Matteo Nebbiai

It is my opinion that introducing age verification now is irresponsible, mainly because we have now reached the point where Western governments *are* using "the database state" and exploiting online surveillance to be repressive - just as privacy activists warned for decades. This applies to UK & US

One of those classic tales of the modern economy, a huge company nobody really knows is the middle of a supply chain. At this stage it seems such companies will be surviving Trump's efforts relatively unscathed. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Is the Jimmy Kimmel Saga a Sign that the Tide is Turning? Why we may not be Russia or Hungary

"Trump’s push to destroy democracy depends largely on creating a self-fulfilling prophecy...business leaders capitulate to his demands because they expect him to consolidate autocratic power - which, given his unpopularity, he can only do if businesses and other institutions continue to capitulate."

Historically, the US economy’s competitive advantage was tied to sophisticated, complex products and services. It needs to regain that edge. There is no surer path to better and more advanced products than increased levels of basic research and development. But US investment in basic research has declined significantly; funding for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and other government research organizations has declined by more than 60 percent in relation to GDP since the 1960s. The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act should help, by providing $280 billion in funding to boost domestic research and manufacturing, especially in the field of semiconductors. But the work to increase government investment has barely begun.

One thing that remains fascinating to me is how much radical Trumpism wants to move down the value chain, instead of upwards to more value-add + complex production and research. Instead, RFK kills the NIH and NSF.

The firing of faculty and university staff and journalists for… reposting news articles about Kirk’s actual statements? And talking about other acts of political violence? … is staggering. Academic freedom and free speech are facing an incredible attack right now.

Grok is being sent to the reeducation camp

The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.

Literal cancel culture.

all those years of rw commentators complaining about cancellation, and here we are.

what they disliked was being challenged or criticized for their views. this, by contrast, is a system where academics are being sanctioned for saying something that disagrees with the president. slow clap

Daniel hits the nail on the head here. Not only are Silver's characteristics not particularly unique to any group on social media, they accurately describe the group that just *won multiple electoral victories in 2024*. MAGA and Trump have done 100% of the things centrists say Democrats shouldn't do

Are we witnessing the death of international law? The long read: A growing number of scholars and lawyers are losing faith in the current system. Others say the law is not to blame, but the states that are supposed to uphold it

"The point... is that what we are witnessing today is not the failure of international law but rather the failure of international politics."
www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun...

Reports of an attack, allegedly by a drone, on a vessel in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), while anchored outside the port of Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia. The below video shows the moment of the incident. Keep it in mind when you read the next post. www.instagram.com/reel/DOXaR_M...

NFT sort of geniunely were bullied and mocked out of existence because they were fundamentally a status good that’s basically worthless if it’s seen as stupid and stigmatized. People overindexed on that and think they can do the same with AI. You can’t though, because LLMs, etc are actually useful.

"Any time you ask an LLM system to summarize a web page, read an email, process a document or even look at an image there’s a chance that the content you are exposing it to might contain additional instructions which cause it to do something you didn’t intend."

I don’t find this very convincing, either as a unique problem with Bluesky or as an electoral liability for democrats.

Name a better location for this @himself.bsky.social slideshow
#SISP

This #Trump conference gives Nintendo Direct vibes

Can the EU trade away its digital rules? It's not that easy.

Paradoxically, more decentralised #EU regulations (i.e., DSA, GDPR) are likely more resilient to "geopolitical winds".

Centralising enforcement at the #EU Commission level strengthens consistency and coordination. Yet it also creates a single point of vulnerability, where regulatory enforcement can be more easily politicised.

Were A Few Random DEI Programs Worth Killing Democracy? Eight months ago, those of us actually paying attention—not just scrolling outrage bait about Biden’s age or the latest campus controversy, but genuinely tracking the systematic preparation for aut…

"This is how smart people become useful idiots: not through stupidity but through selective attention. They created information ecosystems where campus politics was the main character and everything else was background noise."

www.techdirt.com/2025/08/27/w...

4/ In conclusion, the EU “capitulation” strategy is partially constrained by its institutional architecture: even if it accepts Trump’s requests, reducing enforcement might be easier said than done, and could be more feasible for some laws (e.g., the DMA) than for others (e.g., the DSA).

3/ Enforcement can be more easily “steered” when a law is enforced (1) by more politicised agencies and (2) in a centralised manner. The #DMA, which is enforced centrally by the Commission, is therefore easier to steer than the #DSA, whose many provisions are enforced by national agencies.

2/ Enforcing authorities are staffed with highly trained civil servants whose mandate involves being *independent* from political guidance. The #Commission can’t simply send a memo and tell them to stop applying the law.

Can the EU trade away its digital rules? It's not that easy.

So, #Trump just asked the #EU to drop its rules on digital services, or prepare for new tariffs.

However, if the EU wanted to capitulate to Trump’s demands, how feasible is it to drop such rules?

My opinion: not that easy!

(1/)

matteonebbiai.substack.com/p/can-the-eu...

The twilight of tech unilateralism Suddenly, America is in a whole different world

“A year ago, the US appeared to have a coherent world view that tied together a particular perspective on AI with a particular view of American power. Now, both the AI story and the power story are crumbling. What next?” open.substack.com/pub/programm...

The Enshittification of American Power First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech.

1. @abenewman.bsky.social and I have a new piece in @wired.com on the enshittification of American power. It repurposes arguments from our book, Underground Empire amzn.to/3PbIyqX , and Cory Doctorow's idea of enshittification to explain how the Trump administration is trying to remake the world.

I wrote today about why we should shudder about ICE and CBP adding 19,000 new agents and officers — because we should terrified of WHO would want to join CBP and ICE amid politicized authoritarian images like this: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/four-fears...

Oh No, I Betrayed America My journey to a Huawei watch

"...this is not about geopolitics—but just about value for money."
open.substack.com/pub/musgrave...

I don’t believe politicians are suicidal, so to speak. If they pass this, either they think/hope they’re somehow insulated, or they think the alternative is worse for their political careers. Neither of those bodes well for democracy.