What Up Holmes?
This episode traces how Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, initially hostile to broad free speech protections, radically changed his views during World War I and authored the famous Abrams dissent that introduced the 'marketplace of ideas' metaphor. The hosts, along with law professor Thomas Healy, explore what caused Holmes's shift, then examine how that marketplace metaphor has shaped a century of First Amendment thinking and how it breaks down in the age of social media and misinformation, drawing on MIT researcher Sinan Aral's Twitter study and media lawyer Nabiha Syed's critiques. The episode closes by proposing that free speech should be seen as an ongoing democratic experiment that must be continually rethought, including by centering listeners' rights and information health.
Love 2.0: How to Move On
Host Shankar Vedantam speaks with psychologist Antonio Pascual Leone about why breakups are so difficult, the emotional mistakes people commonly make when relationships end, and practical therapeutic tools such as structured grief lists, narrative reframing, letter writing, and empty-chair dialogues to help people process loss and create their own sense of closure. In the second half, cognitive scientist Phil Fernback discusses the illusion of knowledge-why we routinely overestimate how much we understand, how this affects domains like politics, medicine, and everyday decision-making, and how to cultivate greater intellectual humility and curiosity in conversations with others.
Content Warning
Host Simon Adler talks with law professor Kate Koenig about how social media content moderation has shifted in recent years, especially under the influence of TikTok's proactive, algorithm-driven model. They contrast earlier "keep it up unless we have to take it down" approaches with newer systems that pre-screen and algorithmically promote or bury content, raising concerns about prior restraint, invisible censorship, and concentrated power over public discourse. The episode also revisits controversies like the Hunter Biden laptop story and COVID-19 lab leak discussions, explores the idea of platforms as "platform islands" or camouflaged broadcasters, and considers the future "productification" of speech.
Deepfakes and the War on Truth with Bogdan Botezatu
The episode explores how scams and cybercrime are being transformed by AI, deepfakes, and global connectivity, with cybersecurity expert Bogdan Botezatu explaining the scale of financial losses and the sophisticated business structures behind modern scams. The conversation covers deepfake-driven fraud, psychological manipulation tactics like pig butchering romance scams, technical tools such as honeypots, and vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure like solar inverters. The guests also discuss the challenges of detecting deepfakes, the role of law enforcement partnerships, and why reporting scams is crucial despite the stigma victims often feel.
The hidden cost of buying gold | Claudia Vega
Rainforest toxicologist and TED Fellow Claudia Vega explains how artisanal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon releases large amounts of mercury, causing severe environmental damage and public health risks locally and globally. She describes the mining process, mercury's toxic effects, and the massive deforestation in Madre de Dios, as well as her work establishing the first mercury lab in the Peruvian Amazon to generate local data for communities, policymakers, and international agreements. In conversation with TED Fellows Program Director Lily James Olds, she discusses working with indigenous communities, changing mining practices, the limits of "green" gold, the need for consumer awareness and traceability, and her fears about fake news and hope in small but real changes.
Two ways AI is changing the business of crime (Two Indicators)
The episode explores two ways artificial intelligence is reshaping criminal activity: AI-powered voice cloning scams targeting individuals and banks, and AI-driven trading bots that can destabilize or manipulate financial markets. In the first half, the hosts demonstrate a voice deepfake scam, talk to a fraud-prevention entrepreneur and a bank executive about weaknesses in voice authentication and the shift to layered security, and discuss how consumers can better protect themselves. In the second half, experts explain how more autonomous trading algorithms can unintentionally collude, raising hard questions about liability, regulation, and the broader risks AI poses to market integrity.
Kimmel & ABC, Nvidia's OpenAI Investment, and Tylenol's Trump Problem
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss Jimmy Kimmel's emotional late-night return after his Trump clash, what it reveals about masculinity, and why late-night TV is structurally in decline despite strong individual performances. They analyze Nvidia's $100 billion investment in OpenAI as a potentially late-stage bubble, related-party style deal that concentrates AI power and raises antitrust concerns, then examine Trump's unsupported claim that Tylenol causes autism, what Kenview should do in response, and the classic Johnson & Johnson Tylenol tampering case as a crisis-management model. The hosts also cover YouTube's decision to reinstate previously banned misinformation accounts under political pressure, a Florida investigation into Office Depot over a refused Charlie Kirk poster, their expectations of cronyism and giant, likely disastrous M&A deals, and end with a strong plea for adopting rescue dogs amid rising pet surrenders.