Taylor Lorenz on Moral Panics, Tech Villains & Protecting Free Expression
Journalist and Power User host Taylor Lorenz has reported on the fall of Vine, influencers who accept "dark money," and the proliferation of far-right content on Substack, just to name a few.
Today on Revolution.Social, she joins Rabble to talk about why governments, including the U.S., are advancing laws to restrict free speech online; the misleading moral panics that have led to apps being banned; and the challenges of monetizing online communities as platforms become gatekeepers.
They also discuss the rise of tech founders who are more than happy to be seen as villains, the history of new technologies being blamed for social problems, and why conservative voices have been better than progressive ones at manipulating the internet for their own means.
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Chris Messina on Hashtags, Google+ & the Unintended Consequences of Building Social Media
Chris Messina is best known for co-founding BarCamp and giving Web 2.0 the hashtag.
Now on Revolution.Social, he joins Rabble to talk about the bigger picture of what has gone right, and wrong, with social media. In this episode, he and Rabble unpack why Google+ failed, the unintended consequences of hashtags, and how algorithms have reshaped our digital lives.
They also discuss why defending authentic human connection may be the most urgent challenge for the next generation on the internet.
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine on AI Slop, Quality Content & Social Media Fragmentation
After the introduction of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, the blogging platform Medium got ten times busier, says CEO Tony Stubblebine — and that was not a good thing.
"Most of it was slop," he says. "Our job got a little bit harder on the filtering side. Actually, a lot harder on the filtering side."
Luckily, Medium had already built human-run systems to combat spam, and began deploying them to filter out AI slop. Under Tony, the company has worked to focus on high-quality writing for humans, by humans.
Today on Revolution.Social, he and Rabble talk about the enduring human need for storytelling, the role of incentives in shaping online communities, and empowering busy experts to start writing. Tony also explains why podcasting resisted monopolization while other Web 2.0 formats were captured, and why the post-Elon fragmentation of Twitter into smaller platforms is actually good for users.
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
Renee DiResta has spent a decade tracking how small groups can hijack global conversations — and why the same tactics still work today. The author of "Invisible Rulers" and a leading academic researcher on online influence, she joins Rabble on Revolution.Social to unpack the hidden forces shaping what we see — and believe — on social media.
Drawing on years of work investigating the history of propaganda, election interference, and networked movements, Renee shares how fringe ideas can be made to look like majority opinion on social media platforms.
She traces the evolution of propaganda from the printing press to the algorithmic age, and explores why content moderation, whether on massive platforms or decentralized networks, is so complex.
Renee describes her experiences being doxxed, harassed, and intimidated online when she joined the vaccine debate, and they discuss what it might take to build healthier, more resilient online spaces.
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Substack CEO Chris Best on Democratizing Media, Content Moderation & Freedom of Speech
"If you're a consistent advocate for freedom of the press, you will unfortunately have occasion to quarrel with every party and every side of the political spectrum," says Substack CEO Chris Best.
As one of the most important platforms for independent writing online, and one of the only ones not reliant on advertising, Substack has sometimes attracted controversy for its content moderation policies. Today on Revolution.Social, Chris and Rabble talk about the "Nazi bar" problem, the democratization of writing, and the future of free speech. They also discuss the competing business models of the creator economy, why platforms like Elon Musk's X suppress external links, and the purpose of media in the age of AI.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
03:37 The Origin Story of Substack
10:32 Internet Protocols & Spam Filters
13:18 Building a Platform With the Right Incentives
22:47 The Subscription Model vs. Micropayments
26:43 Expanding Beyond Newsletters
32:57 Freedom to Exit
35:33 The Future of Media and AI
40:19 Algorithmic Transparency
42:03 Free Speech and Democratization
46:19 Disinformation & Takedowns
49:39 Who Else Should Be on the Podcast?
52:10 The "Nazi Bar"
54:51 Outro
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
A podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities.
Revolution.Social is hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitter’s first employee and hired Jack Dorsey. In weekly interviews, Rabble will interview thought leaders, technologists, academics, and more about the need for a new social media "bill of rights."
Just as the original Bill of Rights protected individual freedoms from government overreach, we need fundamental protections from corporate control and surveillance capitalism. This is the start of a conversation about what developers are building, how they're building it, and what consumers need to be asking for.
Guests will include Jack Dorsey (former CEO & co-founder of Twitter); Kara Swisher (host of On with Kara Swisher, co-host of Pivot); Cory Doctorow (science fiction author & former editor of Boing Boing); and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag, host of Power User).
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