Mike Masnick: 0:00

So Kat, I will admit that I've always thought it would be cool to do journaling, daily journaling, and keep up with all the stuff that I'm doing, and I've never actually done it. however, I know that Apple. Has a journaling app, and if you log in and use that journaling app, it gives you various prompts to try and inspire you, unlike me to actually do some daily journaling. So I'm going to ask you one of those for the start of today's podcast, and that is what's something that made you smile today?

Kat Duffy: 0:31

So I know this prompt because I know every journaling app on the planet because I have unsuccessfully attempted to be a journaler for. Low so many years and it still doesn't work no matter, no matter what. And so, you know what I'm gonna say? What's making me smile today right now is the memories of how many times I have tried and then failed and tried, like with such heartfelt intention. Really. I mean, just such deep intention to be one of those people that writes and reflects. On a daily basis and really, and catalogs how my life is going. and I, I never make it past maybe two weeks, but I have, I have one or two weeks of journaling every few years going back to like the nine, like early nineties.

Mike Masnick: 1:22

well, well, well, well, maybe this will, push you over the edge and convince you to finally start journaling.

Kat Duffy: 1:27

It turns out there's an app for that. Right. What about you? What made you smile today?

Mike Masnick: 1:33

Oh, I think having you on the podcast as our guest host today has made me smile, so I think we'll have lots of, lots of fun discussions.

Kat Duffy: 1:41

I was once described to someone who didn't know me but had to meet me. A mutual friend said she's brunette and very smiley, and that was like all they got and they found me right away.

Mike Masnick: 1:53

There we go. There we go. Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation. Today is March 6th, 2025, and on this week's episode. Which is brought to you with financial support from the future of online trust and safety fund. We will be trying to take a broader look at, well, I think everything that's going on in the world and what that means for the online speech space. as you can tell, Ben is away this week, and so we have our wonderful guest host, Kat Duffy, who you have just been introduced to as the smiling brunette. She is also the senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the CEO of Right Stuff Strategies. And so, welcome to the podcast. We are very excited to have you.

Kat Duffy: 2:59

Thanks, Mike. I'm super excited to be here. Any, any afternoon where I get to chat with you is a good one.

Mike Masnick: 3:05

Excellent. So with that sort of happy, fun, introduction and, getting started, let's, let's dive into the darkness.

Kat Duffy: 3:12

Let's move directly into existential doom, shall we?

Mike Masnick: 3:15

Yeah. So we were sort of talking about what, what. Things we wanted to talk about this week. and we have a bunch of stories, but I think there were some, framing that we wanted to put on this. I, I, I think was the way that we were talking about, because both of us in the last week or so, have written pieces that sort of try and explore the moment we're in and sort of the, broader impact of it is that a fair assessment?

Kat Duffy: 3:39

I, no, I think so. I think those of us who come from this space, there's a lot of, dot connecting that we feel is imperative to do right now, because we're seeing so many, folks who don't. Come from the space, maybe not, putting things together in quite the way that we've seen it play out. And this is where, you had sent some, you know, some articles and things like that. The, the things that are happening this week, and I had also been looking at, some things, but yesterday on, you know, on LinkedIn, it's your post on. Why Tech Dirt basically has to be a political blog right now, even if it doesn't want to be, that I put out on LinkedIn is like, this is my top read of the day and I'm willing to bet it will be my top read of the week. and so I'm gonna take guest host privilege here to embarrass you because, uh, I actually think it was one of the clearest, most important and most succinct articulations of. This moment and what those of us who come from tech and law and policy and decades of it have learned, that we need to be applying

Mike Masnick: 4:47

Yeah.

Kat Duffy: 4:48

right now to help explain the severity of the sort of crisis that we're in and the stakes of it. So I think that we should start by you talking a little bit about what you wrote, because it is truly the best articulation I've seen to date. Far better I think, than mine, which it came from a different lens, but.

