Mike Masnick 0:00

So Constantinos, it has been quite a week in the internet world. If you have noticed, we have TikTok with new owners and apparently everybody is rushing to this brand new app, which I had never heard of before. This called up scrolled. And I have some questions about up scrolled, which we might talk about later in the podcast. But as a prompt up, scrolled says, speak your mind, share your world unfiltered. So what is the unfiltered world you would like to share?

Konstantinos Komatis 0:33

Oh, dear Lord. I mean, really high Mike. I, I, it feels like we have not learned anything. It's 2026. We're crying out loud. I mean, really, how is it possible that we still say those things and we haven't learned anything? I just, it's fascinating to me. Fascinating. But good luck to up scrolls.

Mike Masnick 0:56

Yeah. I think that was a, a very, very unfiltered take.

Konstantinos Komatis 1:02

Yeah, I mean, what's your take? What do you think?

Mike Masnick 1:05

Yeah. I, I mean, each year the world gets crazier and crazier, and we are, seeing some of the same mistakes repeated over and over again, sometimes in different orders and in slightly different variations. But, uh, uh, what, what, what, what a world when we can all speak our mind, interesting things come about.

Konstantinos Komatis 1:25

Yes. I mean, that's, uh, one has to admit that at least you know, you are waking up every day to something new and you are not bored. You know, it keeps us on our feet.

Mike Masnick 1:36

Absolutely. Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation. It is January 2026, and this week we are talking about tiktoks new owners, the Europeans focus on a supposed Euro stack, the internet in Iran, and a variety of other stories. I am Mike Masnick, the founder and editor of Tech Dirt, and because you're hearing my voice doing the introduction instead of the British accent of Ben, you know that Ben is off and away this week, and we have a special guest host, Constantinos Es, who is resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. And, who you and I go way back, we've known each other for, I can't remember, I don't even remember when we met.

Konstantinos Komatis 2:38

I think that we know each other for around 10 years and the way we've met is that I started bombarding you with emails, begging you to publish some of my stuff in those early days on tech debt, which I loved. and once you quoted me and I remember I literally lost my shit. I was like, oh my God, I think I've made it. So I am very, you know, we go way back and I'm super excited that you invited me to co-host this. I love your podcast, so, yeah.

Mike Masnick 3:06

Okay. Well that's, that's great. All right. You remember better than I do, but Yeah. But you've, you've always been a, a very strong and thoughtful voice about, the open internet and, and how do we keep it, and the different challenges of that. And so I was, excited when, Ben, uh, couldn't make it this week to be able to have you as a co-host. Before we get into the stories, I will very quickly remind listeners that we are still looking for potential sponsors for our 2026 control alt speech Bingo card, which hopefully we'll reveal next week, probably. We'll see, we'll figure it out. It's really cool. we're gonna get it out in the world. If it has a sponsor, that would be really nice. If it doesn't, we will still put it out in the world. And all of you listeners will be able to listen each week while playing bingo and, that that'll be fun, I

Konstantinos Komatis 3:53

Cool stuff.

Mike Masnick 3:55

Yes. and I will also remind people to rate and review and all the usual stuff that people say in podcasts because those things apparently help us and I don't fully understand why, but it has to do with the way that, recommendations are made in, podcasts and all that kind of stuff. So I think it's been a little while since we've gotten any reviews. so go and review the podcast if, if you haven't, cause we know that there are plenty of you who listen, who have never reviewed it. How dare you. Anyways, let's get into the stories of the week. The big one to start with obviously is that. TikTok in the US in theory has new owners. This is not a surprise. This has been discussed technically. TikTok was banned almost exactly a year ago, and it doesn't exist in the US and hasn't been available in the US except it has because we ignored the law, and the law was probably unconstitutional, except the Supreme Court decided it wasn't. Even though I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court was wrong, and I know it's a bit, you know, a bit obnoxious for me to say that I know better than the Supreme Court, but sometimes I think I do. But

Konstantinos Komatis 5:10

Well, it all sounds a little bit iffy, frankly, right? I mean, you know. But yes, let's entertain that thought for a while.

