Ben Lennett

Want to understand the nuances of the potential remedies in the Google search antitrust case? Check out the latest @techpolicypress.bsky.social podcast moderated by KGI‘s @alissacooper.bsky.social with experts @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social @kate-brennan.bsky.social and David Dinielli.

Reading the Systemic Risk Assessments for Major Speech Platforms: Notes and Observations | TechPolicy.Press Tim Bernard is reading a selection of the Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) systemic risk assessments released in late November 2024.

Tim Bernard is reading a selection of the Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) systemic risk assessments released in late November 2024 in compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA). This first installment considers Facebook and Instagram reports:

The Most Important Piece of Tech Regulation You’ve Never Heard Of | TechPolicy.Press Dunstan Allison-Hope & Jason Pielemeier explain how Europe's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) applies to tech.

Earlier this year, the European Union enacted the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D). Dunstan Allison-Hope & Jason Pielemeier unpack how the CS3D applies to tech companies, including the downstream impacts arising from their operations. www.techpolicy.press/the-most-imp...

The media startup we need is a legal defense fund for independent journalists. New publications and cooperatives are great and critical but unless there is strong legal protection from what is to come, they will not survive.

Who Wins from the IGF? Not Those Locked Up for Speaking Out | TechPolicy.Press Access Now's Alejandro Mayoral Baños and Article 19's Quinn McKew explain their decision not to attend the Internet Governance Forum in Riyadh.

Access Now executive director Alejandro Mayoral Baños and Article 19 executive director Quinn McKew explain their principled decision not to attend this month's Internet Governance Forum in Riyadh.
www.techpolicy.press/who-wins-fro...

Initial Takeaways from the Canadian AI Safety Institute Launch | TechPolicy.Press Questions remain about whether the Institute will prioritize the most significant safety risks, writes CIGI's Matthew da Mota.

The newly minted Canadian AI Safety Institute (CAISI) is an essential building block, writes CIGI’s Matthew da Mota. But questions remain about how it will prioritize safety risks engage in policy and governance work.

OpenAI's Sora Is Here. There Is Still Time To Prepare For The Threat Such Technologies Pose | TechPolicy.Press WITNESS executive director Sam Gregory says there are fundamental gaps in access to detection tools that disadvantage journalists and civil society.

OpenAI’s #Sora and #Ai tech like it represent a step change in generative video. For @techpolicypress.bsky.social I highlight key risks and fundamental inequitable gaps in access to detection tools. But ... there is time to address this and other threats www.techpolicy.press/openais-sora...

NTIA Seeks Approaches to Conduct Ethical Research of Online Services | TechPolicy.Press NTIA is seeking public input on ethical guidelines for researching online data or "pervasive data."

NTIA is seeking public input on ethical guidelines for researching online data or "pervasive data." @benlennett.bsky.social covers why it matters, what information the agency is seeking, and how to participate.

The Need to Make Content Moderation Transparent | TechPolicy.Press Sandra González-Bailón and David Lazer, contemplating results of a recent study on election misinformation, say Big Tech's power must be checked.

Content moderation is a power platforms exercise with consequence at moments of collective vulnerability, such as during elections. Assuming that platforms act for the betterment of all is, at this point, one assumption too many, write Sandra González-Bailón and David Lazer.

Data Sharing and the Delegated Act of Europe's DSA | TechPolicy.Press Researchers will have a chance to get meaningful data of the most precious kind: unaggregated, non-public platform data, writes Luca Belli.

Article 40 of the Digital Services Act should make it possible for researchers to get access to coveted unaggregated, non-public platform data, writes Luca Belli. How does the draft delegated act suggest it will work? www.techpolicy.press/data-sharing...

5 Things to Know about the Digital Services Act’s First Risk Assessments and Audits | TechPolicy.Press Mark Scott says going forward there are ways to improve these lengthy, often unwieldy documents.

The EU's Digital Services Act aims to boost accountability and transparency for some of the world’s largest tech companies. Mark Scott writes that those ambitions are getting their first test with the publication of risk assessments and audits. How can these documents be improved going forward?

So interesting to see folks you know from a professional setting having a whole another life and looking so 90s indie rock cool. Kristin and Jenny also made great music.

The Flexibility Trap: How Algorithms Drive Precarity in Platform Work | TechPolicy.Press Atieh Razavi Yekta is a sessional lecturer and researcher at the University of British Columbia.

In the platform economy, algorithms often obscure how platforms extract value from workers, masking the ways workers' efforts translate into profit, writes Atieh Razavi Yekta. www.techpolicy.press/the-flexibil...

Privacy in Peril: India’s Interception Regime | TechPolicy.Press Rather than modernizing interception laws, India’s new framework puts citizens’ privacy and digital rights at risk, write Jyoti Panday and Saumya Jain.

Rather than modernizing interception laws, India’s new rules expand state powers significantly, putting citizens’ privacy and digital rights at risk, write Jyoti Panday and Saumya Jain.

