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How to Fix the Internet

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

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The internet is broken—but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re concerned about how surveillance, online advertising, and automated content moderation are hurting us online and offline, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s How to Fix the Internet podcast offers a better way forward. EFF has been defending your rights online for over thirty years and is behind many of the biggest digital rights protections since the invention of the internet. Through curious conversations with some of the leading minds in law and technology, this podcast explores creative solutions to some of today’s biggest tech challenges. Hosted by EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn and EFF Associate Director of Digital Strategy Jason Kelley, How to Fix the Internet will help you become deeply informed on vital technology issues as we work to build a better technological future together.

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How to Fix the Internet Returns!

How to Fix the Internet

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11/09/22 • 1 min

It seems like everywhere we turn we see dystopian stories about technology’s impact on our lives and our futures — from tracking-based surveillance capitalism to street level government surveillance to the dominance of a few large platforms choking innovation to the growing pressure by authoritarian governments to control what we see and say — the landscape can feel bleak. Exposing and articulating these problems is important, but so is envisioning and then building a better future. That’s where our podcast comes in.

EFF's How to Fix the Internet podcast offers a better way forward. Through curious conversations with some of the leading minds in law and technology, we explore creative solutions to some of today’s biggest tech challenges.

After tens of thousands of listeners tuned in for our pilot mini-series last year, we are continuing the conversation by launching a full season. Listen today to become deeply informed on vital technology issues and join the movement working to build a better technological future.

Find the podcast via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. You can find an MP3 archive of all our episodes at the Internet Archive. Theme music by Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

EFF is deeply grateful for the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, without whom this podcast would not be possible.

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Securing the Vote

How to Fix the Internet

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05/24/22 • 30 min

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U.S. democracy is at an inflection point, and how we administer and verify our elections is more important than ever. From hanging chads to glitchy touchscreens to partisan disinformation, too many Americans worry that their votes won’t count and that election results aren’t trustworthy. It’s crucial that citizens have well-justified confidence in this pillar of our republic.

Technology can provide answers - but that doesn’t mean moving elections online. As president and CEO of the nonpartisan nonprofit Verified Voting, Pamela Smith helps lead the national fight to balance ballot accessibility with ballot security by advocating for paper trails, audits, and transparency wherever and however Americans cast votes.

On this episode of How to Fix the Internet, Pamela Smith joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to discuss hope for the future of democracy and the technology and best practices that will get us there.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

  • Why voting online can never be like banking or shopping online
  • What a “risk-limiting audit” is, and why no election should lack it
  • Whether open-source software could be part of securing our votes
  • Where to find reliable information about how your elections are conducted

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod209 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

Pamela Smith, President & CEO of Verified Voting, plays a national leadership role in safeguarding elections and building working alliances between advocates, election officials, and other stakeholders. Pam joined Verified Voting in 2004, and previously served as President from 2007-2017. She is a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises, a diverse cross-partisan group of more than 50 experts whose mission is to prevent and mitigate election crises by urging critical reforms. She provides information and public testimony on election security issues across the nation, including to Congress. Before her work in elections, she was a nonprofit executive for a Hispanic educational organization working on first language literacy and adult learning, and a small business and marketing consultant.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

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An AI Hammer in Search of a Nail

How to Fix the Internet

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05/17/22 • 33 min

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It often feels like machine learning experts are running around with a hammer, looking at everything as a potential nail - they have a system that does cool things and is fun to work on, and they go in search of things to use it for. But what if we flip that around and start by working with people in various fields - education, health, or economics, for example - to clearly define societal problems, and then design algorithms providing useful steps to solve them?

Rediet Abebe, a researcher and professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, spends a lot of time thinking about how machine learning functions in the real world, and working to make the results of machine learning processes more actionable and more equitable.

Abebe joins EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to discuss how we redefine the machine learning pipeline - from creating a more diverse pool of computer scientists to rethinking how we apply this tech for the betterment of society’s most marginalized and vulnerable - to make real, positive change in people’s lives.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

  • The historical problems with the official U.S. poverty measurement
  • How machine learning can (and can’t) lead to more just verdicts in our criminal courts
  • How equitable data sharing practices could help nations and cultures around the world
  • Reconsidering machine learning’s variables to maximize for goals other than commercial profit.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod208 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/59729

Probably Shouldn't by J.Lang

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/56377

Smokey Eyes by Stefan Kartenberg

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

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When Tech Comes to Town

How to Fix the Internet

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02/07/23 • 31 min

When a tech company moves to your city, the effects ripple far beyond just the people it employs. It can impact thousands of ancillary jobs – from teachers to nurses to construction workers – as well as the community’s housing, transportation, health care, and other businesses. And too often, these impacts can be negative.

