Internet trolls dubbed Catherine McKenna “Climate Barbie.” Over her term as environment minister, that online harassment escalated, making meaningful dialogue on what to do about climate change and tech governance almost impossible.

Most people say they care about their digital privacy. And yet we continue to use products and platforms that extract, and then sell, our personal data. Carissa Véliz argues that needs to change.

Much is made of Peter Thiel’s libertarian provocations. But Thiel biographer Max Chafkin says this framing belies the real scope of Thiel’s technological, and political, influence.

Afrofuturism is an aesthetic that centres the Black diaspora in imaginings of the future. What can Silicon Valley learn from Afrofuturists’ concerns with questions of power and about how tech is never neutral?

Since concluding the last season this past August, a lot has happened in the big tech governance and regulation space. Whistle-blower Frances Haugen and the Facebook Papers shone light on social media’s harmful impacts on our society and reignited the debate over how we regulate platforms. There have been employee-led labour movements at Amazon, Uber and Netflix. And Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for a Metaverse and a new company name, Meta. Join host Taylor Owen in conversation with...

Taylor reflects on six themes that emerged this season in conversations about big tech’s transformation of our economy, society and lives.

The US First Amendment protects free speech, but how does that protection extend to online content moderation?

China has created a technology-driven Orwellian surveillance state, where AI pre-crime systems and social credit scores can decide your fate.

Western nations often paint the Chinese tech sector as a threat to freedom, an attack on surveillance and an extension of the state. Big Tech’s guest in this episode, Hong Shen, argues this simplistic framing isn’t quite accurate.

If we consider the history of the US news industry, it’s clear that journalism has never fully achieved its potential. Now that the traditional model is faced with a complete market failure, it’s time to rethink the business of journalism.

The Indian government has imposed new “IT rules” that compel platforms to give the state unprecedented access to and control over user content.

AI development has been met with questions about its many impacts on our world. Maybe we should consider if it’s worth developing at all?

Using the vast volumes of publicly available data from videos, satellite imagery and social media posts, online open-source investigators are able to verify or debunk state-led propaganda and expose atrocities.

Trust in our institutions is at an all-time low. Mistrust can lead to the spread of misinformation and conspiracy thinking, such as seen in movements like QAnon and anti-vaccination campaigns, but it can also be a force for positive social change.

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re starting to see the results of our rapid incorporation of technology into our no-touch pandemic-proofed work, home and education lives.

Nation-states are building arsenals of zero-day exploits and other cyber weapons to stage surveillance, intelligence gathering and military strikes in cyberspace.

Tech entrepreneurs are, predominantly, white males. Because of this, much of our technology has inherent biases that align with those of its creators and disadvantage under-represented groups.

Australia’s new law seeks to fix a market failure in the journalism industry by requiring Facebook and Google to pay local media outlets and publishers for links to their work.

It is important to keep that which makes us human at the centre, both when building and using new technology.

The events around GameStop’s stock price show how digital platforms can impact our financial systems.

The January 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, demonstrated how online disinformation, amplification and platform algorithms have real-world impacts.

Online platforms aren’t designed with children in mind. For example, children are unaware of the risks that recommended content, auto-play and nudges bring to their use of the internet. Do digital spaces need strict design and development guidelines for services that will be used by young people?

The systems that underlie modern technology have gaping vulnerabilities that are being exploited by nations around the globe to maintain power and exert control.

COVID-19 vaccines are now being approved and deployed around the world. But will there be a sizable enough segment of the population willing to get them?

Where does the tech industries’ power lie? Are they “mind-control” platforms capable of influencing elections through algorithmic muscle, or does their true threat to society lie in market concentration?