Mike Masnick: 5:06

we will get to yours as well, but thank you. That's, that's very kind. and so I'll, I'll give you just a little bit of the background. I think it'll be interesting to sort of talk through kind of my thinking on this, which is, you know, and, Ben and I have certainly talked about on the podcast, stuff that is happening, stuff that has been happening ever since the election, and obviously ever since the inauguration. And how that is impacting other stuff, and so I've been writing a lot about. What is happening with the US government these days? Uh, and some of it is Donald Trump related, but obviously a lot more of it I think is Elon Musk related and sort of the position that he's in, which is he is effectively running the government, which is problematic. And, and I've had a few people I. A lot of people have reached out and been very supportive of what I've been writing, but a few people have said like, well, what, what is Tech Dirt now? And we've always been a very broad publication. going back decades, people have yelled at me, stick to tech when I was writing about policy issues. and you know, the argument has always been that I started Tech Dirt many, many years ago. with the belief, a very optimistic belief in technology and its ability to do good in the world. And I still have that underlying belief in me. But the thing that I realized very early on, and this does go back to really sort of some of the earliest parts of Tech Dirt, was that to make that reality, to make the technology and the innovation be in a world where it can do good and where it can create a better world for everyone. you need other things you need. Structures and institutions and framework which they fit, that you, you don't have chaos, that you have stability and you have understanding and especially with the internet the sort of global nature of the internet, that have to have that sort of global perspective as well, and that you want sort of a global stability to enable all of the other stuff. I would love to just be writing about technology. You know, now we've never been sort of like a gadget blog or like a, you know, review this internet service kind of blog that was never, that was never a part of Tech Dirt. I would love if we could get there, I would love if the world were, we're so boring and there was nothing else going on that I could just say like, oh, you know, here's this new AI tool. Right. I would love to do that and just, look at those things, but we can't do that. If we don't have all this other stuff in place. And so I was sort of thinking about that and thinking about people saying, what is sector covering now if you're covering all this stuff that is sort of US government based and, I just put it into this article that basically said, this is the story. We can't have those discussions. We can't have any of those other things. the entire entirety of, the US government is being dismantled all the other stuff fall. And it's not, it's, it's not saying like, well, it is partly saying that this is a priority, but it's not saying like, we're ignoring these other things. We're saying that without a stable US government, without stable institutions, without a stable understanding of. global world working together on important projects for humanity and human rights or whatever other stuff doesn't, it doesn't come into being,

Kat Duffy: 8:23

Mm-hmm.

Mike Masnick: 8:24

there are people currently who supported this regime and still do. And you know, some of the, the Doge folks who seem to think that the institutions and the global infrastructure and all of that don't matter and that because they're uniquely brilliant. This is very much in their own heads you have to wipe away the institutions because the institutions are holding them back and then they, through their unique, lone inventor, lone genius ability build the better world.

Kat Duffy: 9:00

Mm-hmm.

Mike Masnick: 9:01

And that's not how the world works. And so I thought that was just sort of important to call out. Then with it was the idea that, the folks who have been doing the best coverage of this, of the moment that we're in by far, have been the people who have been in the sort of tech, tech policy legal worlds.

Kat Duffy: 9:21

Mm-hmm.

Mike Masnick: 9:22

Because we've been watching some of this play out, most specifically with Twitter, right. and what Elon Musk did to Twitter over the last three years. We saw this and that's why like the reflection and a lot of people pointed this out, I'm certainly not the only one to have seen this. Like he is using the Twitter playbook, play by play. Exactly. Except that when he did with Twitter, he owned Twitter.

Kat Duffy: 9:44

Mm-hmm.

Mike Masnick: 9:45

And it was frustrating because I liked Twitter and I found it useful back in the day. I no longer do, But you know, whatever it goes away. Other stuff comes up, we can do that. The US government is different. One, he doesn't own it. Two, he has no, no, authority to do this no matter what people say. and then three, it's, it's the US government, it's, it's not, it's not a social media network. and,

Kat Duffy: 10:11

it's absolutely, and it's not. And it's not just what's happening, it's not simply the domestic ramifications of it, right? It's that the US being a functional, trustworthy. Country where rule of law is respected and democracy is intact, and checks and balances exist, that is a linchpin to an international order in which business can thrive and in which innovation can occur. And you know, I many years, I think in looking at the sort of, in particular the kind of rise of the tech billionaires. I have seen in this sort of increasingly libertarian anti, it's not even just anti governance, but anti-government focus, right? Is that, if you're building a company, if you're, you know, an investor, if you're private equity, if you're a corporation, your incentives are investor risk. They're essentially managing for investor risk. Government's job is to manage for societal risk,

Mike Masnick: 11:06

Right.

Kat Duffy: 11:07

and managing for investor risk and managing for societal risk do not necessarily align

Mike Masnick: 11:12

Right.

Kat Duffy: 11:13

nicely. And so the people who get hurt are the individual that every day, you and me, folks, right? Everyday Americans, because you need. Government in there, making sure that American innovation and American business is going to serve both American interests, but ideally also democratic norms. I think about it sometimes as sort of an aquifer. That the way that we think about democratic principles, the way that we think about rule of law, a relative lack of a kleptocracy, right? There's, you know, some grifts that, you know, we can talk about campaign finance all day, but, you know, overwhelmingly

Mike Masnick: 11:53

not perfect.

Kat Duffy: 11:55

the system is not perfect, but overwhelmingly, other countries can trust, for example, that American courts. Will operate the way that American courts are supposed to operate and other countries can trust that America does have checks and balances and will have swings and vagaries in its political system, but will not overnight trash decades, if not centuries of political alliances and trust. Right.

Mike Masnick: 12:20

They could believe that.

Kat Duffy: 12:21

yeah, and, and suddenly, you know, become a hostile actor towards, you know, our longstanding partners. Allies. And so when you think about this sort of, I think of the aquifer of democratic norms of rule of law, of constitutionality, like the political and economic stability that is the bedrock. America's success in the world. America's geopolitical primacy, America's ability to bring in talent, America's ability to support capital flows, to support innovation. All of that is based on this aquifer underpinning it of our core democratic principles. And the more that we pump those out.

Mike Masnick: 13:03

Yeah.

