Dean Jackson

If only there were some way of knowing

All of this and more, via @techpolicypress.bsky.social

Just look at the pieces in the "related" column. Not to blow our own horn, but is anyone telling this story better than @techpolicypress.bsky.social ?

www.techpolicy.press/trumps-state...

Very little of this is about free expression. If it were, the administration would say much more about repression in places like Russia, which State Dept. staff were told is "not a priority" for the admin.

This is about overturning the postwar European order in favor of the post-liberal right.

(The two individuals most likely to be responsible for releasing these files--Mike Benz and Darren Beattie--both have a history of association with white nationalists. Benz himself has made a career of sloppy reporting full of inaccuracies about technology researchers counter-disinfo programs.)

In another shift, the USG hub for countering authoritarian media influence was closed. State alleges it is a "Biden-era censorship apparatus" despite its origins in 2016.

Sec. Rubio has signaled support for releasing GEC's files, which could have lethal implications for former US partners.

The VP's office also asked staff to find examples of European regulators demanding tech platforms remove content.

They struggled to so and asked companies to bring examples directly. Only X responded to this request.

They provided a handful of examples of reprehensible, often illegal content.

Samson and Vance appear to take notes from a far-right group called the Alliance Defending Freedom. State Department Staff were asked to verify ADF's allegations of censorship in Europe, but the facts of these cases were often more complicated than ADF alleged.

One of the people driving this agenda is a young man named Sam Samson, who believes conservatism should redefine freedom to better align with his view of "the good"--even if that means suppressing the speech of others. See his own words here:

www.theamericanconservative.com/the-rights-w...

Trump’s State Department Wants to Use Tech Policy to Remake Europe In Its Image | TechPolicy.Press Tech policy is a key part of the Trump administration's dramatic project to replace the US's traditional European alliances, Dean Jackson writes.

A secret meeting with X. A senior State Dept. advisor just out of college. The VP's speech in Munich. Pressure on European regulators.

What do they share? They're all part of an agenda to turn the transatlantic alliance into a far right international:

www.techpolicy.press/trumps-state...

The new white nationalist State Department: undertaking "a dramatic project to replace the United States’ traditional alliances with European nations, including through efforts to support ideological allies on the continent’s far-right"

Also, the piece is just... bad? It's a bad defense of content moderation. "I don't like Tucker Carlson's speech so he should be deplatformed" is not a nuanced take.

The piece is also too long! Bring back gatekeepers AND editors

Dare to resist fascism in education

Techdirt Podcast Episode 432: The Fictional Censorship Cinematic Universe Support us on Patreon » Last year, Renée DiResta joined us on an episode of the podcast to talk about her book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, all about the peo…

Jim Jordan is full of it, ex. 1,654:

@noupside.bsky.social and @mmasnick.bsky.social unpack the times that Google, under oath, contradicted how Jordan describes its letter to the Judiciary Committee.

A letter that btw was pure capitulation to gov pressure.

www.techdirt.com/2025/09/30/t...

One last thing: During my first "real" job in DC, I sat across the hall from @jodemocracy.bsky.social's editorial staff, who are thoughtful people I am grateful to know and have worked with. I'm proud to have found myself in their esteemed pages.

AI as Normal Technology

The second is @knightcolumbia.org's essay on "AI as Normal Technology," which explores the diffusion of past technologies to predict AI's impact and, crucially, to emphasize our agency over that process.

knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

Should AGI-preppers embrace DOGE? There's magical thinking about the magical thinking

The first is @himself.bsky.social's March essay on DOGE, which goes into greater detail on our flawed political discourse about AI and how it has already affected governance.

www.programmablemutter.com/p/should-agi...

None of this is inevitable. To correct course we must reject AI speculation and acknowledge that humans determine how tech is designed and implemented.

On this point, two pieces for further reading, to which we owe a debt.

Rather, we lack political will because the conversation about AI in Washington is dominated by industry players and talking points.

Democracy advocates start from a place of deep disadvantage against AI moguls who hold the commanding heights of the economy and a formidable grip on elite opinion.

We end on a frustrated note. Avoiding "synthetic democracy" is not difficult because we do not know how. Policy proposals exist for promoting deliberation and representativeness in government, reversing inequality, bolstering worker power, and supporting free media.

Third, AI threatens the health of the information ecosystem in ways that may harm democratic governance. Publishers are already seeing declining revenue from search, weakening independent media.

But those LLM-powered search results are also vulnerable to political manipulation.

Today's tech moguls see a future in which AI increases returns to capital and replaces workers with machines. They hope to make the public and its inconvenient demands for government services and social justice irrelevant.

Second: Democracy in a capitalist system is possible
because elites value an educated workforce enough to tolerate political demands for redistribution; workers’ bargaining power further buttresses the system. What happens when elites believe that AI can replace those workers?

Deliberation is central to both public debate and legislative processes. Through it, people challenge biases, question assumptions, solicit information, and forge compromise,
reaching more defensible conclusions and durable decisions.

AI cannot offer a shortcut through that process.

First: Attempts to replace government functions with AI through artificial polling or AI-generated legislation or judicial decisions (a la former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's predictions) neglect decades of work from neuroscience and poli sci that find deliberation is central to group decision making.

What trends? Glad you asked.

1. Efforts to replace democratic processes like representation & deliberation with tech.

2. Further concentration of wealth and power in the tech sector. (Yes, *further* than today.)

3. Continued corrosion of independent media and the information space.

"AI's Real Dangers for Democracy," by Dean Jackson and Samuel Woolley

Sam Woolley and I have a piece out in
@jodemocracy.bsky.social on the true dangers AI poses to democracy in the years ahead.

While acknowledging immediate harms like discrimination, we eschew catastrophism and explore the cumulative impact of already visible trends.

muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

Jim Jordan Claims Google Censored Conservatives. His Own Committee’s Work Shows Otherwise. Google execs’ interviews before the House Judiciary Committee show no evidence of “censorship” or government coercion - so who’s lying?

A good read if you want to see how a company speaks to Congressional investigators in private vs. what it says in a letter meant as political posturing for propaganda purposes:

wiczipedia.substack.com/p/jim-jordan...

Justice Kavanaugh: “If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully
in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.”

You know what? Sure. I'll let them have this one.