Austin Ahlman

HAPPENING NOW: The House Judiciary is holding a hearing on supposed "censorship" of Americans who use Big Tech platforms by the EU.

Read our statement from Executive Director Barry Lynn on the American values at the heart of the EU's laws:

Amid DSCC Pressure, Democratic Populist J.D. Scholten Exits Iowa Senate Race Scholten, who is among a small coterie of progressive to outperform Kamala Harris in deep red states, will endorse Josh Turek on Monday.

New from me: an interesting tale from Iowa, where anti-establishment populist and serial electoral overperformer JD Scholten is dropping his bid for Senate to back the DSCC pick, relative newcomer Josh Turek. theintercept.com/2025/08/18/j...

it’s kind of funny just how cooked the party is. using diversity loopholes to throw out the election of someone who said we should do something about the olds, while any semblance of a popular economic agenda gets muscled aside by a warmed over neoliberal astroturf project

The Centrist WelcomeFest Was Everything That's Wrong With the Democratic Party At WelcomeFest 2025, centrist Democrats railed against progressives and activists for making too many demands of their elected representatives.

🎶What can I say except you're welcome, you're welcome🎶 www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

"Corporate support was a cynical marketing ploy to tap into the perceived disposable income of LGBTQ+ Americans," writes @austinahlman.bsky.social.

this is… not at all the thesis of the article? like it’s cool if disagree about whether the massive increase in corporate funding for Pride events post-Obergefell was negative, but you can do that honestly

Corporate Pride Is Dying. Good. The sudden withdrawal of big corporate sponsors from Pride events is an opportunity, not a crisis.

The sudden withdrawal of big corporate sponsors from Pride events is an opportunity, not a crisis.

Corporate Pride Is Dying. Good. The sudden withdrawal of big corporate sponsors from Pride events is an opportunity, not a crisis.

Corporate Pride Is Dying.

Good.

theintercept.com/2025/06/05/c...

Corporate Pride Is Dying. Good. The sudden withdrawal of big corporate sponsors from Pride events is an opportunity, not a crisis.

Despite years of organizers wearing down the rough edges, to the point where pride has become a soulless and apolitical husk of its former self, big corporations are still running for the hills at the faintest whiff of political risk. Good, I say.

My latest: theintercept.com/2025/06/05/c...

one of the biggest red flags of this project is the politicians who are being tapped to champion it

How America Lost Control of the Seas Thanks to decades of misguided policy choices, the U.S. has an astonishing lack of maritime capacity.

NEW: 🚢⚓️ Our transportation policy analyst Arnav Rao has a big, new report out today on why U.S. maritime power declined - and how to effectively revive it.

Read the report & his corresponding piece in @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...

Cloud computing is too important to be left to the Big Three Unlike traditional utilities, Amazon, Microsoft and Google operate with minimal transparency

I have an article in the @financialtimes.com today highlighting cloud computing's systemic role in our economies and societies, and the grave dangers of concentrating this critical infrastructure in the hands of a few monopolistic U.S. tech giants.

www.ft.com/content/5c93...

Analyzing Week One of Google Search's Antitrust Remedies Trial | TechPolicy.Press Karina Monotoya analyzes the first week of the Google Search antitrust remedies trial.

It's week 2 of #googlesearch remedies trial. I'll miss the DOJ resting its case this morning but will be back for Google's first witness: Heather Adkins, Google VP of Cybersecurity (part of the session might be closed).

🗞️In the meantime, my recap of week 1: www.techpolicy.press/analyzing-we...

Court Ruling Against Google Ad-Tech Monopoly Is a Victory for Journalism | Washington Monthly Antitrust advocates rejoice at the second decision against the $1.8 trillion behemoth in less than a year.

CJL reporter @austinahlman.bsky.social explains why yesterday's ruling against Google's monopoly over digital advertising is a major win for journalism. READ: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/18/c...

I think it is reasonable for the leader of the United Auto Workers to support a tax on foreign car imports

these guys are doing everything they can to make sure Harris’s abysmal performance with Arab voters is the democratic party’s ceiling instead of its floor

this is a democrat just in case you were wondering how screwed we are

Meta Blocked News in Canada. Ads for Scams Are Taking Its Place Social media platforms in Canada are hosting hundreds of ads from scam artists pretending to be news publishers, while suppressing authentic news content.

This story shows how INDEFENSIBLE it is to allow large social media platforms to block news as it it were business as usual. Mark Zuckerberg acted as if his business was 'cornered' by regulation but has no problem with profiting from harmful news media impostors.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

sounds like they’ll have their counter-messaging negotiated and poll-tested by around this time next week 👍

More Speech and Fewer Mistakes | Meta We're ending our third party fact checking program and moving to a Community Notes model.

While it was gratifying to hear Zuckerberg refer to Meta’s content moderation and manipulation as censorship (after I got years of pushback for using this term), his efforts to shift blame to fact checkers & journalists is not.
about.fb.com/news/2025/01...

just another day in our AI dystopia: Grindr now wants to utilize user data to train chatbots

I think blocking people liberally is just fine and probably creates a healthy experience, but the idea of “blocklists” is so insane to me. like what do you mean you are outsourcing the decision about what voices you should and shouldn’t hear from to other people?

whenever i see someone call him "elmo" i remember how real tea party patriots spelled it 0bama so the government wouldn't find their mean posts

for all the accusations of magical thinking being thrown around in the democratic coalition right now the worst case by far is those who think you can discipline the activist left or bully it out of existence

“this is the sort of toxic behavior I thought we left behind on Twitter…”
— me being escorted out of Smoothie King

I stand by it

Trump’s Election Is Also a Win for Tech’s Right-Wing “Warrior Class” With Trump’s election, Silicon Valley has successfully rebranded military contracting as a proud national duty for the industry.

I wrote about how Trump's closest allies in tech are the industry's most unabashed militarists. His victory coincides with a major ongoing cultural shift in American technology: Building things for the Pentagon is no longer a source of shame or scandal. theintercept.com/2024/11/17/t...

Don't love the informal convention that writers on staff at a publication cannot criticize other writers there. Give me a magazine full of writers who all openly hate each other and spit at each other in the hallway

gay authoritarian party here. all my companions are in queer relationships or single. when Neve and Lucanis started making eyes at each other I shut that shit down fast

incredible to watch centrist after centrist do a variation of “if we just stop doing [thing democrats haven’t done in years] and start doing [thing democrats have done forever] then we would win.” I know from experience that it sucks watching your worldview get walloped, but come on