Kat Duffy: 13:04

Right. We just, I just feel like they're getting siphoned out and just thrown away. The more that I, I worry that that bedrock, that political and economically stable foundation that is getting shakier and shakier and shakier, and we're starting to see sinkholes. And what I really struggle to understand in this moment is the degree to which American business in particular, and not like, the tech, ad. Data harvesting economy, like not those global digital platforms, but business writ large. I don't understand why businesses writ large are not standing up much more forcefully right now and saying, we need that bedrock in order to continue to survive and thrive and this degree of instability. is not only threatening it, but is, riddled with unforced errors that aren't a result of strategy, but I would say of optics and, vengeance and, um, yeah, it's, you know, it's a, if this is masculine energy, like no thank you and I'm not, I'm not here for it. Like find me some other energy. Uh, right. And so. you know, one of the things that I had talked about in the article that I wrote is how this attack on foreign assistance and diplomacy and shrinking America's scale in that regard is gonna fundamentally hurt our ability to deploy AI and be a first mover in terms of building AI markets around the world. Now, I come from foreign assistance, and I come from diplomacy. I come from human rights, I come from humanitarian rights. If you had ever told me that I would be defending the virtues. Of right, of the importance of foreign assistance and diplomacy because of AI market deployment, I would've said, well, there's a lot of other reasons that are more important to defend it. But not withstanding, we have just violated agreements and undercut trust in 200 countries. Around the world, an enormous range of markets we're pulling out of all sorts of different elements and components of the international order we've pulled out of the World Health Organization. Right. and so how exactly do you, for example, if you're American Pharma, right? And you're really trying to work on like getting your new vaccine out to the world, for example, and America's not even a partner in the World Health Organization. What does that mean for you and what sort of opening does that create for China, which is invested dramatically in achieving at equal or greater scale in terms of its own development model and its own diplomatic model? China has worked very hard for the last 15 years to overtake America. On that front. And when China does go into those markets, it doesn't go in only to sell a product. It also goes into broker influence. And increasingly with the us, absent China will be able to exert influence that says, and you can't buy American products and you can't deal with American companies. And, and, and, and so we're seeding the ground for American innovation, that has been laid over of decades. Of work in such a needless fashion. And I think for someone who comes, for folks like Elon or even the large global digital platforms, because they built out so many of their operations, global digital, without boots on the ground, without having to have local licenses, local markets that telcos on the other hand really understand the importance of those local relationships, right? As do you know, supply chain businesses. But I think the global digital platforms underestimate. How important that underpinning infrastructure is, and that trust in American business is, that our reach, our scale in terms of diplomacy in particular, gave the United States. And so this to me is something where I, I think this is an incalculable loss for American entrepreneurs, for investors, for multinationals, for those who are striving to be. Multinationals, their work just got much, much harder.

Mike Masnick: 17:12

Yeah. and, we'll put it in the show notes, but your piece was in foreign policy, magazine and it's, it's really good. It's really looking at, in particular the impact on the AI market. of sort of killing off us. A ID you know, one of the things, this is also frustrating, but, but, I mean, you talked about sort of the difference between like investor risk and societal risk, but I, I think the point that both of us are making that is so important is that like, if you destroy societal risk, that's not good for investors, right? and. it's especially not good for global, any kind of global business, any business that wants to be global. And, you know, one of the amazing things about the internet, and I joke about this, like the first year of Tech Dirtt in 1997 through 1998, again, because I'm old, was. Basically just stories about like, huh, this internet thing, races, all sorts of jurisdictional questions

Kat Duffy: 18:10

Mm-hmm.

Mike Masnick: 18:11

because it's this, it's a global thing. And unlike, unlike almost every other kind of business where like expanding globally takes boots on the ground, as you said, or, or some sort of effort, to go globally with the internet, you were able to go global immediately. And historically the US in particular had been a very strong defender of a global open internet. the state department, for years has been, you know, a big, did amazing things that got no credit for

Kat Duffy: 18:42

Yep. And across every administration, this is a completely bipartisan, including the first Trump administration. This has been a completely bipartisan, longstanding area that the United States has championed a free, secure, open, interoperable internet. We are the OGs of that concept.

Mike Masnick: 19:01

and certainly like other countries have challenged that and China being a big one with, with its sort of great firewall and, other countries over the last few years. I mean, I think the fracturing of the global open internet has been a concern, like a major concern. But at least historically you could sort of rely on the US government to at least fight for it. and to, to raise the issue of why this was so important. and yes, like some of it was, because it helped us businesses, right? I mean, so many of these businesses that we're talking about are these giant US companies, and people have concerns about how big they are and how powerful they are, and that's, that's reasonable. But, what is shocking to me to bring this back around is like. How come those businesses are, are on board with this? do they not realize, I mean, Elon Musk I don't think understands anything at this point, but does Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos not realize that doing this undermines the bus? They rely on a global internet. They are global internet businesses. Do they not realize how completely dismantling. This substrate, bedrock, whatever you wanna call it, that it undermines their ability to have global internet businesses.

