and Rodrigo Duterte's troll armies often have in common? This week on Reimagining, Jonathan Corpus Ong lends us fascinating and surprising insights from his work interviewing members of the Phillipines' burgeoning digital working class, and how we might expect the Filipino Internet to play into the country's elections in May.
47 Olivia Junell and Alex Inglizian, Experimental Sound Studio
Nearly as soon as COVID-19 lockdowns began in March 2020, people started throwing livestream concerts. This week, our producer Mike chats with two of the organizers the Quarantine Concerts, a series that ran on Twitch nightly for months and raised nearly $100,000 for performers, bringing in performers and organizers from all over the world.
46 The Lost French Web with Kevin Driscoll
en you think about early Internet users, do you picture French people trying to find love and teens in after-school programs? Kevin Driscoll joins us for this edition of our history series "How They Imagined the Internet" to tell us about France's nation-wide public Internet that ran for decades and how BBS laid the groundwork for the web to be a social place.
45 Fighting Casteism in Tech with Thenmozhi Soundararajan
Casteism pervades the Hindu diaspora, not just across borders, but across the Internet too. This week, Dalit activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan offers us a look at how Dalits face discrimination and inequity on social media and in the ranks of Silicon Valley tech companies.
Rerun — Trebor Scholz, Platform Cooperative Consortium
livery services to music streaming. Trebor is a professor at the New School, where he helms the Platform Cooperativism Consortium. It’s a fascinating listen about the variety of ways coops can aid local communities, labor unions, and freelancers, empowering communities of workers to govern themselves and more equitably distribute revenue.
44 Nathan Schneider, Pt. 2 (Blockchain Governance)
scheme? In Part 2 of our interview with Nathan Schneider, he tells us about the flurry of experiments in democracy that get drowned out by NFT hype.
43 Nathan Schneider, Pt. 1 (Platform Coops)
hy don't users get a say in how platforms operate? Nathan Schneider thinks it might be because we don't own them. In Part 1 of this week's interview, Nathan tells us about how online spaces could be cooperatively owned, and what the US government could do to help.