"Agency laundering involves distancing human decision-makers from morally questionable actions by attributing them to automated systems or algorithms." ⬇️

Against the Corporate Capture of Human Connection | TechPolicy.Press Susie Alegre is the author of “Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI," published by Atlantic Books in September 2024.

A new lawsuit against Character.AI says an AI companion suggested a child should kill his parents. We are just at the beginning of widespread access to companion AI, but soon, if we fail to take action, such events will not be isolated cases, writes Susie Alegre.
www.techpolicy.press/against-the-...

404 Media Objects to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Subpoena to Access Our Reporting 404 Media's reporting on an internal Google privacy violation database has been subpoenaed by the State of Texas. We are fighting it.

New: Texas AG Ken Paxton has subpoenaed 404 Media for confidential reporting about an internal Google privacy incident database we published in June. If Paxton wants the database, he can get it directly from Google. Our lawyers have formally objected to the subpoena:

www.404media.co/404-media-ob...

In case you missed it over the weekend, Sens. Blackburn (R-TN) and Blumenthal (D-CT) released a new version of KOSA negotiated by X. New version: www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/fil.... For comparison this is what passed the Senate in July: www.congress.gov/amendment/11....

@techpolicypress.bsky.social has two op-eds out this morning on Australia's new law setting an age minimum for teen accessing social media. Check them out:
👉 www.techpolicy.press/australias-o...
👉 www.techpolicy.press/australia-sa...

TikTok Loses Appeal on Challenge to Law Requiring its Sale | TechPolicy.Press The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded that legislation requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok “survive[s] constitutional scrutiny.”

Published a discussion of TikTok's loss in the Court of Appeals for Tech Policy Press. It covers the court’s decision and what’s next.

@ulrikeklinger.bsky.social, @dscheykopp.bsky.social and I wrote a piece on the draft delegated act for non-public data access. We argue that for systemic risk mitigation to work, access must be reliable & accessible. The draft is a good start, but doesn't ensure these foundations of risk governance.

Learnings from the Hearings: 12 Questions from the Hearings of European Commissioners-Designate | TechPolicy.Press Stephen Wyber sets out 12 questions raised in the written answers and hearings for 9 different potential members of the Commission.

Stephen Wyber sets out 12 questions raised in the written answers and hearings for 9 different members of the European Commission, including those pertinent to tech policy and broader concerns over AI, competition, intellectual property. www.techpolicy.press/learnings-fr...

Researchers Consider the Relationship Between Misinformation, Outrage, and the Sharing of Content on Social Media | TechPolicy.Press New research shows that social media users share information they know to be false, motivated to signal political loyalty. Prithvi Iyer considers the findings.

New research shows that social media users share information they know to be false, motivated to signal political loyalty. What does this mean for the effectiveness of fact-checking initiatives? Prithvi Iyer considers the findings.

How SA men are changing the course of American democracy What do figures like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Joel Pollak and Patrick Soon-Shiong have in common? They are public figures of considerable power and influence in the US – who all spent some...

This article about How South African (primarily white) men are changing the course of American democracy lives rent free in my mind... So much of politics are local but we can‘t ignore how history & global politics influence our reality. Some tidbits +

www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024...

This may be the most important article I've read this year. Too many pithy and insightful descriptions of current generative technology and how we talk about it to list. Just read it yourself.

Musk Reinvented Platform Power. We Should Take Heed | TechPolicy.Press João C. Magalhães says the creation of X and Musk’s radicalization exposed an unprecedented–but potentially replicable–politicization of platform power.

Elon Musk became the first tech baron to transition to politics because he was the first major platform owner who paid less attention to the difficulties of speech governance than to the opportunities this unique sort of power can bring to those who dare to wield it freely, writes João C. Magalhães.

In the War on Migrants, A Trump Win is Really a Win for Big Tech | TechPolicy.Press Petra Molnar is the author of The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Violent border policies spawn invasive, high-risk, and violent technological experiments born in an ecosystem that is predicated on seeing migration as a “problem” to be solved, writes Petra Molnar. But there are ways to resist:

The Public Doesn’t Care About Your Tech Policy, And That’s A Problem | TechPolicy.Press Daniel Stone writes that without the public pushing for action, tech reform stalls, gets diluted, or stays symbolic.

Daniel Stone says the tech industry grasps what socially minded policy advocates often miss: the fight over tech policy won’t be won through the best ideas or insider lobbying alone—it’s about mobilizing public opinion.

At the end of the day for business it's always about maximizing profit. And much of Silicon Valley is betting that it can do better under Trump and the Republicans.

The Biden Admin of course tried to clamp down on the grift inherent to it, whereas Trump and MAGA have embraced it, along with using AI systems to run much the government. The Biden Admin. didn't exactly reject AI in the government, but sought put some guardrails in place.