Catherine Bracy, co-founder and CEO of the Oakland-based TechEquity Collaborative, has spent her career exploring ways to build a more equitable tech-driven economy. She believes that because the technology sector became a major economic driver at the same time deregulation became politically fashionable, tech companies often didn’t catch the “civic bug” – a sense of responsibility to the communities in which they’re based – in the way that industries of the past might have.

Bracy speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley about following the money and changing the regulations that underpin the tech sector so that companies are more inclined to be thoughtful about supporting, not exploiting, the places and people they call home – creating stronger, thriving communities.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

  • How the venture capital model of funding contributes to tech’s reticence on civic engagement.
  • How the “platform mentality” affects non-tech workers and their communities.
  • Why the law should treat tech companies the same as other companies, without special carve-out exceptions and exemptions.
  • Why tech workers being well-informed about their companies’ and products’ impacts, as well as taking active roles in their communities, can be a game-changer.

Catherine Bracy is a civic technologist and community organizer whose work focuses on the intersection of technology and political and economic inequality. She is the co-founder and CEO of TechEquity Collaborative, an organization based in Oakland, CA, that mobilizes tech workers and companies to advocate for economic equity in our communities. She was previously Code for America’s Senior Director of Partnerships and Ecosystem, where she grew the Brigade program into a network of over 50,000 civic tech volunteers in more than 80 U.S. cities. She also founded Code for All, the global network of Code-for organizations with partners on six continents. During the 2012 election cycle she was Director of Obama for America’s Technology Field Office in San Francisco, the first of its kind in American political history. Earlier, she was administrative director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at eff.org/pod302 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533

Warm Vacuum Tube by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: starfrosch

__________________________________

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

CommonGrond by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Ft: simonlittlefield

__________________________________

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Airtone

__________________________________

Beatmower - Theme, Interstitial (Wonder) and Extro

__________________________________

Additional beds and alternate theme remixes by Gaëtan Harris

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Wordle and the Web We Need

How to Fix the Internet

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05/31/22 • 33 min

Where is the internet we were promised? It feels like we’re dominated by megalithic, siloed platforms where users have little or no say over how their data is used and little recourse if they disagree, where direct interaction with users is seen as a bug to be fixed, and where art and creativity are just “content generation.”

But take a peek beyond those platforms and you can still find a thriving internet of millions who are empowered to control their own technology, art, and lives. Anil Dash, CEO of Glitch and an EFF board member, says this is where we start reclaiming the internet for individual agency, control, creativity, and connection to culture - especially among society’s most vulnerable and marginalized members.

Dash speaks with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien about building more humane and inclusive technology, and leveraging love of art and culture into grassroots movements for an internet that truly belongs to us all.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

  • What past and current social justice movements can teach us about reclaiming the internet
  • The importance of clearly understanding and describing what we want—and don’t want—from technology
  • Energizing people in artistic and fandom communities to become activists for better technology
  • Tech workers’ potential power over what their employers do
  • How Wordle might be a window into a healthier web.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod210 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/61577

Get It - pop mix by J.Lang Feat: AnalogByNature & RJay

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/59729

Probably Shouldn't by J.Lang

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/56377

Smokey Eyes by Stefan Kartenberg

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

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11/09/21 • 2 min

How to Fix the Internet from the Electronic Frontier Foundation brings you ideas, solutions, and pathways to a better digital future for all.

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11/16/21 • 31 min

Your phone is a window to your soul - and that window has been left open to law enforcement. Today, even small-town police departments have powerful tools that can easily access the most intimate information on your cell phone. Upturn’s Executive Director Harlan Yu joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to talk about a better way for law enforcement to treat our data.

When Upturn researchers surveyed police departments on the mobile device forensic tools they were using on mobile phones, they discovered that the tools are being used by police departments large and small across America. There are few rules on what law enforcement can do with the data they download, and not very many policies on how the information should be stored, shared, or destroyed.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

  • Mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs) that are used by police to download data from your phone, even when it’s locked
  • How court cases such as Riley v. California powerfully protect our digital privacy-- but those protections are evaded when police get verbal consent to search a phone
  • How widespread the use of MDFTs are by law enforcement departments across the country, including small-town police departments investigating minor infractions
  • The roles that phone manufacturers and mobile device forensic tool vendors can play in protecting user data
  • How re-envisioning our approaches to phone surveillance helps address issues of systemic targeting of marginalized communities by police agencies
  • The role of warrants in protecting our digital data.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod101 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional music is used under creative commons license from CCMixter includes:

Warm Vacuum Tube by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Come Inside by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba

Xena's Kiss / Medea's Kiss by mwic (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/mwic/58883