Mike Masnick 5:17

Yes, yes. So, but they have new owners and they're exactly who everybody was predicting. There's Oracle and therefore Larry Ellison who has been sort of consolidating US media, and some other investors, silver Lake, and, a few other people. Michael Dell, I guess, is involved in it. it is all the story that people said before. The thing that everybody seems to ignore, which I find fascinating, is that, you know, everyone's like, oh, well now Oracle is going to host TikTok, and part of the agreement was that Oracle is going to review the algorithm and the security and privacy, except that already happened. And it feels like there's like a global amnesia that people forget that part of the deal that. TikTok made back in, 2020 was effectively to allow Oracle to, host its content and review its, safety and content moderation practices. And there was a big announcement and I think 2022, all that was in place and that Oracle was doing that. And so like all the discussion about that big change, already happened four years ago, and yet everybody acts as if it's new. but with the new owners, there's been sort of a big discussion this week about, oh my gosh, the big changes and suddenly everything is being censored. And you cannot mention Epstein. If you say Epstein on TikTok, they will block you. other kinds of content is not being allowed. They say anything that is anti-ice is being blocked. Anything that is anti-Trump is being blocked. It turns out most of that is probably nonsense. there's a variety of potential explanations for what is happening and what people were seeing. TikTok has said that they actually, basically about the same time as the official takeover happened, they had a massive technical outage, which probably impacted their content moderation. Tooling. That is possible. I, I have no way of knowing, but it happens. So it could have happened. they've made it clear that like they didn't suddenly overnight change their content moderation practices, which I probably believe. there's also the fact that even if they had decided to suddenly block any anti-Trump speech that's still legal if they wanted to. I mean, that's a reason maybe not to use TikTok, but the idea that, they were suddenly like. going crazy I think was an exaggerated story. there was a, another sort of related exaggerated story, which was that they did change their terms of service. And this is something that happens anytime any company changes their terms of service. They usually will push an alert. I think in some jurisdictions they're legally required to push an alert saying we've changed our terms of service. They did that, which was mostly about, basically this is a different company, it is this new. entity that was spun up to control the US TikTok, And so they pushed out a new terms of service, basically saying this is, this, is that. So people started reading that and anytime people read terms of service, they freak out because they often misread something. So in this case, there was a big freakout about the fact that in the terms of service, it said they will be, some of the data they might collect include immigration status. And for anyone paying attention to the United States right now, there's a thing going on where we're sort of treating immigration status as, a major issue, a

Konstantinos Komatis 8:39

Well, yeah.

Mike Masnick 8:40

ridiculous way. and so it's kind of hard to avoid that. So people were freaking out like, oh my gosh, TikTok is going to turn you over to ice, and get you deported. Again, it's possible that that will happen at some point, and that is worth being concerned about, but that is not what is happening here. The immigration status language was in the terms of service before, and it was actually a result of California's privacy law, which requires companies to be more upfront about what kinds of information, private information they might process for a variety of reasons. And so they are being public about that and TikTok added that a couple years ago. Because of the California law. There's no major change here. There are still reasons to be concerned. I wouldn't use TikTok if I were you, but not because of the sudden change in, in ownership. but it is interesting to see how people are reacting to it. the other part is that there were a few actual changes to the terms of service, including one that is potentially concerning, which is that they have made it clear that they will now be tracking more precise location of where you are. Which in theory, if you do tie it back to the immigration status thing that they have been tracking before. Maybe that does become a concern with the way that ICE and CBP are acting in the us. So I'm not saying that there's no concern here, there is still plenty of concern, but people seem to be freaking out over an older concern, not necessarily, a new concern. and then the sort of final piece of all this, as all this is happening and people are freaking out, some for good reasons and some for less good reasons, lots of people are looking for an alternative. And apparently the alternative that lots of people have picked up on is the one that I mentioned in the prompt, which is this company called Up Scrolled. and, uh, how do I say this in a way that is not totally obnoxious? So if you look at what the guy who created Up Scrolled is saying, and the way it's described on their website, it looks to me like every brand new social media company that has shown up in the last decade. That thinks they have discovered a brand new magic bullet for creating the best social media everywhere, which is we are the free speech platform

Konstantinos Komatis 10:56

Yeah,

Mike Masnick 10:56

with no recognition of what that means.

Konstantinos Komatis 10:59

but it's a great slogan, right? I mean, it is really a great slogan and it's really, if you're a user, you're like, oh my God, I've just entered Eden, right? Sort of the free Speech Eden, you know? So I can see why everybody's using it. But yeah, I mean, it's not realistic really, is it?

Mike Masnick 11:16

yeah. I mean, people have sort of asked him and he sort of like the guy keeps contradicting himself and basically what he's doing is the same thing that every sort of naive founder does, which is like free speech means the stuff I want. To be allowed and not the other stuff that I don't like. And that's not because he is like, well, we're not gonna allow bad stuff, but we're not gonna censor. And it's like, okay, then what exactly are you doing?

Konstantinos Komatis 11:40

Yeah. Yeah. And listen, right? I mean, this is very noble, frankly. I mean, sure you really want to do the right thing and you really want to provide a platform that really is about free speech and you know, allowing people to express themselves. But you are not leaving the reality. And this would have been a very nice thing to do 20 years ago, frankly, where we hadn't seen everything bad that is going in the internet. But right now, in 2026 to actually say those things, obviously you haven't thought through your business and you're playing into a narrative that is very popular and you cannot deliver. And I think that this is the problem with a lot of social media and the, the thing that. A lot of those business models seem to misunderstand. And I feel, I have the feeling even the new owners of Tik TikTok might be misunderstanding is this idea of trust. Right? Especially when you're landing in such a volatile, political environment where there is so much, division you really need, if you want to really build a robust social media system and a business model, you need to find a way. And I don't know what is the way, and that's why I don't own a social media company, but you need to find a way to communicate with your users and basically make them trust you. so, going back to TikTok, when you were describing what is happening, I kept going back to this idea that sure, it might be. a glitch, right? And I was reading also at reports that their data centers crashed or something like that. And I truly, most likely that must have happened because as you said, I don't think that overnight you can change your content moderation practices, unless literally you just say, we stop content moderation altogether, which could happen frankly. but because we are in the place that we are currently in the world, users will not believe that unless you communicate it to them very, very clearly. And if you start adding all those terms and services that you've changed and you start tracking location and you start, you know, and then you link it with your immigration status in the United States, this, for a lot of people, is a trigger these days, and rightly so, frankly, right? Because you do not know the new owners. It's not that you knew the old owners, but you were accustomed. through use. So right now you have new owners that, you know, they're somewhat affiliated with, the current administration and the current administration is doing what it's doing. And so when you start putting all these things together, you're like, okay, wow. I am not sure whether I can trust this platform. And I think that this is where, the new owners will need to prove themselves that they have taken this company and they have taken, a significant community of users. And if they want to foster that community of users, they will need to figure out how to communicate to them the changes and make them understand why these changes are happening and convince them that these changes are necessary. Otherwise, they will be using a lot of users. I just feel.

