IRL: Online Life is Real Life
Episodes
Watching the Watchers
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, AI-powered tools are used to watch our movements; what we post online, where we go, and what we like. Imagine if we could flip this reality...
Techish: The Tech Swindler
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we’re bringing you an episode from our friends at Techish, a podcast by two tech founders and investors talking about all things tech, pop cu...
Decoding the Planet: From Whales to Whistleblowers
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI may be able to talk to animals, but at what cost to the planet. Who is making those decisions, and why it matters. From decoding whale language to ...
The Invisible Neighbor
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI lives in my city, and probably yours too. What does it mean for our neighborhoods, the people in them, and where data lives? Host Bridget Todd lo...
Our Heads in the Cloud
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There are some good reasons to let AI into our brains. But how much do we know about the privacy of brain data? Host Bridget Todd explores how AI is i...
We Found Love in an AI Place
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Will my new AI boyfriend be a green flag? Bridget Todd explores how encounters of love and sex are secretly shaped by data and algorithms. Love is in...
We're Back! IRL Season 8: AI and Us
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bridget Todd is on a journey to find out how AI affects us on a personal level. From her love life to her city, to the privacy of her memories, Bridge...
Mozilla’s IRL podcast is a Shorty Awards finalist - we need your help to win!
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We’re excited to share that Mozilla's IRL podcast is a Shorty Awards finalist in the Science and Technology Podcast category! If you enjoy IRL you c...
The Art of AI
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From Hollywood to Hip Hop, artists are negotiating new boundaries of consent for use of AI in the creative industries. Bridget Todd speaks to artists ...
Lend Me Your Voice
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Big tech’s power over language, means power over people. Bridget Todd talks to AI community leaders paving the way for open voice tech in their own ...
Crash Test Dummies
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why does it so often feel like we’re part of a mass AI experiment? What is the responsible way to test new technologies? Bridget Todd explores what ...
The Humans in the Machine
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
They’re the essential workers of AI — yet mostly invisible and exploited. Does it have to be this way? Bridget Todd talks to data workers and entr...
With AIs Wide Open
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are today’s large language models too hot to handle? Bridget Todd digs into the risks and rewards of open sourcing the tech that makes ChatGPT talk....
We’re Back! IRL Season 7: People Over Profit
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This season, IRL host Bridget Todd meets people who are balancing the upsides of artificial intelligence with the downsides that are coming into view ...
The AI Medicine Cabinet
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Life, death and data. AI’s capacity to support research on human health is well documented. But so are the harms of biased datasets and misdiagnoses...
The Truth is Out There
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Murky political groups are exploiting social media systems to spread disinformation. With important elections taking place around the world this year,...
AI from Above
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An aerial picture can tell a thousand stories. But who gets to tell them? From above the clouds, our world is surveilled and datafied. Those who contr...
When an Algorithm is Your Boss
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gig workers around the world report directly to algorithms in precarious jobs created by secretive corporations. We take you to the streets of Quito, ...
The Tech We Won’t Build
18 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Where should tech builders draw the line on AI for military or surveillance? Just because it can be built, doesn’t mean it should be. At what point ...
Introducing IRL Season 6: AI in Real Life
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
AI is everywhere now. It’s part of healthcare, social media, maps, and even killer robots. But who has power over AI? And who is shifting that power...
Privacy or Profit - Why Not Both?
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, our data hits the market when we sign online. It’s for sale, and we’re left to wonder if tech companies will ever choose to protect our...
Making Privacy Law
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The word “regulation" gets tossed around a lot. And it’s often aimed at the internet’s Big Tech companies. Some worry that the size of these com...
The 5G Privilege
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
‘5G’ is a new buzzword floating around every corner of the internet. But what exactly is this hyped-up cellular network, often referred to as the ...
The Tech Worker Resistance
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There's a movement building within tech. Workers are demanding higher standards from their companies — and because of their unique skills and talent...
The Internet's Carbon Footprint
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Manoush Zomorodi explores the surprising environmental impact of the internet in this episode of IRL. Because while it’s easy to think of the intern...
Democracy and the Internet
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Part of celebrating democracy is questioning what influences it. In this episode of IRL, we look at how the internet influences us, our votes, and our...
The "Privacy Policy" Policy
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Privacy policies: most apps and websites have them, buried away somewhere. These legal documents explain how the company collects, uses, and shares yo...
“The Weird Kids at the Big Tech Party” from ZigZag
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Season 4 of ZigZag is about examining the current culture of business and work, figuring out what needs to change, and experimenting with new ways to ...
What if Women Built the Internet?
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
All the things we love on the internet — from websites that give us information to services that connect us — are made stronger when their creator...
Decentralize It
18 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Some people believe that decentralization is the inevitable future of the web. They believe that internet users will start to demand more privacy and ...
