David Sullivan

Can we add RICO to the Rome Statute?

Asking for the rules-based international order...

This is such a great piece. 20 years since grad school and I'm going to need to reread Schelling.

I believe it! Very curious to see what happens this summer, but expect it will be much quieter for both work and tourist travel. Blerg.

return flight is similarly empty, with less than 30 seats occupied in economy on a 787! i'm sure that will eventually fill up a bit more, but it is bleak...

Heading to Europe for work and fun later this week.

I know January isn't exactly peak season for the Benelux, but damn if this seat map doesn't say something about the current state of transatlantic relations...

screenshot from anu bradford article available here: https://www.promarket.org/2024/12/11/the-false-choice-between-digital-regulation-and-innovation/

per Anu Bradford

I don’t deny that Europe needs to reassert itself from a national security perspective, including the digital dimensions thereof. But that can entail investing in defense capabilities and addressing the real obstacles to EU innovation...

and the whole thing winds up reeking of unhelpful nationalism that will exacerbate skepticism within Europe toward the EU (e.g. Poland and the DSA).

... there will be second order repercussions from an escalatory spiral: including more justification of human rights abuses around the world, from Iran to the USA ...

Ad for IBM digital sovereignty offering

The usual suspects will still find a way to benefit...

However, as someone with a front row seat to the various sovereignty arguments since Snowden, my two cents is that “digital sovereignty” is a flawed concept used to recycle poor policies (e.g. general xenophobia, flawed industrial policy, and FOSS obsession) that will produce bad outcomes.

It's been more than a quarter century since i read Arendt, I'm no philosopher, and I certainly haven't read all the ink spilled on digital sovereignty in the past year, let alone the past decade.

How Digital Sovereignty Will Lead to The Slow and Fast Erosion of The Internet Sovereignty is not a synonym for autonomy; it is instead the uncompromising authority to impose a single will upon others.

Stop whatever you're doing and read @farzdusa.bsky.social rejoinder to "digital sovereignty" at @futurefreespeech.org's Bedrock Principle:

Ahhh excellent!

If not too late, make 3 cards. One each host and one for the audience, and then we compete!

What I appreciate most about @dwillner.bsky.social and @samidh.bsky.social is their tendency towards action. A very timely labeler and prompt to detect non consensual intimate imagery (NCII) solicitation:

zentropi.ai/labelers/eb6...

Opinion | There’s One Easy Solution to the A.I. Porn Problem

I have an op-ed in the NYT today about the Grok scandal, sharing my research from last year finding that legal risk hinders AI companies from making their models safer against CSAM - an echo of the years where white-hat hackers were chilled from good-faith research. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/o...

Polish president aligns with Trump to block Brussels’ Big Tech law Nawrocki called EU social media law “Orwellian,” echoing Washington’s main line of attack.

Poland's President vetoed the implementing legislation for the DSA there?!?

The DSA is a Regulation, not a Directive. So in principle it applies anyway. But Member States are still supposed to do things like designate a national level regulator (a DSC).

Big h/t to @jeczjan.bsky.social on this one!

tiny deer energy

Love it!

Ctrl-Alt-Speech Podcast The latest news in online speech, from Techdirt's Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation's Ben Whitelaw

I may be a huge nerd, but I love the bingo card podcast organizing structure from the first Ctrl-Alt-Speech of 2026!

@mmasnick.bsky.social, did you guys come up with this or adapt it from others?

As of 18:45 UTC (10:15 PM local), traffic to Iran has stopped as the country has completely severed itself from the global internet.

Having trouble doing anything else, so had to write out how fucking angry I am about what happened yesterday and how the MAGA world is trying to rewrite the story.

4 pieces of good news today:

1) Hochul and Mamdani are working on free pre-K
2) Tish James got a SECOND Trump makebelieve US Attorney DQed
3) 9 Republicans backed Jeffries' ACA subsidies discharge petition
4) 5 Republicans voted for cloture Kaines' WPR prohibiting more invasion in VZ

ICE agent was not in the vehicle’s path when he fired at driver, video shows An analysis of video footage raises questions about claims by President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem about the fatal shooting in Minneapolis.

"raises questions"

screenshot from X/twitter post by Tim Wu discussing game theory and the trump administration

Tim Wu literally doing "it's time for same game theory" on the other site 🫠

Trump Ends America’s Leadership on Internet Freedom | TechPolicy.Press By walking away, the US is dismantling the mechanism that once turned Western values into a lifeline for those behind a firewall, writes Konstantinos Komaitis.

Great analysis of why this is so harmful from @kkomaitis.bsky.social:

www.techpolicy.press/trump-ends-a...

Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United

America withdraws from the Freedom Online Coalition (among many other intl orgs) putting itself firmly on the side of lack of freedom online www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Opinion | Marco Rubio is using real censorship to fight fake censorship Mike Masnick: In the name of protecting free speech, the U.S. government just banned five Europeans from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech.

Wrote about the State Department's made up censorial rationale for banning visas for some folks based on their speech. It's nonsense.

www.ms.now/opinion/marc...

i've been wondering about this: what % of drivers genuinely think it's ok to drive around with their brights on perpetually?