Tech Policy Press

Big Tech’s Affordability Fight is Finally Here Tech giants used the affordability of their services as a shield against scrutiny. In the AI era, that shield is breaking down, Issie Lapowsky reports.

The real cost of data centers for consumers is becoming a political sticking point. “Information may want to be free, but it turns out infrastructure is expensive, now more so than ever,” reports Issie Lapowsky.

House GOP Moves Ahead with Kids Online Safety Package as Democrats Balk House Republicans forged ahead on a child online safety package over the vocal opposition of committee Democrats.

House Republicans on Thursday advanced a package aimed at expanding protections for children online over vocal opposition from Democratic lawmakers, who said the package had been weakened and could actually put more kids at risk, Cristiano Lima-Strong reports.

I was asked by @techpolicypress.bsky.social‬
what I am watching for as a tech scholar in the ongoing war. Here is my take:

AI and the Future of Artistic Labor As AI enters the performing arts, the real risk isn’t job loss alone—it’s the hollowing of creative work and the exploitation of labor, argues James Paisley.

When discussing AI and the labor force, we fixate on one question: Will it replace workers? For the performing arts, that’s incomplete, argues James Paisley. The deeper risk isn’t just job loss, but the erosion of creative agency and the transformation of artists into executors of AI outputs.

People Have the Right to Refuse AI Britt Paris is the author of Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up, a new book published by the University of California Press.

You don’t have to participate in AI’s massive hype inflation, writes critical informatics scholar Britt S. Paris. You have a right to refuse the ‘inevitable’.

Key Questions on the Role of Technology in the Expanding Middle East War Tech Policy Press asked experts working at the intersection of technology policy, security, and international affairs to share what they are watching.

The expanding war in Iran brought to the fore questions about the role of technology in armed conflict, including the controversial use of new artificial intelligence technologies. Tech Policy Press invited perspectives from experts on what they are watching for as the situation unfolds.

Global Digital Policy Roundup: February 2026 Drawing from the Digital Policy Alert’s daily monitoring of G20 countries, the roundup summarizes the highlights in four core areas of digital policy.

Check out another installment of the Global Digital Policy Roundup for February 2026 from the experts at Digital Policy Alert. Maria Buza and Tommaso Giardini highlight tech policy developments in content moderation, artificial intelligence, competition, and data governance.

We Need to Disentangle Hype from AI and Quantum Computing Much like AI in its pre-generative stage, quantum is bursting with promise that feels just out of reach, write Danny Tobey, Ashley Carr, and Michael Atleson.

Quantum is bursting with promise that feels just out of reach—much like pre-generative AI. A breakthrough 'LLM moment' may soon arrive, write DLA Piper's Danny Tobey, Ashley Carr and Michael Atleson. What hopefully won't follow: the hyped product claims that plagued AI.

Congress’ Child Safety Bills Sound Good. Families Suggest They Won't Work. Lawmakers risk advancing bills that may not be effective nor in line with what some parents and teens actually want, Michal Luria and Aliya Bhatia write.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee considers legislation aimed at protecting children online, it risks advancing bills that while well-intentioned may not be effective nor in line with what some parents and teens actually want, Aliya Bhatia and Michal Luria write.

Former Amazon Boss Takes Charge of UK Antitrust Strategy. What Does It Mean? UK sends “very positive” signal to Big Tech with appointment of new Competition and Markets Authority head Doug Gurr, experts say.

Despite investigative findings that Amazon and Microsoft dominate the UK’s cloud services market, former Amazon exec Doug Gurr was named the chair of the UK’s antitrust watchdog, reports Tech Policy Press fellow Jade-Ruyu Yan.

Will NSO’s US Lobbying Pay Off Under Trump? Now, with Friedman, a seasoned Trump insider, at its helm, NSO might finally achieve its long-awaited US comeback, writes Vas Panagiotopoulos.

