Brandi Geurkink

EU Parliament Committee Confronts US Visa Bans Over DSA, Urges Commission Action The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection heard from four individuals facing US visa sanctions on Wednesday, reports Ramsha Jahangir.

"It's not a legal story, but a question of political attitude," Thierry Breton told the European Parliament yesterday.

He said he’d spent years explaining the law to platform CEOs and US govt officials, that they understood it, and that their current posture was a deliberate political choice.

Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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Washington Post undergoing significant layoffs as part of ‘strategic reset’ Employees were told Wednesday that the paper’s sports desk would close among other cuts and restructurings

The biggest threats to journalism in this country, and to the possibility of an informed and empowered electorate, stem from the political economy of the media. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

really excellent assessment of House GOP claims about EU fine of X, showing just how seriously hollow the claims of censorship are.

jordan & musk & friends overreach when they put out such patently tendentious reports, which could be boiled down to: don't you ever touch american platforms!

Researchers sue X for access to Hungarian election data EU law demands X provide data to assess risks including foreign interference.

Interesting next step:

@democracyreporting.bsky.social taking X to court again over researcher data access. (In Hungarian elections)

@jakubjaraczewski.bsky.social

www.politico.eu/article/hung...

hear that? it's the silence of Republican lawmakers who spent the last bunch of years pretending to be "First Amendment absolutists" when they got mad about specific content moderation decisions made by private platforms

Knight Institute Condemns Arrest of Journalists Reporting on Minneapolis Protests

The arrests of Lemon and Fort are intended to deter journalists from doing work we need them to do, and that the First Amendment was meant to protect. DOJ should drop these prosecutions or the courts should throw them out. knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...

CITR's @geurkink.bsky.social on @techpolicypress.bsky.social podcast breaking down why researchers need #BetterAccess to public platform data to better understand our digital information environment

🎟️ Sign up for the Better Access webinar next Weds January 28: kgi.georgetown.edu/events/bette...

The Trump Lie About Europe and Why it Matters | TechPolicy.Press The Trump administration is promoting disinformation about European law and policy for reasons that go well beyond social media regulation, writes David Kaye.

The Trump admin's sanctions on researchers and regulators who work on content-moderation, fact-checking, and disinfo are part of an effort to protect the tech ecosystem that has allowed the the far right to flourish. Good piece from @davidakaye.bsky.social. www.techpolicy.press/the-trump-li...

It doesn’t fix things, but it really does bring me comfort to know how miserable some of the worst people are. Donald Trump tweeting over 200 times on Christmas. Billionaires fighting with strangers online during the holidays. Everything about Elon Musk

And Merry Christmas to everyone except Marco Rubio and his cronies.

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Solidarity with my colleagues and friends, today and forever. If you are able to, please join me in adding your name to this statement: docs.google.com/document/d/e....

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Four public-interest researchers have been barred from the US for holding tech companies accountable. When governments target researchers, journalists and watchdogs, it is an assault on free speech and we should call it out as such.

Researchers are not censors. They are being censored.

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The US has sanctioned European researchers and policymakers studying misinformation, framing independent inquiry as a free speech violation. The Trump admin's refusal to allow regulation of platforms is US tech policy by other means—now being enforced through sanctions. Scholars must pay attention.

A message to America: we are not your enemy Last night, the US launched an all-out assault on the "global censorship industrial complex", I respond with some deep breaths, solidarity and a vibey video (it's all I have)

NEW: last night, the US govt launched an assault on the ‘global censorship industrial complex’, aka European tech researchers/campaigners.

It’s a deeply chilling move & speaks as to why we need international solidarity more than ever.

open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

How the Meaning of 'Publicly Accessible' Shapes Researcher Data Rights Under the DSA | TechPolicy.Press Researchers eager to begin work under DSA Article 40(12) may be deterred by uncertainty about what data counts as 'publicly accessible,' writes Daphne Keller.

My second post about researchers’ rights to scrape data under DSA Article 40.12 is up! This is dense with legal arguments for researchers to use if they get sued. Or to show their lawyers before that.

www.techpolicy.press/how-the-mean...

verfassungsblog.de/dsa-fine-x-r...