Mike Masnick 14:35

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. There was, the original story that came out last summer was that when the takeover went through. That users of us TikTok would have to change apps entirely. And I haven't heard if that is actually going to happen, if they're going to force them onto a new app, I doubt it, but I would imagine that would be, they would lose a, ton of users if that actually came to pass. I mean,

Konstantinos Komatis 15:02

so as well.

Mike Masnick 15:03

you think that people will actually leave TikTok over this, do you think, in any meaningful way? I mean, I'm sure there's going to be some, do you think there will be a shift in usage?

Konstantinos Komatis 15:12

So I think it really depends on how the new owners play this, right? Because we have seen previously, and I think that the Twitter slash x example a very clear one and it's very recent. There is a massive Exodus, users, are willing to leave when suddenly something flips. I left X because something flipped in me. and always used to think, and I had built a community, right? And I always used to think, oh my God, Exodus is going to be very difficult. And actually it wasn't as hard. Sure, I lost a lot of the conversations and I lost a lot of the people that I was interacting, but then I found them somewhere else. So it really depends on how the new owners. Seek to do this and whether they actually understand what they have purchased because it is not, you know, I'm just buying a company and then I am the king and I do whatever I want. Social media is really about, for a lot of people, it is a sense of community and for a lot of people is allowing them to use social media to express what they want to express within the small communities. They have small or big, that they have formed within the specific, you know, TikTok in our case. So if you start, for instance, censoring some of the things that they could say or they have been saying for the past X number of years, and you don't allow them to do that, yes, they will leave. I don't think that, everybody uses TikTok to watch cat videos or dance routines, right? A lot of people are using. TikTok for different reasons. I am not a user of TikTok. I really have no idea, what is going on in there. But my niece, who is a, a very big fan of TikTok, you know, she's, she's telling me that people really go and they form communities like in every other social media, right? I mean, TikTok is not different, any different from X at this stage, or Facebook or Snapchat even LinkedIn. it's just what the new owners decide to do and the restrictions that they, they seek to impose. I think that that is where things will be, judged and the future of TikTok, the US arm at least, will be determined.

Mike Masnick 17:24

yeah. I think, I think it'll, it will be interesting, my guess in terms of, things like up scrolled, we've seen sort of upstarts like this before. I don't think they tend to actually, it's a flash in the pan. I mean, beyond the sort of naivete of the, language that they're currently using about it. I, I imagine that it's not actually going to get that big. There may be another player who enters the space, but I doubt it's this one and there's a good chance that people will just stick to TikTok for better or for worse. I am just personally a little bit, not frustrated, but, it would be nice if the thing that people went to was built on an open protocol. I am obviously biased, but I'll say that there is on Activity Pub, there's loops, which is a very TikTok like app, which apparently people really quite like in the Fedi verse and obviously on here's the bias. Normally Ben would ring a bell. I'm on the board of Blue Sky, so you can say that I'm biased. but on at Protocol there's an app called Skylight. There's actually a few different apps. There's another one called Spark. that are sort of a TikTok like experience. and they, they've claimed that they've gotten a lot more downloads. spotlight came out with a statement that they had, a few hundred thousand extra downloads, this week. And so, we'll see who people actually adopt. But, it's always interesting to see when there's an opportunity for shuffling.

Konstantinos Komatis 18:45

can I say something? So here is however the opportunity, right? I mean. we have heard a bunch of different people, and you and I have discussed this, that, you know, occasionally we are reminiscent of the old days of the internet when, open protocols were supporting this, business models that were open and they were, accessible to anyone. And you can do stuff and you can create stuff without the fear of centralization that they have become right now. Even Tim Burnley, right? I mean, he has been talking about how can we go back to a decentralized web and we had Web 2.0, we had 3.0, we had 4.0. I mean, literally, we, we can start counting the different iterations of, um, point zeros for the web. This is an opportunity because clearly users want something like TikTok. They enjoy the interaction and the features that TikTok. Offers. So I am hoping that developers out there and great minds will actually go and create something. As I said, when I left X it took me quite a bit to find my way to Blue Sky, but I did find my way to Blue Sky because there was that alternative that resonated with me, and he spoke to me. And as I said, I, I remember the first message that I ever, sent out when I joined Blue Sky was, oh my God, this feels like the early days of Twitter. It felt so easy and liberating. So we can do this. There is precedent. The, the idea is that, you know, can we find people that still believe in those principles and they're willing to actually spend time and not necessarily spend time to make. She had loads of money, but spend time to create something that is actually wonderful and open and great and allows people to go in there and do, the things they need to do in a very responsible manner.

