Some Assembly Required

Become a Ctrl-Alt-Speech supporter (  / ctrlaltspeech  ) to get extended episodes of the podcast plus the chance to submit stories for us to cover.  In this week's episode, Mike and Ben cover: • Trump dismisses concerns about AI risks at UN, says he won't rein it in (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics...) (PBS News) • A.I. Gone Rogue? Trump Proposes Not New Rules but an ‘A.I. Force.’ (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/us...) (New York Times)  • 22 countries back call to keep AI ‘under human control’ (https://www.politico.eu/article/20-co...) (POLITICO) • If AI is going to destroy humanity, Scott Bessent says hyperscalers, not government, must take the fall: ‘We cannot absolve you of responsibility’ (https://fortune.com/2026/09/22/bessen...) (Fortune) • Meet the algorithm you can actually control and understand (https://newpublic.substack.com/p/meet...) (New_Public) • YouTube’s Custom Feeds Give You More Control Over the Algorithm (https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-c...) (Wired)  • YouTube CEO dismisses the idea of joining Meta’s multistate child safety settlement (https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/23/tech/y...) (CNN) • Harry Potter Survey Results & Final Decision (  / harry_potter_survey_results_final_decision  ) (Reddit) And in the extended episode for Patreon supporters (  / ctrlaltspeech  ) , they cover: • Safer for Teens, Same Discord for Adults (  / discord  ) (Discord) • Age Assurance on Discord: Vendors, Methods and Your Data (  / discord  ) (Discord)  • How Discord Estimates Age Without Collecting Your Identity (  / discord  ) (Discord)  • Ofcom launches investigation into Pornhub’s age checks (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...) (Ofcom) • Aylo Defends Apple Age Assurance in Response to Ofcom Investigation (https://www.aylo.com/newsroom/aylo-up...) (Aylo)  • Discord's age verification era is upon us, despite community backlash (https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/22/dis...) (TechCrunch) • Angry reaction to Discord’s age assurance (https://x.com/discord/status/21029522...) (X/Twitter) Our fun links this week include Jev (https://typesafe.ai/blog/introducing-...) , the super fast new AI classifier, and Persodex (https://www.persodex.com/) , the context layer for your Contacts (PS. hit Ben up if you’re in New York in mid-October). Follow us on Instagram (  / ctrlaltspeech  ) , YouTube (   / @ctrlaltspeech  ) , and Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/ctrlaltspeec...) . Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt (https://www.techdirt.com/) ) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation (https://www.everythinginmoderation.co/) ).