The Surveillance Economy
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Harvard Business School’s Shoshana Zuboff argues that tech companies — like Google and Facebo...
The Human Costs of Content Moderation
21 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What, if anything, should be banned from online media? And who should review violent and explicit content, in order to decide if it’s okay for the p...
TL;DR
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
TL;DR: We have access to more things to read than ever before. Too much, in fact. Our reading habits have shifted. We skim a lot. We look for full sto...
Your Password is the Worst
10 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Look, we agree with you: passwords are the worst. But you know what else is the worst? Someone hacking your account, or big security breaches that exp...
Checking Out Online Shopping
26 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When you shop, your data may be the most valuable thing for sale. This isn’t just true online — your data follows you into brick and mortar stores...
Introducing Season 4 of IRL - Online Life is Real Life
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Can ‘ethical tech’ be a thing? We think so. Season 4 of Mozilla’s IRL podcast will explore all the ways tech can have a more positive influence ...
What to Expect When You're Electing
04 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The 2016 U.S. presidential election blew up our ideas about influence campaigns in the age of screens. Two years later, Veronica Belmont and Baratunde...
Kids These Days
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s teens are the first humans who have spent their entire lives online. Join Veronica Belmont and Manoush Zomorodi as they explore what kids ar...
Bullying and Bonding Online
27 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a problem when tribalism divides us, online or in real life. Join Veronica Belmont and Franchesca Ramsey as they meet the people working to mak...
Virtual Connections
13 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
:'-) Ever wonder why emoticons exist? They popped up in the 1980s to make online connections feel a little less digital and a little more personal :D....
Paid Attention
30 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a new currency in town (and no, we’re not talking about Bitcoin). We’re talking about attention. In this episode of IRL, Veronica Belmon...
Press Play
16 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most successful recruitment tools the U.S. Army ever made was…a video game? Sometimes without even knowing it, gaming elements in technol...
The Grand Bargain
02 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We’re told from a young age to “accept the things we cannot change.” But should this be the case online as well? We click “Accept” every day...
Introducing Season 3 of IRL: Because Online Life is Real Life
18 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Season 3 of IRL, we're exploring the bargains we make online every day, and how we might approach striking better deals with the powers that be. Yo...
Ctrl+Alt+Facts
02 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From campaign bots to conspiracy videos, it’s harder than ever to discover the truth online. In conversation with The New York Times’ Sheera Frenk...
Social Bubble Bath
19 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve long heard that the ways the web is tailored for each user—how we search, what we’re shown, who we read and follow— reinforces walls bet...
Algorisky
05 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From Google search to Facebook news, algorithms shape our online experience. But like us, algorithms are flawed. Programmers write cultural biases int...
Cloak of Invisibility
16 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On the Internet no one knows you’re a dog, as the old joke goes. But does anonymity truly exist on the web anymore? And when it’s taken from us, w...
Face Value
05 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From Snapchat filters to Google’s art selfies, biometric technology plays a growing role in our everyday lives. What do we actually give up when we ...
Digital Overload
22 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to grow up online? Veronica Belmont investigates how the www is changing us: our personalities, our bodies, and our brains. A colleg...
Bot or Not
08 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Most website visitors aren’t human. They’re bots. And these automated accounts are having serious, real-world impact; from the 2016 election to th...
Net Neutrality Emergency
11 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The battle for the open Internet isn’t over. In the days leading up to the FCC’s net neutrality vote, we investigate what’s next in the fight. W...
Status Update
15 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this bonus episode, we check in on some of Season One’s stories and see how they’ve evolved. Activist Amanda Werner talks about their turn as t...
Free Speech, Limited?
18 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In our final episode of season 1, we break from our usual format to host a big conversation. Recent events like the Charlottesville, VA rally have rev...
All Access Pass
04 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is life like without fast Internet, and how does life change once a person has it? Should Internet access be a right, rather than a luxury? Veron...
I Spy With My Digital Eye
21 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We react against the idea of surveillance, but it turns out that we’ve invited it into our homes through devices like digital assistants, connected ...
The Care and Feeding of Your Troll
07 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Trolls. You'll find them in every corner of the Internet. During this episode, explore the landscape of trolling online, its impact on individuals, an...
Hack Jobs
24 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Have you been hacked, or been the victim of malware or ransomware? Humans make the internet vibrant, but we're also the weakest link — we're predict...
The Neutral Zone: The Future of Net Neutrality
10 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Internet (at least in the US) is at a crossroads as the FCC is considering rolling back the net neutrality regulations it adopted in 2015. If net...
All Your Data Are Belong To Us
26 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve heard the expression, “When something is free, you’re the product.” And, while you may think it’s no big deal to give away your perso...
Introducing IRL: Because Online Life is Real Life
12 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Our online life is real life. We walk, talk, work, LOL and even love on the Internet – but we don’t always treat it like real life. Host Veronica ...