Mike Masnick 20:44

Yeah. Well, that's a really good segue, I think, to the second story that we're going to cover today, which, I'm going to let you take the lead on because, uh, this was something you brought to our discussion about things that are happening over on your side of the pond. You're over in Europe, so, uh, what's happening there?

Konstantinos Komatis 21:05

Oh boy. So Europe. so in Europe we have been having a conversation about this idea of digital sovereignty, as you know, for quite some time. And it sort of started under the previous commission. we had a commissioner who was French, and ton, and he really did a lot of, good stuff in terms of, you know, he, he pushed for regulation that I feel is necessary like the DSA, and, the DMA and all that stuff. But he also started, Using this term, digital sovereignty, and he was throwing it up in the air without really providing any sort of definition or interpretation and sort of stuck. Right? and over the past few years, Europe has been struggling to define it. And one of the things that really frustrated me was the fact that Europe was not really defining what it was, meaning when it was using, digital sovereignty, simply because if you don't define it, then it's up for grabs, right? Everybody can come in and just say whatever they want and just stick digital sovereignty underneath and believe that they contribute to the debate. And the other thing that was bugging me and I thought was very dangerous was. If you decide to use such a controversial term because of the internet, right? Because the internet is, we, we've always been taught that the internet has no borders and rightly so. So if you decide as a democracy to use the term digital sovereignty, you better define it because the only definition that exists out there is from China.

Mike Masnick 22:35

Right.

Konstantinos Komatis 22:36

unless you define it, then the Chinese definition really is going to resonate with people and to anyone you speak, they'll be like, oh my god, okay, yes, I've heard that from the Chinese. And they define it like that. So blah, blah, blah. Catalog story, short. Over the past, I think it is right now, a year and year and a half, there has been an increasing movement, I would call it in Europe, about this idea of developing a Euro stack. And it really goes through the spectrum to the extreme is to the most extreme, is the complete decoupling from US companies infrastructure, anything that is non-European effectively, that goes also for China, right? But mainly because of course it is US companies that in Europe offer the majority, of infrastructure. it was really addressed to the US and there was still a lot of resistance. There was a resistance, particularly from smaller, member states within Europe. That they understood the value of open markets and of competition and of, you know, having competing products and services. However, here we are now the 29th of January, as you said, and there is tensions that were triggered by, aggressive push around Greenland from the United States have sort of sharpened, uh,

Mike Masnick 23:54

Yeah.

Konstantinos Komatis 23:55

the EU discussions about digital sovereignty and this idea of reducing the dependence on, US technology. So right now what we're seeing is that European capitals that once were very cautious. Are pushing very strongly the idea that the EU must build more of its own tech, infrastructure, lessen its reliance on, uh, us in areas in particular like, cloud services, digital pavements and platforms

Mike Masnick 24:25

Mm-hmm.

Konstantinos Komatis 24:26

and that they think of it as an insurance strategy because the US frankly, in the eyes of the Europeans, it's pretty unpredictable currently. So really there

Mike Masnick 24:36

In, in the eyes of many Americans too, by the way.

Konstantinos Komatis 24:39

Okay. There. Exactly. So really people are saying, oh my God, what will happen if suddenly, you know, the current administration instructs any of these companies to stop offering. Cloud services in Europe, what is gonna happen to our data, what is gonna happen to all the services that depend? And a lot of those services, I mean, we have got to acknowledge that a lot of the governments are actually using those services. So really it has become a risk, which between us, I never thought in my lifetime that I would find myself in the position of seeing that heightened tensions between the two sides of the Atlantic. Now, I logically understand why this is happening. As I said, no one, I think liked what we saw, the past couple of weeks, especially with Greenland. and, the fears, some of those fears are justified. But at the same time, I do not believe that isolation is the answer. To any of this, right. you've mentioned in the beginning I come from, you know, my background, I have been nurtured in this space through the open internet. I remember in 1996, I was still a very, very young student though that, you know, I remember, the manifesto you know, the declaration of the internet,

Mike Masnick 25:57

right? The John John Perry

Konstantinos Komatis 25:59

a various, yes, it was a very aspirational thing, and I never believed that, any of that. But it was really good to believe that suddenly you had a technology that, at its core was about giving agency to people. in order to do that, that technology, you had to collaborate, that technology did not happen. Because somebody decided to do it on its own. People came together and people came together from all walks of life, from different parts of the world, and they created something that, in terms of human technology, has been unprecedented. You know, we were discussing before we started this podcast how the Internet's architecture and design is all about user agency and how we haven't seen any of that previously, with the telecom system or we have it and we don't seeing it right now. With ai, right? I don't believe that ai, sure there are exemptions, but I don't think that AI is really about user agency. I think that AI is more about creating convenience for people and this in a full sense of, agency. So here we are, unfortunately, and we need to figure out somehow we need to figure this out, basically, what does this mean? Because digital sovereignty is not going away. as you know, the, I have, uh, I am involved a lot in international, conversations about the internet and its governance. And frankly, every single country right now is using the term digital, sovereignty. Everyone. And five years ago, nobody really was using it so much. no one is defining it. So I believe we have this small wind of opportunity to do it in a way that still adheres to some of those fundamental properties of the internet. And for me, the most fundamental one is the idea of interoperability. That's how you do not close yourself down. That's how you don't direct barriers, and that's how you allow your systems to communicate through interoperability and openness. And openness doesn't mean, you know, anybody can come in and do whatever they want, but it means inviting people to collaborate and build systems that then you can give to the world. That's for me how you create a sovereign nation when you have options, not when you replace one option with another. And that's it. It's when you're creating multiple, multitude of options for others to, choose from.