Kat Duffy: 20:13

it feels to me that there has been an increasing and rather astonishing degree of hubris, you know, to some degree, if you have. A company the size of meta or the size of Amazon, or, and I don't wanna put Google and Microsoft in these same categories because those are much more mature companies. I, I would argue they, they have come with these issues with greater seriousness and maturity. But you know, when you look at the Bezoses and you look at the Zuck and you look at the Elon's and you're looking at what Bezos is doing with the Washington Post right now, my gut feeling is that they think that they have enough money and enough power and enough scale

Mike Masnick: 20:55

Right,

Kat Duffy: 20:55

that they essentially are techno states and they can go their own way. I mean, meta was, you know, Facebook was trying to lay its own cable, right? All around. The Africa so that it would just have its own pipelines to go over. So they have sort of converted themselves in their brains into their own techno states, and they're the CEOs of, you know, they're the presidents of their own techno states and it is their job to essentially pursue their company's interests and that operates in a vacuum. What is really interesting to me is the VCs and the major investors Who have invested so much in building out new companies, right? Trying to find new unicorns. Those, you know, quote unquote little tech. I mean, little tech, billions of dollars, right? But all of those companies benefit from taxpayer dollars going to a US global presence that promotes. US industry promotes US business and helps create glide paths for its deployment across markets. And so to me, I understand sort of why the incumbents are, bending the knee to the degree that they are. What I don't understand is the many, many, many other actors where I don't really actually see where there are financial incentives. Or their power,

Mike Masnick: 22:13

Right.

Kat Duffy: 22:14

is aligned with the current state of affairs. I just, I don't, I don't get it.

Mike Masnick: 22:20

Yeah, I mean the framing that you hear from them. and I unfortunately have spent a little too much time paying attention to what they're saying. and I regret it every time. But I feel like I need to, I, I need to understand what they're saying. You know, their framing is, I. this is maybe gonna sound like a tangent, but I, I sometimes wonder if any of these people have ever played chess. Right. So, like, I'm not a good chess player. my kid is a very good chess player, and I sort of stopped once he was able to, to beat me consistently. Um, and embarrassingly

Kat Duffy: 22:51

Way to, way to way to be a role model Mike way

Mike Masnick: 22:53

yeah.

Kat Duffy: 22:55

way to model as parents, right? Just, oh, you got better at me. I'll quit.

Mike Masnick: 22:59

Oh man, there's, there's the internet. You can, you can play on chess.com and you'll find people who, who are your level.'cause I I continued to play for a while, but it was, it was when it got embarrassing where, where every game was basically him saying, how did you not see that as he destroys me in like five moves.

Kat Duffy: 23:21

Yeah.

Mike Masnick: 23:21

Anyways, so I'm not good at chess, and so I'm not claiming to be good at chess. But there, you know, the most basic concept of how you play chess is that you look multiple moves ahead, right? and there was a great book, which I gave to my son when he first started playing chess. which is why he's now much better than me. That, the whole point of it is, teaching you to look ahead. And everybody always says like, oh, like the great chess players can look like seven moves ahead, which apparently is garbage. Like nobody can actually do that. But this book really focused on like learn just to look 1.5 moves ahead. That was like the whole framing of the book. you're not gonna be able to look multiple moves ahead, but before you make a move, figure out what the response is going to be and like, that's it. that's the starting point. This is a, basic, Beginner level chess book. And the thing that I'm seeing with all of these is that none of them seem to be able to think what is the blowback? what is the response to this? and think in a, in a broader way. And so the stories that they tell are very much, that. regulations are holding us back, or antitrust laws is holding us back, which is garbage. Like none of the, VCs are being held back by antitrust law. Uh, you know, maybe at the very, very extremes, they could argue because of, greater antitrust enforcement, the buyers of their, not super successful companies are limited. You know, I. Meta can't buy the company. That didn't become the next meta. Google can't buy whatever. but you know, that is a minor thing. In the big scheme of things, these VCs are always going for, they want their companies to become the next meta or the next Google or whatever, but they seem to think that like. Wiping out all regulations will help make that possible. And I understand the sort of libertarian mindset, you know, sort of anti-regulation stuff and like, my role on this podcast Ben is here is normally to be the guy pushing back on bad regulations. will speak out about bad regulations, but that doesn't mean that like you want no regulations at all. Like there are important regulations and there are important infrastructure. Like I view it as infrastructure that give you the rules of the road that explain to you how these things work. And they seem to have taken this idea that was like, especially in like the cryptocurrency space and in the AI space. and like there were some politicians who I think went overboard on both of those and said like, well, have to like prevent anything bad from happening. and I think a lot of that was an overreaction to, I. felt that they didn't do enough with social media. Social media went bad and became evil or however they wanna put it. And so now we have to be much more proactive. the new round of technology needs to have like strong regulatory safeguards in place from the very beginning. and I, I understand that, that, you know, I don't think that makes sense because I think. It helps to understand you learn how the technologies work and you learn where the problems are if you allow them to, to be created, but like recognizing that you should go about it thoughtfully is important and. A bunch of these VC guys were just like, no. Anyone trying to tell us any sort of regulatory approach or even thinking about will this harm people? You know, will this cause other problems? Like we shouldn't even have to think about any of that and therefore, we're just gonna take a stance that allows us to do anything. And at best, they think that with a sort of Trump and, sort of running the White House, that. They can just push any, any sort of regulatory oversight that might come their way out of the way and, you know, just build Right. But again, that just ignores all of the important other stuff that we've been talking about.