“Never before has a spyware manufacturer invested such extensive resources or retained so many external advisers — lobbyists, lawyers, publicists, former diplomats and senior officials — to influence US democratic decision-making,” writes Tech Policy Press fellow Vas Panagiotopoulos.

Big Tech’s Affordability Fight is Finally Here Tech giants used the affordability of their services as a shield against scrutiny. In the AI era, that shield is breaking down, Issie Lapowsky reports.

Are tech executives beginning to see AI affordability as a political liability? President Trump’s new ratepayer pledge signals a notable shift in tone for industry, reports Issie Lapowsky.

Rethinking Sovereign AI as Strategy Swarnim Shrivastava says the pursuit of AI sovereignty poses a tough question for nations: how much control is economically and institutionally feasible?

“Sovereign AI is ultimately about governance capacity,” writes Swarnim Shrivastava. Most nations cannot afford to build their own AI stack, turning instead to open source models as a way to prioritize integration and governance over scale.

The Governance Gap That Moltbook Reveals and OpenAI Just Made Urgent Michelle De Mooy explains how the the launch of Moltbook reveals urgent gaps in AI governance frameworks.

The recent launch of Moltbook underscores the limits of evaluating individual models, while ignoring ecosystem dynamics that should inform AI governance frameworks, writes Michelle De Mooy.

AI Agents and the Next Layer of India’s Digital Infrastructure A talk at India's AI Impact Summit envisioned AI agents as personal proxies that negotiate, coordinate and interface on one’s behalf, Anuradha Sajjanhar writes.

Speaking at India’s AI Impact Summit, a professor envisioned AI agents serving as personal proxies for every Indian, but this raises questions about whether embedding hallucinatory, probabilistic systems into everyday life strengthens democratic participation, Anuradha Sajjanhar writes.

How Collaboration Can Enable Action on AI and Mental Health Getting AI and mental health right means society must grapple with the responsibility of technology companies to both mitigate risk and center well-being.

For the millions who have no other access to mental health support and who may already rely on AI tools for support in times of need, we must urgently confront how such technologies can be most helpful and least harmful, write Claire Leibowicz and Emily Saltz.

February 2026 US Tech Policy Roundup A roundup of the most important US tech policy developments in the federal government, Congress, and beyond from Freedman Consulting and Tech Policy Press.

Catch up on what happened in US tech policy in February with a roundup from Freedman Consulting’s Rachel Lau and Shirley Frame, including coverage of the Department of Defense and Anthropic dispute, expanding use of AI by the federal government, and child safety-focused trials against Meta.

How Big AI Developers are Skirting a Mandate for Training Data Transparency We need better visibility into what data AI developers are using to train their models, write Dick Blankvoort, Harshvardhan Pandit, and Maximilian Gahntz.

There is a battle raging over the lack of visibility into AI training data, write Dick Blankvoort, Harshvardhan Pandit, and Maximilian Gahntz. A neglected provision in the European Union’s AI Act may prove to be the biggest break in securing more transparency from AI developers to date.

The Great Green AI Hoax Machine If AI companies want to claim they are helping solve the climate crisis, they should be required to show their math, writes Friends of the Earth's Michael Khoo.

If AI companies want to claim they are helping solve the climate crisis, they should be required to show their math, writes Friends of the Earth's Michael Khoo. Industry claims that AI is benefiting the climate are unfounded at best, and deceptive PR at worst, he writes.

The Governance Gap That Moltbook Reveals and OpenAI Just Made Urgent Michelle De Mooy explains how the the launch of Moltbook reveals urgent gaps in AI governance frameworks.

What happens when AI agents interact at scale? While these dynamics are usually invisible, Moltbook offers a window into agent-to-agent interaction and the potential harms, writes Michelle De Mooy.

Former Amazon Boss Takes Charge of UK Antitrust Strategy. What Does It Mean? UK sends “very positive” signal to Big Tech with appointment of new Competition and Markets Authority head Doug Gurr, experts say.