Mike Masnick 28:31

do you think that there's any, any realistic chance that Europe, I mean they sort of refer to this as Euro stack. is there a realistic chance that they would develop sort of their own European internet that, is separate and distinct from, the other parts of the internet?

Konstantinos Komatis 28:48

I don't think that we will ever in Europe create something similar that China has created, right? This an elaborate, an alternative internet model. I don't think, we have either the sophistication or we have the time to do that because even in the context of China, it took them years and years to do that. And we also do not have the homogeneity, frankly, that China has. one of the reasons that the Chinese internet is able to scale is because A, they have the population. I mean, we're talking about 1.4 billion people. And the second and most important thing is that all these people think, speak, and believe the same thing. They're told to believe the same thing. So that's why you are able to scale such a thing in China. Outside of China, the only other country that perhaps we could have tested that would have been India, but there we know that it's not gonna work, right? I mean, it just doesn't work. They have the population, but in India they speak a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand different dialects. They have different cultures, they have different religions. So how can you create a network that is able to talk to every single person when you know there are so many differences? The same goes for Europe. What I'm afraid, however, is going to happen is because of the political pressure that currently exists, knee-jerk reactions are going to start taking place, and those will isolate Europe, either in the context of, Rushing to create new infrastructures and new services that do not necessarily, either interoperate, which means that when you have security vulnerabilities who's gonna come and help you to fix them, or the ones that you have, you're gonna push them into deployment without actually checking those things. Are they secure? are they able to support some of those things that I want them to support? I was chatting. With a bank the other day about digital sovereignty. And literally they turned to me and they said, listen, it's not that we love using American companies, but if we were to choose between American companies and European, we're still going to choose American companies because they are of very security. We know that they are secure. We cannot say the same one for the very small number of European counterparts. And I think that this is part of the conversation that is not being really, discussed. And the last thing perhaps that I would make is one of the things that I don't understand is how Europe it will manage to get away with all the interdependencies. That have, been created, right? Because dependencies are not just about buying software or hardware from abroad, right? They're deep. There are systemic linkages in infrastructure, supply chains, cloud platforms, the way data flows, chips, the network layers, all these things are embedded in our economies and they're embedded in government and they're embedded in security systems. so, the interdependencies create those lock-ins. and once the system is built, it's really difficult to change it. It takes a lot of money to do that, and I'm not seeing anyone really fitting the bill, which is, by the way, and that will be the last thing that I will say on this, is what the China does so well because they understand interdependencies. They have understood that this is where the power lies.

Mike Masnick 32:21

Yeah. I think the other important difference with China is that, you know, China sort of built its own fragmented internet, in part because they wanted to keep out certain other influences. the Euro stack approach is not that, it's basically to protect, you know, European interests from a potentially, arbitrary American, political environment right now. So, but it's, it's, that's a different motivation and a different setup, and so I think it, makes it more challenging in, some

Konstantinos Komatis 32:54

yes. Because one is political in the case of Europe and the other one is the ideological.

Mike Masnick 33:00

Yeah.

Konstantinos Komatis 33:00

and it's really because the ideological one before you start applying it, you really need. to study what you want, you know, you need to, create a match between ideology and the system that you want to create. The political thing is very, very shaky because people change, right? I mean, we might have a new commission in four years that says, okay, we don't really care about any of that. We want X. Whereas ideology is very much a subtle thing. It's like, you know, it's a lock in. So once you manage to create this match between ideology and the system you're going to create, then you're able to do that,

Mike Masnick 33:38

Yeah.

Konstantinos Komatis 33:38

I think is a good segue to the next topic.

Mike Masnick 33:41

yeah. Yeah. That's a.

Konstantinos Komatis 33:43

about ideology and lock-ins, which is about Iran.

Mike Masnick 33:48

Yes, yes. That you're, you're getting good at the segues for, for a guest host. I'm, I, I'm impressed. yeah. We wanted to talk about, what is happening in, around, or in particular with, the internet. Obviously there's a, there's a lot of things happening there in terms of protests and putting down the protests, but part of the aspect of putting down the protest was effectively turning off the internet. and there are a number of interesting stories about that and, and how that has affected people in Iran. in particular, like people there, like in many places, most of the world relied on the internet for a lot of things. And there was talk of like delivery services that were, basically effectively shut down because they relied on the internet and all sorts of other, aspects as well. there were a few different little pieces of what is going on there that I thought were interesting and worth discussing. The first one being a step that an American company took in dealing with what is happening in Iran, which is meta. which they decided to hide their follower and following lists on all of their properties, Facebook, Instagram threads, because they recognized that your social graph, at a time when there's great upheaval and, protests and people being arrested, disappeared, and killed. knowing who your social graph is, is. Potentially very, very dangerous. And so they have now hidden, if they, recognize you as being based in Iran, they have hidden your social graph. and I thought that was actually a really interesting move, especially from a company that regularly gets criticized for not recognizing, local things that are happening and how that might impact and, and sort of trying to reduce harm in different places. Obviously everyone talks about, massacres and other things that were, driven on meta platforms. So I thought it was a very interesting statement for them to say that they're, they're stepping up and, and hiding the social graph in order to protect users there. Did you have any take on, on that,