Kat Duffy: 27:02

Well, it's also, it's always interesting to me the degree to which people talk about regulation as a proxy for constraint, as if all that governance can do is to limit or to constrain as opposed to empower. You know, when you look at the CHIPS Act for example. you know, I think most people would argue that is, that is regulation or legislation, I should say that. Is incredible for a lot of American business and would really support American innovation and would help the supply chain and will fuel, you know, billions of dollars more money into research. you know, again, then that's part of the ecosystem that we've talked about, which then, builds both talent and expertise that can get piped into the private sector and fuel the innovation economy. And so, this idea that somehow governing is antithetical to progress. I would argue that all creative processes are served by some boundaries you waste less time. There's more.

Mike Masnick: 28:00

Yeah.

Kat Duffy: 28:00

Efficacy. Right? Like taking, taking away the societal impacts. Taking away the risks. I do think it's, fair to note that America is a very weird duck because of federalism. So you like the fact that we have states rights and federal rights, that is a very distinct aspect of the US that I think we tend to gloss over a little more than we should. Taking that away, let's just imagine. How much easier it would be to build a business if the United States had had strong regulation in place for decades around cybersecurity and cybersecurity controls? Think about, I mean, I think we hit 8.3 trillion in ransomware last year. Think about the amount of money that our companies are spending patching. Looking for VMs, trying to do cybersecurity defense, you know, trying to bury ransomware attacks, trying to prevent phish, like there's so many, you know, updating routers, not knowing, which hardware or or software is gonna be safe enough, not truly being able to balance their risks. Boards still don't fully understand how to take on cybersecurity risks, right? When they're thinking about broader risk assessment. We would have so much less wasted money and time and so much less accumulated risk had we had stronger cybersecurity protections over the years that could serve as a baseline. And so this is where, you know, you see this in aviation, you see it in car safety. I mean, we have a global financial system because banks are probably the most regulated industry on the planet. And banks came together with governments, everyone agreed like, you know, we're not super into money laundering. we don't love it. It doesn't serve our collective interests. And so now we have a pretty effective and pretty robust system that operates across global financial markets to counter. Money laundering. Does it prevent all money laundering? No, of course not. Right. But does it significantly increase the amount of effort and time and expertise required to do it? It does. And does it significantly increase the accountability? right, or the punishment if you have engaged in it? It does. It also improves your ability to have, extradition. Agreements, law enforcement, cooperation, data sharing, right? All of these other things that are consistent discussions within the tech space, like banks have been navigating that forever and they work pretty much all over the world

Mike Masnick: 30:33

Yeah,

Kat Duffy: 30:34

like.

Mike Masnick: 30:34

though I, I mean, I'll revert to my, my usual role and push back a little bit on this, which is that also though, like. Banks are not particularly innovative these days. Right?

Kat Duffy: 30:44

No, no, no. Absolutely not.

Mike Masnick: 30:46

And so there is like, this is part of the trade-offs that we're thinking about in these things, but you, you know, there is this middle ground, right? And,

Kat Duffy: 30:54

Well, this exactly I, this is like with crypto, I think this is a very, I take and respect the point from a lot of people who are procr,

Mike Masnick: 31:03

Yeah.

Kat Duffy: 31:04

that it opens up a new world of possibility, and it releases entrenchment over different financial markets and models. but also those believers, the ones that I can engage with the most heartily are also the ones who are the first to acknowledge that you need. Some controls, some agreement, right? Some understanding if people are going to rely on that technology and build on top of it. And so it is this, there's this healthy middle ground. I don't think it's a neither or I think it's a yes and

Mike Masnick: 31:35

Right. Yeah. And I mean, again, it's like the internet exists because of the government in the first place. Right.

Kat Duffy: 31:41

yeah,

Mike Masnick: 31:42

and there are. Kinds

Kat Duffy: 31:44

as does ai.

Mike Masnick: 31:45

Yes. Right. And, and there are all kinds of regulations and, and subs that help create that groundwork. And I would argue for example, because I'm like the biggest section two 30 fanboy, that there is like, you know, I'm a big supporter of section two 30. That is a regulation, but that created the framework for how. Internet companies could moderate and could do trust and safety and do so without facing lawsuits for everything that they did. So you had this sort of government regulation that, set the, playing field and made it level and made it so that you could have competition and you could have experimentation. but that takes some level of forethought.

Kat Duffy: 32:24

Well, and, and also, and I, and then I would counter that by saying like, yes. And can you imagine how different the attention economy would look if we had had a federal data privacy law early on,

Mike Masnick: 32:35

Yeah.

Kat Duffy: 32:36

right? Like, and had not had an entire economy that was based on data harvesting and then consequently engagement.