Per usual, @mmasnick.bsky.social offers astute analysis of the Bullshit Industrial Complex’s claims, this time regarding new H1B visa vetting policies.

This sentence is 🌟: “This policy censors non-censors for not doing the thing that the White House and MAGA folks are actively doing every day.”

Very cool and important job for someone in NYC!

As a kid who used to love to sit up late in my rural county peering into the vastness of space, I find it almost physically painful to stare into the cluttered sky and find my gaze constantly interrupted by all of this disposable litter. This graph does not indicate progress to me.

From doing science to saving science Science and scientists are under assault. From denial of vaccines to climate change, political leaders are increasingly sacrificing democracy as well as science on the altar of populism and authoritar...

Scientists must learn to join larger pro-democracy and people's movements, coalitions. Our science training may not have prepared us for such work, but we can no longer sit in the safety of our labs and expect the world to get better

My book review @thelancet.com

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook and Instagram after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to unredacted filings in a class action by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms.

Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege reut.rs/48eKxnO

Many assume that if someone is high profile, their public data is fair game for collection & analysis.

@annalenhart.bsky.social & @brandonsilverman.bsky.social interviewed high profile people to learn more. The report shares practical suggestions for platforms, researchers, & policymakers.

Why Platform Data is Essential to Public Health Efforts in Tobacco Control | TechPolicy.Press Social media platforms are a key avenue for tobacco control research, but as George Pearson argues data access barriers hinder efforts to monitor impacts.

Think platform data from social media only matters for election or disinformation research? Think again. George Pearson, a researcher at the Truth Initiative, shows it’s vital for public health—revealing how tobacco companies can target youth, dodge regulations, and influence policy.

There is More Online Election Discourse than Ever, But Researchers See Less | TechPolicy.Press Josephine Lukito and Kaitlyn Dowling explore why public social media data is vital for transparent elections and accountability in the digital campaign era.

Last week’s elections show how central social media has become to campaigns with politicians on nearly every platform. But as Josephine Lukito and Kaitlyn Dowling explain, we know less and less about them, because access to this data is shrinking.

The World’s Growing Information Black Box: Inequity in Platform Research | TechPolicy.Press Rachelle Faust and Daniel Arnaudo discuss how independent research on social media platforms is vanishing as data access shrinks, deepening global inequities.

New essay from the series, Seeing the Digital Sphere: The Case for Public Platform Data! As platforms restrict data access, a global data drought is deepening, write Rachelle Faust and Daniel Arnaudo. A new framework can reclaim the public square and restore access for frontline researchers.

Chatbots pose a risk to democracy AI companies vowed not to support their use for voting choice so why are they recommending parties?

"Society needs a deeper understanding and greater transparency of AI and social media recommendations. We currently lack insights that could be key to uncovering intended or unintended manipulation," writes @marietjeschaake.bsky.social:

Red Trump-style graphic with images of Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo. At the top it says, "I'm going to pick [Cuomo]." - Donald Trump, 60 Minutes Interview, 11-2-25 Then beneath it TRUMP ENDORSES CUOMO

Congratulations, Andrew Cuomo!

I know how hard you worked for this.

Trump’s university backlash drives US researchers towards Europe EU grant applications hit record in 2025 amid surge in interest from American academics

This surge in applications from the US comes at a time where the grant and job market in Europe is already *very* competitive.

Unless Europe invests more in science and higher education this influx of talent will put a squeeze on an already fragile system.

www.ft.com/content/cd80...

Why is it that every disappeared US citizen is not front page news? At the very least we should have a little box with a count of the number of citizens who have been taken away and are not locatable and a link to a story with photos & min-bios, just as we used to do with military casually figures.

Meta and TikTok are obstructing researchers’ access to data, European Commission rules Data are needed to study how social media spreads misinformation and influences elections, scientists say

"Access to data by researchers is a crucial element of ensuring transparency and democratic accountability,” @lewan.bsky.social says. “The public is entitled to know what platforms and their algorithms are doing to the information landscape.”
I wrote for @science.org about Meta, TikTok and the DSA 🧪