Konstantinos Komatis 35:49

I think I, you know, I agree. Yes, it is a very interesting thing to do, and for them to, you know, they seem to facilitate and help some of the Iranian users actually to, to protect them. But at the same time, I cannot help, but, you know, it's matter, right? I mean, they're

Mike Masnick 36:05

Yep.

Konstantinos Komatis 36:06

and then at the same time in the United States, for instance, they are not allowing you to use, ice lists or whatever. So it's always this back and forth. And if I see it as an isolated incident, yes it is significant that this, was done. But at the same time, I am not very much buying into it, if you know what I mean.

Mike Masnick 36:26

Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't think this is like Mark Zuckerberg turning over a new leaf and suddenly being a concerned citizen of the world. But, but it was one example of, of something that I did think was, kind of interesting. The other sort of related report that I saw, was in, rest of world had an interesting story about partly the nature of the block, the internet block in Iran. and what they think is, you know, apparently, like they said there's no chance that it's, they're going to turn it back on at least until late March. And then even when they do turn it back on, it may be much more limited. And in fact, there was some discussion that they might effectively, Created as a, an allow list where they will individually, the, Iranian regime will individually decide who gets internet access and sort of give you, access to it. And apparently they've had something like this in the past where they had some sort of special like magic sim card that they would give the elite that would give them wider access to the internet. I mean, the internet in Iran has always been fairly locked down already in a sort of Chinese, uh, great firewall manner. But they would, allow certain people and give them special sim cards that could get around the block. And so now they're saying effectively they may do that for the, you know, as a broad based strategy where the only people who have access to the internet are those directly approved by the state, which is fascinating in some ways, but, but, but crazy in

Konstantinos Komatis 37:54

I mean, really. I mean, that's your. That is your digital sovereignty. This is really what it, you know what, it can become this digital sovereignty, unless you define it and I'm not buying anymore that, oh my god. You know, democracies, the digital sovereignty of democracies are very different, is very different from the digital sovereignty of authoritarian countries, because both of them are ultimately about controller. Unless, again, you define it in a way that is premised upon openness, interoperability, was thinking a little bit about Iranian. I'm not even pretending to, even fathom what is happening there and how awful things are for. the people on the ground, but it really comes to show why, especially authoritarian governments, but governments in general fear the internet, right? And they want to control it. Because really if you go to lengths to actually first of all shut it down, and then even if it's true, issue, special cards for only special people to access the internet, that says something about this technology. And that is why I am personally so invested in trying to remind people that we need to keep it as open as possible. We need to keep it as decentralized as possible. We need to go back to those properties, of course, adapt them in 2026, but also remind ourselves that this is a technology that is predominantly human. So for me. anything that we can do to help the Iranians right, to ensure that they have access is important for that very reason. Because it is all about empowerment. It is all about empowering them to actually use their voices and do the things that the internet allows them to do, like no other technology frankly.

Mike Masnick 39:44

Well, so let me ask you this. one of the things that was sort of buried in, in that rest of world article is the fact that there are apparently Like tens of thousands of starlink terminals that were sent into Iran and that, the US government had given an exception to the sanctions on Iran allowing Elon Musk to send starlink, terminals into the country. And I believe he's offering free internet access through starlink to people there. I, don't think I ever have anything particularly nice to say about Elon Musk, but I'm sort of curious, is that a potential, I mean, it's not a, a, you know, there are limits to the scale of that, but is that an example of helping people in that country have access to the wider internet?

Konstantinos Komatis 40:32

Oh my God.

Mike Masnick 40:34

That was a big sigh.

Konstantinos Komatis 40:36

I know, right? Um, yes and no. I mean, I think that, of course you ensure connectivity, is great. But we also saw what this did, for Ukraine, right in the beginning. Starling was offering, uh, connections in Ukraine and then suddenly he woke up one day and he said, oopsie, I'm not offering, anymore. startling. So, the fact that connectivity, like everything else has become a geopolitical issue, right? And it's changing fast. And I have some sort of, um, an issue with a private US company operating this constellation of satellites beyond the jurisdiction of any single state bypassing Iranian law, state control to deliver connectivity. I mean, it is an extraordinary power if you think about it, right? This is real. And we have not seen any such power being exercised by any other private company. Again, you are literally the link that allows people to have any sort of a communication with the outside world. I mean, think a, let's stop and think a little bit about this, and you're not a government doing that. You are not an international organization. You are a single individual. Who also happens to be the richest man in the world,

Mike Masnick 42:00

Yes.

Konstantinos Komatis 42:02

and you are also a megalomaniac and you are doing all those things. So, you know,

Mike Masnick 42:07

yeah.

