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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]