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On this week’s If Then, Slate’s April Glaser and Will Oremus talk about a somewhat surprising speech from the antitrust chief of Trump’s Department of Justice. They bring you up to date on a big new data-privacy bill in Congress, and Mike Nuñez, a journalist for Mashable, joins the show to discuss how his reporting on alleged liberal bias at Facebook has sparked a somewhat bizarre congressional inquiry.
The hosts are also joined by Mary Anne Franks, a professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law, where she teaches criminal law, First Amendment law, and technology policy. They speak about the massively important Communications Decency Act, which was just amended to allow victims of sex trafficking to sue websites that knowingly facilitate it.
And as always, Don’t Close My Tabs, the Sean Hannity–Jeff Bezos edition.
Time stamps:
1:40: News: DOJ antitrust speech and new data-privacy bill
11:13: Diamond and Silk on Capitol Hill: Interview with Mashable’s Michael Nuñez
22:14: Interview: Professor Mary Anne Franks on amending the CDA to fight sex trafficking
Stories discussed on the show:
- DOJ: “Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim Delivers Keynote Address at the University of Chicago’s Antitrust and Competition Conference”
- Bloomberg: “U.S. Antitrust Boss Calls for Vigilance on Big Tech Platforms”
- Slate: “There’s a New Bill to Regulate Facebook and Google’s Data Collection”
- Washington Post: “Once Deemed ‘Unsafe’ by Facebook, Diamond and Silk Are Now Coming to Capitol Hill”
- Gizmodo: “Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News”
- Mashable: “I Wrote the Facebook Report Ted Cruz Can’t Stop Talking About. He’s Getting It All Wrong.”
- Slate: “The Law That Let Silicon Valley Stay Clueless Also Made the Internet We Have Today”
- Wired: “Feds Seize Backpage.com, Site Linked to Sex Trafficking”
Don’t Close My Tabs
- KQED: “How Sean Hannity Began His Path to Punditry on Santa Barbara Community Radio”
- Washingtonian: “Here Are the Floor Plans for Jeff Bezos’s $23 Million D.C. Home”
Podcast production by Max Jacobs.
If Then plugs:
You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.
If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