Konstantinos Komatis 42:08

I, I am going back and forth. That's what I'm trying to say. On the one hand, I really think that that was great. On the other hand, I am feeling very uneasy because I feel that this might be happening more and more and more. And frankly, because it can happen to any one of us. I don't want my future and my connectivity to be determined by someone like Elon Musk. I don't want my hopes to be literally on someone like Elon Musk offering me, connectivity. And by the way, they were jumped, right? The Iranians managed to jump those, satellites, which is fascinating. I don't, do you know how they managed to do this? Do we have

Mike Masnick 42:43

I, I, I have no idea. Yeah,

Konstantinos Komatis 42:46

to me that would be fascinating because the Russians didn't manage to do this.

Mike Masnick 42:49

yeah,

Konstantinos Komatis 42:50

Right in Ukraine. So the fact that the Iranians managed to do this means that they have also developed some sort of a crazy technology that is there and you know, again,

Mike Masnick 43:02

yeah.

Konstantinos Komatis 43:02

so yeah.

Mike Masnick 43:03

All

Konstantinos Komatis 43:03

do you feel about it? What, what is your view very quickly about this?

Mike Masnick 43:07

I mean, it, it's exactly that. Like I, I actually do think like. Satellite based internet access is really potentially empowering, especially in, various places of the world where, you know, people have blocked or limited access to the internet, but who controls it? It always comes back to like, who has the control? Right? And when we have systems that, are set up in a way that there aren't single points of control, then we're much better off. When you have any, any of these systems, this, you know, any, any centralized system where there's a single point of control, no matter what it is, it then just becomes a target for powerful, whether it's political or rich or oligarchs or whoever. The, the focus becomes who has control over that? Who can turn the knobs, who can manipulate, who can change, who can allow or disallow access? And everything becomes focused on that. And the only way we get around that is if we have a system that is, broad, accessible, plural, all of these things. Decentralized is the only way to avoid that. And, and so yes, as a temporary solution, satellite internet access is great, but we're just recreating the same problem and certainly in a, in this case, in a very problematic individual. Let's move

Konstantinos Komatis 44:15

control, right? Yeah. Talking about control, let's.

Mike Masnick 44:19

So, so are you getting good at the segue? So, so, so you, you have another one for us here. let's switch gears and you

Konstantinos Komatis 44:25

Yeah, so it's the social media ban, for under sixteens, which of course, we, we all know by now that this has, this is a law that has passed in Australia and everybody's monitoring. I mean, we're still waiting to see whether actually it does work or not. but, uh, the conversation about potentially banning social media for under sixteens has now spread around the world. The European Union is considering, a regulation, for 27 member states. Canada is doing the same. The United Kingdom is doing the same, and I believe that, you know, it's going to go also, in Latin America. And there is something, you know, this is again, another issue where I go back and forth, right? I mean, I see the, public. Policy concerns, especially because a lot of these conversations are framed around addiction, to social media. And by the time you phrase the word addiction, then automatically the government needs to step in, in order for public safety purposes and all that. but at the same time, I think that once again, we're making the mistake. Well, we're making a couple of mistakes. First of all, I believe we're underestimating, teenagers these days. I don't believe that a 90-year-old should be on social media. Frankly, I am not of that opinion. But 14, 15, 16 year olds, I believe that by then they are, you know, they're digital natives. These people, they have a tablet pretty much when they born, at least the majority of them. so I think we're underestimating, but more importantly for me is. What is the real impact of such bonds to the communities, to the children, to the marginalized, especially children, that they need those, channels to talk to foreign communities, to share experiences, to do the things that they need to do. And I do not believe that, If you were toban this, but you were offering those children a completely different framework, or tools better yet to be able and do the things that they want to do and get what they needed to do out of social media, then it will be a very different conversation. But you're not doing that. You're putting every, everyone into the same basket and you're like, if you're under 16, I don't care where you come from. I don't care what your problem is. I don't care why you were using social media, you are not going to use it anymore. And that can be pretty dangerous for perhaps a small number, but that small number is the ones that actually need our help. And I don't believe that we are offering our help through that ban. but you also were telling me about a very interesting study,

Mike Masnick 47:03

Yeah. So there was a study that came out in, in Nature recently. It was actually about a month ago, but I actually just discovered it and I wrote something about it as we're recording. The thing I wrote about it is not on Tech Turt. It may go out by the time this episode is released. We'll see. But, but there was a very interesting study about specifically social media addiction. And the timing is interesting too, because this week there's a big trial in California about social media addiction, it was involving snap, TikTok, meta, and Google. But both Snap and TikTok settled the case right before the trial started. But it's all about whether or not these platforms are designed to be addictive. The study. Was really fascinating in that it found that the conversation, effectively calling it social media addiction, was potentially doing more harm than social media itself. That once you called it addictive, it took away people's agency. And we've talked about the importance of, of individual agency here, because suddenly you had an excuse and rather than it being a habit, that's what the study keeps comparing it to. Is it a habit or is it an addiction? Changing a habit involves certain steps that are known, and it can be difficult, but they're all different ways to change habits. Stopping an addiction is very, very different. And so they were comparing that when you called in an addiction, people basically got worse because they effectively said, I can't fix this. This is outta my control. There's too much power going on here, and therefore, you know, I'm, I'm giving in. and yet that same study also checked to see like were there actual signs of addiction. And they looked at, traditional, issues of addiction, including things like withdrawal symptoms. If you take it away for a certain period of time, do you go through withdrawal? And they actually found a very small percentage of people that actually happened with social media. I think it was maybe three or 4%. I forget the exact number in the report. And yet, a much, much larger percentage of people claim that they were actually addicted to social media. And that number went up every time the topic of social media addiction became a big story. So when this particular lawsuit was filed, suddenly there was a massive increase in people claiming that they were addicted to social media. When the US Surgeon General came out with a report about the harms of social media, which was a very weird report I've criticized in the past. Um. There was a huge increase in the claims of people saying they were addicted to social media without there actually being any corresponding evidence to it. And so the report argues that it's actually deeply harmful to use that framing of addiction when it's not the same as, necessarily like an alcohol or a drug addiction where there's a chemical component to it. but how you deal with it and how you think about it actually matters. And, it's a really, really fascinating study at a time when, the language that people use around it is sort of very committed to this idea that it must be addiction when that might be a problem. So I thought that