Mike Masnick: 32:42

Yeah. Though though, again, I like to, to be clear, like this is really, really difficult stuff. I do think if we got a data privacy law in like, let's say 2004, it probably would've been a terrible law because, we wouldn't have even realized what it was that, like, how to put in place the sort of proper regulations for that. And so that's, that is

Kat Duffy: 33:03

This is so, it's, it's so hard. Yeah. No, I totally agree with you on the, the way that. Deliberative governance, deliberative and informed governance, and the speed at which technology moves like those two things are somewhat antithetical

Mike Masnick: 33:17

Yeah. Right. I mean, this is, this was like another point that I, I, other people have raised, this is not a unique to me viewpoint, which is like the way that the tech world thinks is like I. Launch and iterate and you're sort of continually iterating and you launch and you realize there are bugs and you realize things are gonna go wrong and break government doesn't work that way. Now that is apparently some of the way that Elon Musk is thinking about government because he's just breaking stuff and like, we'll patch it later

Kat Duffy: 33:43

right,

Mike Masnick: 33:44

without realizing like, you can't quite do that for some of the stuff that you're trying to do. But I understand where that mindset is coming from because that is the tech mindset. It's

Kat Duffy: 33:54

yeah. But when you cut off the, you know, when you cut off a Twitter corporate card? Versus when you cover, when you cut off the corporate. Cards of, of people who have to pay for dry ice to keep cooling specimens that are, you know, key to decades of scientific research. The impacts of that decision are wildly different. I don't particularly care if anyone's corporate card at Twitter or X gets cut off. Like, I can, I can roll with whatever those ramifications are. and so I, I think just to go back to the, broader point in terms of looking at the bigger picture, this narrative that we're hearing come out of the administration that is so, so, so anti governance and regulation is also very malaligned with where the rest of the world sits. Uh, and so, you know, you see this, there was an article that we were talking about, you know, this week that came out around. The criminal rings that have been, you know, extorting teenage boys who have then committed suicide, but also these criminal gangs that have been trafficking folks, you know, they've been being held in Thailand and Myanmar. There's been an outpost in Ecuador. there is a real thirst within the international community for normative consensus on some of these issues. Right. you saw this with The real uptick on the UN Cyber Crime Convention, which I think frankly the first Trump administration was very wise to nip in the bud. And then the Biden administration is the one that took that on, because it had been posited by Russia and they were attempting to make sure that Russia didn't run the table there. I know where they were coming from, but what we ended up with is a convention that doesn't actually serve business or. Really do much to prevent cyber crime.

Mike Masnick: 35:41

can, can just, just for our listeners who haven't followed, I've written about it a few times and there there's some other writeups, but can you just really quickly summarize what the UN cyber crime, treaty is?

Kat Duffy: 35:51

Are you suggesting that not everyone is paying attention to UN treaties?

Mike Masnick: 35:55

it is, it is possible. Uh, so if, if we just had like a, the, the quick, version of what it is, because it is really important and it has sort of flown under the radar, unfortunately. and it is very serious, and I do not, I still do not understand why the Biden administration went for it, but just give a quick, quick summation of it.

Kat Duffy: 36:13

Yeah, I would say this is, um, the cyber crime. Convention was, it's very law enforcement driven. And the idea was essentially that you need to be able to have a treaty that allows countries to work with each other on, battling cyber crime. So battling ransomware, battling fraud, right? Uh, and that would include data agreements, extradition agreements. All of these things sound sort of like, they make sense. but the. terms that are in there are very fuzzy and they expose, in particular a lot of American companies and a lot of American multinationals to a really insane amount of risk. And so in 25 years of doing tech policy, I have never seen, such a unlikely assortment of individuals and companies who were against this particular convention. Like when, when Maria Resa and Meta agree on the same thing. That's a sign, right? and so you had literally, you

Mike Masnick: 37:09

And just really, really quickly, again, for people who don't know Maria ssa as a journalist in the Philippines, who has been a, a huge critic

Kat Duffy: 37:16

huge critic

Mike Masnick: 37:17

of meta. But anyways,

Kat Duffy: 37:19

And of beta. But, so anyway, It's rare in the United Nations for a treaty to move quickly. This happened in just a couple of years, which again, for the United Nations is like warp speed. It, it's very much on the pathway to getting adopted. It's going to significantly increase a lot of risk for American businesses. America will never ratify it, but lots of countries where American businesses have offices will, and especially in the age of ai, it creates a lot of risks for people like AI researchers and AI safety mechanisms, that I think weren't foreseen in the drafting of it. What's been really interesting, About that convention though, is that it's really coming from this thirst that so many different governments have to be able to deal with cyber crime. Like there is uniform consensus across governments that this is not something that is healthy or that most governments want to support. and so there is a lot that we could be leaning into

Mike Masnick: 38:18

And yet,

Kat Duffy: 38:20

And yet, instead, what we're doing is, burning trust and burning bridges with nations all over the world. And you can agree or disagree that the United Nations is like where things happen. But for the G 77 or for like the lower and middle income countries, in particular, the United Nations is very much the place where they feel like they have a voice.

