Alondra Nelson is arguably the most important sociologist of science in America. She isn’t just a brilliant researcher of how race and racism has shaped public health in America, nor just a thoughtful, savvy tech policy maker. She is also someone with a gift for communicating research and ideas on these huge, important matters in […]

Eric Gordon has spent his career as an social scientists trying to understand how city governments can use technology to better engage their citizens. But he’s learned that technology doesn’t matter if governments aren’t willing to listen and citizens don’t feel listened to. Add to surveillance technology to the mix, and technology doesn’t seem to […]

Dan Saltman is the founder of Redact, one of the very few tools that lets you delete data across many of your social media accounts. So why are there so few projects that put users in control of their data, like Dan’s? This week on Reimagining, we talk about the legal, technical, and market obstacles […]

Part two of our interview with Erin Kissane is a deep dive into her work on the Fediverse. Why do people use it, how do they govern, and how can you, dear listener, get your own healthy Fediverse community going? Plus Erin talks about Blue Sky a lot. Erin Kissane runs wreckage/salvage, helmed the COVID […]

In part one of our interview with researcher, designer and, in her own words, “ancient Internet person” Erin Kissane, we look at what happens when a platform swallows a whole society’s media landscape but abdicates all responsibility to the people using it. In this case, we’re talking about Myanmar but it’s understandable if your mind […]

Nathan Schneider has spent roughly 15 years as a journalist and academic trying to understand democracy in the 21st century through Occupy Wall Street, cooperatives, the blockchain, and currently, federated social media. This week on Reimagining, Nathan explains how poor democracy on major social media platforms has eroded our actual democratic governance, and how practicing […]

The TikTok ban decision passed down by the Supreme Court late last year is a clear violation of First Amendment precedent, but President Trump’s refusal to enact it as law is a constitutional crisis in the making. We brought Stanford Law professor, rising First Amendment star scholar, and Moderated Content host Evelyn Douek on the […]

Ho ho ho, five years of Reimagining the Internet holiday specials! For this year’s edition we’re spreading holiday cheer by showering our dear listeners with gifts. From good Wikipedia rabbit holes to the gift of network effects, everyone here at iDPI is offering something from the heart. Links to some gifts mentioned in this episode: […]

For the final episode of our Good Web series, artist, designer, and educator Laurel Schwulst joins Mike to talk through her proposal for a PBS of the Internet. She describes how a PBS-like body that intentionally crafts the spaces, software, and information for a public good could crucial for creating an environment that rewards curisoity […]

Building a Good Web doesn’t just mean making the current Internet a nicer place, but making an Internet that everyone can use. This week Lola Odelola (Lola’s Lab, formerly of Bocoup) joins the Good Web series to talk about the fundamentals of web accessibility and the fascinating process the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) uses […]

At 13 years old, Are.na boasts a healthy, creative community and stable finances while rejecting many of the hallmarks of popular social media platforms such as a focus on video, endless push notifications, or surveillant advertising. For this week’s edition of our Good Web series, founder Charles Broskoski sits with Mike to walk through what […]

Metafilter contains the seeds for everything from Twitter to Reddit to comments sections on blogs, and it’s older than podcasts, the blog boom, Facebook, and well, basically everything online. Owner Jessamyn West sat down for a deep conversation with Mike about how MetaFilter’s reliance on community-focusd governance and person-scale moderation has helped it achieve its […]

Michael Wood-Lewis from Front Porch Forum joins us for this second (maybe third?) appearance to help us kick off our Good Web series, where we’re highlighting the successful people building a better, smaller Internet. Michael was gracious enough to have producer Mike Sugarman up to the FPF offices in Burlington, VT to give us an […]

To kick off our Good Web series, Cory Doctorow joined us for a deep dive into his enshittification theory, and how regulation, labor power, competition, and user self-help will make it a thing of the past. We also got him to tell us a little bit about his new novel The Bezzle. Cory first joined […]

CW/TW: Intimate partner violence, child exploitation Diana Freed has spent the past several years radically reframing the threat model in cybersecurity with groundbreaking research into how domestic abusers utilize everyday technology like smart phones and tracking apps. Diana sits down with us to talk about digital safety for survivors of intimate partner violence and youth, […]

For the 100th episode of Reimagining the Internet, Ethan and Mike sit down for a conversation about a human-scale Internet, the threat of an LLM ouroboros destroying our online commons, and Ethan’s fantasies of swithing to urban planning. We want to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been listening to Reimagining the […]

A fearsome feminist movemnet has sprung up in response to an epidemic of feminicide in South America, achieving change thanks in large part to an innovative data activism campaign. Cathering D'Ignazio of the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT wrote a wonerful book that doesn't just chronicle the movement, but acts as a handbook for using data in fights for justice.

Trigger/content warning: child sexual abuse materials, sexual exploitation of children, and trauma stemming from sexual abuse. Brian Levine has a storied career as a computer scientist working in cybersecurity. Earler, pivotal work in privacy has given way to his current all-hands-on-deck fight against the spread of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) online. Ethan and Brian […]

Rerun of episode 85 from August, 16 2023 Timnit Gebru is not just a pioneering critic of dangerous AI datasets who calls bullshit on bad science pushed by the likes of OpenAI, or a tireless champion of racial, gender, and climate justice in computing. She’s also someone who wants to build something different. This week […]

This is a rerun of episode 84. Jar Jar Binks, the human side of online harassment, restorative justice, the Friends writers room, solidarity with UPS, what life looks like in the creative gig economy after your show has won an Emmy. Dylan Marron (Ted Lasso, Welcome to Nightvale) joins us for a sprawling, poignant conversation […]