Konstantinos Komatis 49:53

Uh, I, I think that's fascinating, frankly, and it's, it always goes back to how we frame these conversations, right? I mean, and again, it's not the first time that the framing matters. I mean, even in the context of security and encryption and privacy, the framing was al it's always about the framing. And this is perhaps what currently, once again, it is the political, the politics of it all. Right? I have been thinking about this quite, recently that by the time, and I'm not gonna say something else shattering here, but for me it was a very big aha moment. I was like, by the time politics made it into the internet, the whole conversation changed completely. You know, we stopped listening to the techies to tell us that technology works in this way. And it's not really a mantra, but really encryption. You either have it or you don't. The political aspect is, oh my God, pedophiles and sexual abuse and all that. So we stopped listening to experts, whether they're doctors or whether they are, from other fields. So there is something about the framing and you know, we have got to admit that this is where we are, that politics are part of the conversation, but we really need to insist on framing these conversations in a way that allow us to get to the point that we want without really messing things up and create irreversible situations. That's where I think all I would say about this.

Mike Masnick 51:21

Yeah. All right, well we're going to move on to our last story, and we'll go through this very quickly 'cause we're running low on time. This is a story that's kind of been going on for a while. We've talked in the past on the podcast about the, grok sexualized deep fakes. We're not necessarily going to go back over the, that part of the story. You know about it. There have apparently been some adjustments to grok and it apparently more limited, and Elon was actually joking about it recently, which is kind of disgusting. Yeah.

Konstantinos Komatis 51:51

I, mean, really?

Mike Masnick 51:52

we'll, we'll leave that aside. But there has been a question raised, and this, was raised originally a couple weeks ago about the role of the, app stores and whether or not. You know, because they've pulled like other like notify apps, AI apps that would strip people of their clothes. But how come they left Grok on the platform? So a few people raised that and then this week there was a piece at the Verge also raising that same issue around payment processors. And we talked about this issue as well, like the power of payment processors to pressure companies into, sometimes for better and for worse. Like there are situations where the payment processors have threatened OnlyFans, have threatened, other platforms. Tumblr got pressure at some point from payment processors. I believe eBay has gotten pressure from payment processors where they threatened to cut off the payment processing, if they don't remove certain legal but potentially racier content. And yet here we have gr doing this whole thing potentially illegal, depending on, some of it is almost certainly illegal and yet we haven't heard a peep from the payment processors or the app stores saying. hey, you gotta fix this, or we might block you. So what, what's, what's

Konstantinos Komatis 53:04

yeah, I mean, both the app stores and, uh, payment processors are, I cannot believe how they have managed to escape scrutiny all these years, frankly. I mean, there are occasionally people who are looking into it, and I'm not saying that they need to become police, right? I am not of that view, but there are some really gross cases for crying out loud and they need to step up. I mean, you were telling me the example, for instance of, you know, your podcast, you used the words bullshit literally, and Apple decided to downgrade your results because you were using the word bullshit and they're not standing up when it comes to grog, which is literally to our faces. We are told he didn't even try to deny it. I mean, literally to our faces, we are told this is what I do, and. The fact that the app store just accepted it and hasn't done anything, is exactly why the problem exists. And frankly, if, and it is, you know, this thing for me right now is, is becoming more and more relevant. If it trillion dollar company like Apple cannot stand up to grok and say, no, this is not acceptable and I do not want to have this, then I don't know, frankly, what we're doing here. They, they need to have some responsibility.

Mike Masnick 54:21

yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to the point that we were making with starlink where, it all becomes political and there's one man, and these companies are afraid to go up against him because he is, has so much power and so many connections that they know that they'll get punished for it. And that is a really unfair system for, everyone. Um. But with that, I think we are going to wrap up. Constantino, this was fantastic. Thank you so much for stepping in and being our Ben this week.

Konstantinos Komatis 54:48

Thank you so much for having me. This is, this was thoroughly enjoyable. I just, you know. Excellent. Thank you so very much for having me, Mike.

Mike Masnick 54:55

Great, and thanks everyone for listening as well. Ben will be back next week and we'll have plenty more to talk about then.

Konstantinos Komatis 55:02

Bye.

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