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721

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Pay a Hacker, Save a Life

How to Fix the Internet

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12/07/21 • 28 min

There are flaws in the tech we use everyday- from little software glitches to big data breaches, and security researchers often know about them before we do. Getting those issues fixed is not always as straightforward as it should be. It’s not always easy to bend a corporation's ear, and companies may ignore the threat for liability reasons putting us all at risk. Technology and cybersecurity expert Tarah Wheeler joins Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to explain how she thinks security experts can help build a more secure internet.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod104 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

On this episode, you’ll learn:

  • About the human impact of security vulnerabilities—and how unpatched flaws can change or even end lives;
  • How to reconsider the popular conception of hackers, and understand their role in helping build a more secure digital world;
  • How the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a law that is supposed to punish computer intrusion, has been written so broadly that it now stifles security researchers;
  • What we can learn from the culture around airplane safety regulation—including transparency and blameless post-mortems;
  • How we can align incentives, including financial incentives, to improve vulnerability reporting and response;
  • How the Supreme Court case Van Buren helped security researchers by ensuring that the CFAA couldn’t be used to prosecute someone for merely violating the terms of service of a website or application;
  • How a better future would involve more collaboration and transparency among both companies and security researchers.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Resources: Resources

Consumer Data Privacy:

Ransomware:

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA):

Electoral Security:

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:

Warm Vacuum Tube by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Come Inside by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attri...

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11/24/20 • 47 min

Cory Doctorow joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how large, established tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook can block interoperability in order to squelch competition and control their users, and how we can fix this by taking away big companies' legal right to block new tools that connect to their platforms – tools that would let users control their digital lives.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

  • How the power to leave a platform is one of the most fundamental checks users have on abusive practices by tech companies—and how tech companies have made it harder for their users to leave their services while still participating in our increasingly digital society;
  • How the lack of interoperability in modern tech platforms is often a set of technical choices that are backed by a legal infrastructure for enforcement, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This means that attempting to overcome interoperability barriers can come with legal risks as well as financial risks, making it especially unlikely for new entrants to attempt interoperating with existing technology;
  • How online platforms block interoperability in order to silence their critics, which can have real free speech implications;
  • The “kill zone” that exists around existing tech products, where investors will not back tech startups challenging existing tech monopolies, and even startups that can get a foothold may find themselves bought out by companies like Facebook and Google;
  • How we can fix it: The role of “competitive compatibility,” also known as “adversarial interoperability” in reviving stagnant tech marketplaces;
  • How we can fix it by amending or interpreting the DMCA, CFAA and contract law to support interoperability rather than threaten it.
  • How we can fix it by supporting the role of free and open source communities as champions of interoperability and offering alternatives to existing technical giants.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently ATTACK SURFACE, RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults, IN REAL LIFE, a graphic novel; INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE, a book about earning a living in the Internet age, and HOMELAND, a YA sequel to LITTLE BROTHER. His latest book is POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER, a picture book for young readers.

Cory maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. You can find Cory on Twitter at @doctorow.

Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet via RSS, Stitcher, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast player of choice. You can also find the Mp3 of this episode on the Internet Archive. If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org.

A transcript of the episode, as well as legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – is available at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-control-over-users-competitors-and-critics

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The Revolution Will Be Open Source

How to Fix the Internet

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11/23/21 • 31 min

Open source software touches every piece of technology that touches our lives- in other words, it’s everywhere. Free software and collaboration is at the heart of every device we rely on, and much of the internet is built from the hard work of people dedicated to the open source dream: ideals that all software should be licenced to be free, modified, distributed and copied without penalty. The movement is growing, and that growth is creating pressure: from too many projects, and not enough resources. The culture is shifting, too, as new people around the world join in and bring different ideas and different dreams for an open source future. James Vasile has been working in open source software for decades, and he joins Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to talk about the challenges that growth is creating, and the opportunities it presents to make open source, and the Internet, even better.

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod102 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional music is used under creative commons license from CCMixter includes:

Warm Vacuum Tube by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Come Inside by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba

Xena's Kiss / Medea's Kiss by mwic (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/mwic/58883

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Unported license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721

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FAQ

How many episodes does How to Fix the Internet have?

How to Fix the Internet currently has 40 episodes available.

What topics does How to Fix the Internet cover?

The podcast is about News, Rights, Tech, Law, Legal, Tech News, Podcasts, Technology, Police and Internet.

What is the most popular episode on How to Fix the Internet?

The episode title 'How to Fix the Internet Returns!' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on How to Fix the Internet?

The average episode length on How to Fix the Internet is 33 minutes.

How often are episodes of How to Fix the Internet released?

Episodes of How to Fix the Internet are typically released every 7 days, 5 hours.

When was the first episode of How to Fix the Internet?

The first episode of How to Fix the Internet was released on Nov 6, 2020.

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