Mike Masnick: 38:40

Right.

Kat Duffy: 38:41

and because it is to some degree, it's, you know, you're whipping votes, right? And it's a vote count. One of the things that China has leveraged particularly well, over the past many years, and Russia has to some degree, but China in particular, has really done a great job of building up its alliances and its strength inside that institution. And where you tend to see American businesses kind of. Poo-pooing the UN as it gets super slow and it doesn't achieve anything and it's not important. I think what that perspective misses is that the UN is an incredibly easy space to co-opt if you are strategic and if you are thoughtful and intentional about doing so. And so, we ignore it at our peril, not because of what it can achieve, but because of what can be achieved through it by other actors who are not acting in alignment with American interest.

Mike Masnick: 39:28

And, and there have been a lot of efforts to do so, I mean, beyond the cyber crime treaty, there was, there were efforts, you know, a few years ago through the ITU to effectively sort of take over governance of the internet in a process that was really led by China and Russia as well.

Kat Duffy: 39:44

and you're seeing it now. I mean, there's, there's something called WSIs, uh, which is happening this summer. everyone have fun with that acronym. Uh, but essentially this is a global gathering where, you know, historically you sort of set. The standards for the next 10 years of internet and internet governance. And I can tell you that right now, the United States and most of the, you know, most of the democracies, most of the countries that champion a true interoperable internet, they're nowhere to be seen, right? They're too busy dealing with everything that's, happening with this administration. And so they are not coming in with a strategy. Meanwhile, China is very much. Driving a strategy with the G 77 to show up in force and in a way that risks a much more splintered internet and internet where the way that we've thought about having a digital footprint, is catastrophically undermined, and people are not paying attention to that at all. And so it's, we, we ignore these things at our peril because of, I think because we've gotten complacent. Frankly, and we forget how hard the United States worked to protect that for decades as a top priority in foreign policy.

Mike Masnick: 40:56

speaking of which we're shift gears a little bit, but it is kind of the same story in a slightly different way. One of the other things that you, pointed out was that Jim Jordan, who Ben and Sis is my best friend, has sent subpoenas to a bunch of the tech companies specifically about their communications with foreign countries regarding. Content moderation on their services. Talking about the eu, the uk, Brazil, Australia, and have sent these subpoenas to basically all the, well, all the big companies and a few small companies. So there's Google, Amazon, apple Meta, Microsoft, X also, which is interesting, TikTok, and then also Rumble, which is the, um. YouTube for maga basically if, if

Kat Duffy: 41:45

Surprisingly not to truth social.

Mike Masnick: 41:47

surprisingly not to truth social, yeah, I wonder, I wonder why, um. So basically demanding, making a bunch of claims which are obvious nonsense, claiming that Jim Jordan himself, proved that the US government and the Biden administration pressured the companies into, taking down conservative speech, which I keep repeating it like this. Went to the Supreme Court last year, and Amy Coney Barrett wrote. Over and over again, there is no evidence. You have no evidence to support. This

Kat Duffy: 42:20

not only did she write that, she wrote a footnote that was so scathing that every single, you know, all of us with law degrees were like, oh my God, this is like my nightmare. That somebody that a Supreme Court justice would write a footnote like that about, like, that's like you wake up in sweats in law school fearing that something like that would happen. It was,

Mike Masnick: 42:42

I don't even remember the, the exact photo. Was this the, like the lack of candor or there was something along those lines right there. I forget the

Kat Duffy: 42:49

was basic. It was basically the footnote that was essentially like, normally we wouldn't question appellate decisions unless it's like such an

Mike Masnick: 42:57

Right, right, right.

Kat Duffy: 42:58

Like oversight. That in fact, no, like this is indepen.

Mike Masnick: 43:02

so he's now sent subpoenas and, and basically said, companies have to share the, communications and basically like, you have to prove that you, stood up against these censorship demands. Is the way, it's framed. And it'll be interesting to see, like in the subpoenas, he, highlights of course, X as being like the gold standard, which is garbage. and just, disconnected from reality, but then also uses Zuckerberg's, Spinelessness in making claims now that Yes. Oh, the Biden administration was too tough on him. that, okay, those guys are standing up to them now and you have to prove to Jim Jordan now how these other companies are supposedly standing up to, foreign attacks on speech. And so this is kind of mind blowing in its own way. The fact that a. US official thinks that, they can get the communications between foreign governments related to content moderation stuff, and that it's framed in this way that is, again, just completely disconnected from reality.

Kat Duffy: 44:06

No, it's, I mean, you know why Oh, y oh, why did he ever leave Ohio? I mean, this is, uh, I say as a mid-westerner, um, it was really funny to me in the sort of press release from the committee. There was a phrase, you know, X has pushed back against lawless judicial orders in Brazil and Australia mandating global content takedowns. Now you can absolutely have a debate about whether Brazil or Australia have the right that a company is required essentially to do a global content takedown based on any one. Jurisdiction. That is a completely fair discussion to have. Right. But the idea that they're lawless, judicial orders, you, you can't have a law

Mike Masnick: 44:53

Right.