Amazon exec Doug Gurr will chair the UK's antitrust watchdog. Tech Policy Press UK fellow Jade-Ruyu Yan reports on what Gurr’s appointment could mean for tech regulation in the UK — and why some experts worry it sends a very positive message to Big Tech.

Big Tech’s Affordability Fight is Finally Here Tech giants used the affordability of their services as a shield against scrutiny. In the AI era, that shield is breaking down, Issie Lapowsky reports.

For years, the tech giants used the fact that many of their most popular products are free as a shield against scrutiny, but in the age of AI, affordability is becoming Big Tech's Achilles heel, Issie Lapowsky reports.

Community Notes Alone Won't Beat Disinformation: Why Fact-Checkers Are Essential Community Notes were designed to "democratize" moderation, but research shows they are largely ineffective in their current form, writes Stephan Mündges.

As many platforms scale back efforts to fight misinformation, an approach that combines fact-checking with community notes can help protect democracy by providing citizens with access to reliable information, writes Stephan Mündges.

Will NSO’s US Lobbying Pay Off Under Trump? Now, with Friedman, a seasoned Trump insider, at its helm, NSO might finally achieve its long-awaited US comeback, writes Vas Panagiotopoulos.

NSO has spent years lobbying in the US to overturn spyware restrictions, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Vas Panagiotopoulos. Now it’s hired former US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to help rebuild its business and recruit US law enforcement customers. Will these efforts pay off?

Will NSO’s US Lobbying Pay Off Under Trump? Now, with Friedman, a seasoned Trump insider, at its helm, NSO might finally achieve its long-awaited US comeback, writes Vas Panagiotopoulos.

NSO Group’s 🇺🇸lobbying efforts provide a stark case study of how #spyware firms deploy vast resources to influence government & democratic decision-making in pursuit of their commercial interests.

➡️ Here’s my analysis for @techpolicypress.bsky.social.

www.techpolicy.press/will-nsos-us...

Wyoming’s GRANITE Act Hints at Global Speech Battle to Come A battle in Wyoming over overseas platform regulations offers a window into a simmering global governance dispute, Matthew Allaire writes.

"The coming battle over the open internet will certainly not be resolved in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but for anyone trying to understand how it might unfold, the GRANITE Act is not a bad place to start," writes Matthew Allaire.

AI Agents and the Next Layer of India’s Digital Infrastructure A talk at India's AI Impact Summit envisioned AI agents as personal proxies that negotiate, coordinate and interface on one’s behalf, Anuradha Sajjanhar writes.

Speaking at India’s AI Impact Summit, a professor envisioned AI agents serving as personal proxies for every Indian, but this raises questions about whether embedding hallucinatory, probabilistic systems into everyday life strengthens democratic participation, Anuradha Sajjanhar writes.

Anthropomorphism Is Breaking Our Ability to Judge AI Tech Policy Press fellow James Ball asks, how should we interact with a technology designed to ‘speak’ with us on what appear to be human terms?

Interactions with large language models blur the lines between what feels like human conversation and the more typical experience of using technology—which seems to be causing confusion even among what should be experienced and sophisticated users, writes Tech Policy Press fellow James Ball.

LatamGPT Navigates the Gap Between Regional Aspiration and Market Realities The question is whether Latin American governments can sustain commitment to this collaborative infrastructure, writes Ezequiel Rivero.

Only 2-3% of existing AI training data is in Spanish or Portuguese. LatamGPT is a collaboration across 15 countries to fix that — and to keep Latin America from being purely a consumer of AI built elsewhere, writes Ezequiel Rivero. But is the project sustainable?

India Is Using AI to Police Identity and Expel Minorities The Indian state of Maharashtra is developing an AI tool that uses accent, tone, and word choices to identify and deport migrants, writes Suvradip Maitra.

India is building AI to use accent and word choice to identify and deport Bangladeshi Muslims and Rohingyas. It risks hardwiring discrimination into border policing, writes Suvradip Maitra.