Taylor Lorenz and the Dark Money That is…fine?

Taylor Lorenz got caught reading Mike Masnick's blog into a camera. He said it was fine. Nobody asked why. This video is about why. Masnick runs Techdirt through Floor64, Inc. Floor64 also operates the Copia Institute. Same company, same guy, filed as a DBA. Copia receives what Google calls its "most substantial contributions." They file amicus briefs defending Google in court. Taylor read their arguments to a million people and called it analysis. Her own podcast about dark money describes the exact mechanism she's participating in. Then we talk about net neutrality. How Netflix turned a corporate infrastructure dispute into a populist crusade, got what they wanted, and walked away. Reed Hastings admitted it on stage. The architecture Upton Sinclair described in 1920 hasn't changed. It got refined. All clips of Taylor Lorenz and Anna Massagnolia are from the Power User podcast episode on dark money, otherwise her terrible video on JGL. SOURCES & CITATIONS Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check (1920) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bra... Floor64, Inc. d/b/a The Copia Institute, Amicus Brief, Gonzalez v. Google (Supreme Court) https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPD... Gonzalez v. Google, Full Docket (showing Floor64 Inc. d/b/a The Copia Institute) https://certpool.com/dockets/21-1333 Google Public Policy Transparency Page, Trade Associations & Third Party Organizations (PDF listing Copia Institute under "most substantial contributions") https://services.google.com/fh/files/... Google GAPP Transparency Page https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/t... Mike Masnick, "Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech," Knight First Amendment Institute, Columbia University https://knightcolumbia.org/content/pr... Masnick confirming his paper inspired Bluesky (where he now sits on the board) https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsk... Grok AI generated ~23,000 sexualized images of children in 11 days, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) https://counterhate.com/research/grok... CCDH findings reported, Engadget https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-gene... Grok safeguard failures, CBS News https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grok-saf... Child safety on Roblox, at least 30 arrested, 40% of users under 13 (Wikipedia, extensively sourced) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_s... Roblox investigation, Georgia Attorney General (Feb 2026) https://law.georgia.gov/press-release... Facebook's role in the Rohingya genocide, UN Fact Finding Mission https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releas... Facebook's internal research on teen mental health, Wall Street Journal ("The Facebook Files") https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook... Palantir's ICE contract https://www.vice.com/en/article/palan... Google's Project Dragonfly (censored search engine for China) https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/g... Dan Rayburn, "Net Neutrality Is A Sham: It's All About Capitalism and Politics" https://www.streamingmediablog.com/20... Dan Rayburn, Netflix data and peering dispute analysis https://www.streamingmediablog.com/20... Dan Rayburn, Netflix and Level 3 only telling half the story https://www.streamingmediablog.com/20... Reed Hastings: "Net neutrality is not our primary battle," Recode, Code Conference 2017 https://www.vox.com/2017/5/31/1572026... Reed Hastings net neutrality admission, Fortune coverage https://fortune.com/2017/05/31/netfli... Taylor Lorenz TechCrunch interview (2019), "I'm not a big policy person" https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/24/the... Google's digital policy power, lobbying and policy analysis https://thetechlobby.ca/googles-digit... Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, full text https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/te... FCC Open Internet Order (2015), Title II Reclassification https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-rele... John Oliver, Net Neutrality segment (2014)    • Net Neutrality: Last Week Tonight with Joh...