Kat Duffy: 44:54

like,

Mike Masnick: 44:55

by definition,

Kat Duffy: 44:56

just because you don't like the law doesn't make it lawless. Right. And so, you know, one of the things that I find really concerning about this as well is also looking at what happened with the information research space and looking at. How Jim Jordan in particular and his committee have sort of weaponized their subpoena powers in order to force discovery, and essentially escalate harassment. There is a very McCarthy era

Mike Masnick: 45:22

Oh yeah.

Kat Duffy: 45:22

vibe to

Mike Masnick: 45:23

is, he is the, the, the modern McCarthy, right? I mean.

Kat Duffy: 45:27

and this is something again where, you know, you would hope, you know, the companies historically, I, I can't speak as much For Amazon, or Rumble. but at least for, you know, for Meta, for Microsoft, for Alphabet, I mean, I served on the board of a, you know, a multi-stakeholder initiative called the Global Network Initiative for five years, which is all about voluntary principles. and I have reviewed hundreds, if not thousands of pages of confidential reports in, independent audits, going through how the companies have responded to. take down requests, data requests from different governments and historically where, you know, these companies have complied with the voluntary principles and these companies have said, meta very famously agreed to censor more information in Vietnam, and in its public statements, explained that the Vietnamese government was either gonna kick them out or they had to agree to censor more content. And so meta agreed to censor more content because they thought that. At a net level, free expression in the country would be served by them being a platform in the country, rather than not being in the country at all. Now, also, it's a revenue generating market for them. So, you know, there's that, but that idea of like, well, at a net level, free expression will be protected. That's really where the discourse used to sit

Mike Masnick: 46:42

And that's, that's an interesting place for the discourse to sit. Like what is,

Kat Duffy: 46:45

that's an important discussion, right? And I think it's, it's a principled one. This, you know, as you know, I like, I know you had Renee dur Resta on recently, and I think the way that Renee has talked about the memification of free speech is such a, great description of what has happened with this concept and this slogan. And so we've ceased to be able to have a principled. Debate about this, that's based in either the first amendment or in, article 19 from a human rights lens. And instead we're having a, political theatrics conversation that isn't at all about free speech, but about your power to control that speech, which you don't like. And there was also something about, the extent to which the Biden Harris administration aided or abetted. know, these efforts, again, you know, this and the, like, may I redirect everybody to the jawboning executive order that the Trump administration pushed out like well before Biden. these companies are not neophytes, you know, who are, who are being abused. many of them have incredibly sophisticated legal teams. They have incredibly sophisticated processes. they're not fussed by any particular country's official, yelling at them,

Mike Masnick: 47:58

Right. and a lot of them have, built up, tremendous, skills and, experience in pushing back on countries that are doing things. You know, and there are interesting conversations to be had about how do you deal with that? And obviously like global takedowns, like I've supported, companies pushing back on global takedowns,

Kat Duffy: 48:15

and interesting conversations too around like, there's so much focus right now on the DSA, right? And the DSA is also kind of being. In foreign affairs is becoming a, point of real tension in transatlantic relations and where it used to be a point of tension between the companies and Europe. It is now a point of tension between the American government and the eu, which is a new, issue or a heightened issue, I should say now. And what's interesting to me is that, again, the DSA is really leveraging the, political. Trojan Horse of the free speech, arguments and debates like those have become a hook

Mike Masnick: 48:50

Yes.

Kat Duffy: 48:51

that people are landing on when in, fact, again, if you were looking at this from a principled stance in terms of risks to American industry, arguably the, DMA, the Digital Markets Act is, going to be far more impactful than the Digital Services Act. Would be, but the Digital Services Act is a lot easier to sort of package, and to put into this free speech container, which is actually now being used to hold all sorts of other fights and power dynamics under the auspices of a foundational rate.

Mike Masnick: 49:20

Yeah. Alright. I think on that happy note, I think we can wrap this one up. you know, this is a little bit of a different episode than we normally do. We did, touch on a bunch of stories and we'll have, links in the show notes, but I think we did think it was important to understand the framework in which we normally are thinking about online speech and online regulations and trust and safety in all of that is. We're entering a different world, and it's important to understand that world and how that matters. And so I think this conversation was really useful and at least for me, hopefully for our listeners as well in, in thinking through all of that. So, Kat, thank you so much for stepping into Ben's shoes. you didn't bring the British accent, but, uh, a lot, a lot of, a lot of insight.

Kat Duffy: 50:06

I did not, I won't, I won't sound if I, if I could only have one, I would sound so much smarter, you know.

Mike Masnick: 50:10

There we go. That, that's the trick. The British accent always helps. But, but, but thank you so much for joining us and, thanks for a really interesting conversation. And, uh, Ben will be back next week and, we'll have another one of these. So

Kat Duffy: 50:22

Well, thanks for having me. I hope you go find other things to smile about today.

Mike Masnick: 50:26

There we go. All right.

Kat Duffy: 50:27

All right. Have a good one.

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