How to Fix the Internet

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.

If you buy something—a refrigerator, a car, a tractor, a wheelchair, or a phone—but you can't have the information or parts to fix or modify it, is it really yours? The right to repair movement is based on the belief that you should have the right to use and fix your stuff as you see fit, a philosophy that resonates especially in economically trying times, when people can’t afford to just throw away and replace things.

Companies for decades have been tightening their stranglehold on the information and the parts that let owners or independent repair shops fix things, but the pendulum is starting to swing back: New York, Minnesota, California, and Colorado have passed right to repair laws, and it’s on the legislative agenda in dozens of other states. Gay Gordon-Byrne is executive director of The Repair Association, one of the major forces pushing for more and stronger state laws, and for federal reforms as well. She joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss this pivotal moment in the fight for consumers to have the right to products that are repairable and reusable.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Why our “planned obsolescence” throwaway culture doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, a technology status quo.
• The harm done by “parts pairing:” software barriers used by manufacturers to keep people from installing replacement parts.
• Why one major manufacturer put out a user manual in France, but not in other countries including the United States.
• How expanded right to repair protections could bring a flood of new local small-business jobs while reducing waste.
• The power of uniting disparate voices—farmers, drivers, consumers, hackers, and tinkerers—into a single chorus that can’t be ignored.

Gay Gordon-Byrne has been executive director of The Repair Association—formerly known as The Digital Right to Repair Coalition—since its founding in 2013, helping lead the fight for the right to repair in Congress and state legislatures. Their credo: If you bought it, you should own it and have the right to use it, modify it, and repair it whenever, wherever, and however you want. Earlier, she had a 40-year career as a vendor, lessor, and used equipment dealer for large commercial IT users; she is the author of "Buying, Supporting and Maintaining Software and Equipment - an IT Manager's Guide to Controlling the Product Lifecycle” (2014), and a Colgate University alumna.

MUSIC CREDITS

Come Inside by Zep Hurme (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: snowflake

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

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 [email protected]. 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)

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 [email protected]. 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)

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 [email protected]. 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

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

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

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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

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Beatmower - Theme, Interstitial (Wonder) and Extro

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Additional beds and alternate theme remixes by Gaëtan Harris