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Apr 2025
3m 49s

Introducing Understood: Who Broke the In...

CBC
About this episode

It's not you — the internet really does suck. Novelist, blogger and noted internet commentator Cory Doctorow explains what happened to the internet and why you're tormented by ads, bots, algorithms, AI slop and so many pop-ups.


Spoiler alert: it wasn't an accident.


In a four-part series, Doctorow gets into the decisions made by powerful people that got us here, and most importantly, how we fix it. New episodes released weekly starting on Monday, May 5, 2025.

Up next
May 2025
Who Broke the Internet? | E1: Don't Be Evil
Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpose, to boost ad revenue? Google says its ... Show More
36m 47s
May 2025
Who Broke the Internet? | E2: Ctrl, Ctrl, Ctrl
In 1998, the United States Congress tried to tame the wild internet with a new law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But buried in its fine print was a provision that would end up giving tech giants ultimate legal protection and control, and stop innovators from fixing what' ... Show More
28m 34s
May 2025
Who Broke the Internet? | E3: In God We Antitrust
American antitrust laws were designed to stop companies from wielding the power of kings. But in the 1970s, a legal scholar named Robert Bork convinced Washington to ignore those laws. Host Cory Doctorow traces how Bork's influence gave digital giants like Amazon a decades-long f ... Show More
36m 33s
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