While the EU debates tech sovereignty, the UK is rolling out the red carpet for Trump and US tech giants—making deals and importing infrastructure that serves America’s AI ambitions. Tech Policy Press fellow Megan Kirkwood asks, what does it portend for Britain’s future?

"UK adults are more inclined to view AI as a risk for the economy (39 per cent) than an opportunity (20 per cent), according to a new poll conducted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) and Ipsos." institute.global/insights/tec...

While the EU debates tech sovereignty, the UK is rolling out the red carpet for Trump and US tech giants—making deals and importing infrastructure that serves America’s AI ambitions. Tech Policy Press fellow Megan Kirkwood asks, what does it portend for Britain’s future?

While the EU debates tech sovereignty, the UK is rolling out the red carpet for Trump and US tech giants—making deals and importing infrastructure that serves America’s AI ambitions. Tech Policy Press fellow Megan Kirkwood asks, what does it portend for Britain’s future?

"What this deal makes clear is just how much the tech broligarchy is dictating the state of play. ... It is clearer than ever that the UK is not pursuing any kind of meaningfully “sovereign” tech sector ... happy to cede control of its land and public services in the search for economic growth" 😱

While the EU debates tech sovereignty, the UK is rolling out the red carpet for Trump and US tech giants—making deals and importing infrastructure that serves America’s AI ambitions. Tech Policy Press fellow Megan Kirkwood asks, what does it portend for Britain’s future?

Tech Prosperity Deal for whom?

Look who came with

"The Federal Trade Commission has identified over 125 'anticompetitive' regulations worthy of removal or alteration including, rules that prioritise awarding transportation contracts to 'socially and economically disadvantaged individuals'.” globalcompetitionreview.com/gcr-usa/arti...

The European Commission is in the final stages of surveying whether app store changes proposed by Apple bring it into compliance with the EU's Big Tech competition rules — or whether the company should face daily fines for breaking the law.

blog.google/around-the-g... "8,250 jobs annually" being thrown out there...

New podcast! Justin Hendrix spoke to Vivek Bharathan, a member of the No Desert Data Center Coalition in Tucson, Arizona, and Steven Renderos, executive director of MediaJustice, an advocacy organization that just released a report titled “The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South.”

Efforts to develop new digital infrastructure must be pursued with the interests of individuals and communities at heart, rather than those of governments and investors, writes Eliot Bendinelli.

The European Commission had warned that behavioral remedies wouldn’t address competition concerns, suggesting that divestment was a necessary step, notes Tech Policy Press Fellow Megan Kirkwood. However, in today’s decision, the Commission decided not to go that far just yet.

📢2026 Fellowship applications are OPEN!📢 If you are someone looking to inform technology policy through rigorous original reporting or policy analyses, we want to hear from you! Apply here: airtable.com/appIrc1F9M5d...

citizensreunited.substack.com/p/starmers-r... 👏👏

In a landmark decision that will shape the future of the internet, a US federal judge opted against forcing Google to spin off its Chrome browser but barred it from striking exclusive agreements to promote its search engine, writes @viacristiano.bsky.social:

Microsoft locks down a building after protesters get inside president’s office

a grifter who left a political career (former UK Deputy Prime Minister) to serve as Zucks lapdog, now says the most evil company is indeed 'evil' having actively created a hostile/anti-regulation culture & making millions doing it. cry me a fucking river www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Blacksky is an extremely impressive endeavor deserving of your attention

www.globalactionplan.org.uk/online-clima... - Such a fantastic resource and just staggering to see the amount of data centres planned on the map

“The non-binding deal could give OpenAI access to government data and lead to its software being used in education, defence, security and the justice system” www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

www.gov.uk/government/n... Beyond the massive security and accuracy risks here, I would be so interested to know which “frontier AI” labs are gonna be producing these…. Might have some guesses considering recent MOUs

Blacksky Personal Data Server is now the 4th largest server on the network.

"As AI overviews become the default gateway to information, we risk creating a generation of users who consume knowledge without question, publishers who cannot sustain quality journalism, and a public sphere increasingly shaped by the statistical patterns embedded in large language models." 👏👏👏

“Perhaps the hardest thing to change now will be breaking the instinct to ‘Google it,’” writes Dia Kayyali, in response to the degradation of the online information landscape. “We need to start asking where we can turn for communication that’s mediated as little as possible by technology.”

“How do you lose half your [audience] since April and expect to adapt? It’s impossible. We’ve had people who have lost 90% of their traffic in 12 months.” As the UK weighs whether to rein in Google’s search dominance, Manasa Narayanan reports on the stakes for independent news outlets.

Victoria Sgarro and Madhav Tipu Ramachandran argue that the current state of digital platforms is not only a consequence of market forces or technological limitations, but also of the philosophical assumptions that guide the design of these platforms.

resonates with what we're finding in forthcoming Ada research on transcription tools in social work. these tools are being rolled out without systematic evaluation, often with a singular theory of change -'productivity gains' - which risks obscuring other important impacts on work & care

“projects slated for closure are work on developing AI systems to detect online harms, producing AI tools that can help policymakers tackle issues such as inequality and affordability in the housing market and measuring the impact in health inequality of major policy decisions like lockdowns.”

I actually can’t

CONGRATULATIONS to @rudyfraser.com for migrating users to the Blacksky PDS! This is a momentous step forward for decentralization and data sovereignty for users of Bluesky/ATProto services. We'll be following suit in the near future and hope to learn from Blacksky's experience and leadership!

@rudyfraser.com is doing the damn thing right now. I hope people, especially builders, are watching and drawing inspiration. This is how you seize the means of our social media.

This was a really good look at how AI and Google's monopoly on search is basically killing off a lot of the news media. Google Zero - the point at which Google searches end up sending zero users to websites - is close. And what happens to news media then?

The opening sentences here are just mind-boggling

“The focus of this effort is not to gain a market advantage over competitors. It is to scale the adoption of artificial intelligence across the federal workforce” - embed reliance on/lock in

"... a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with 11 sources from the company and Israeli military intelligence reveals how Azure has been used by Unit 8200 to store this expansive archive of everyday Palestinian communications."

Japan: Regulator takes aim at app store – as in Europe www.heise.de/en/news/Japa... [reminder competitionwave.blogspot.com/2025/07/best... ]

NEW: Google dubbed an error from its healthcare AI model, Med-Gemini, a typo. Experts say it demonstrates the risks of AI in medicine. www.theverge.com/health/71804...

In the latest episode of her special podcast series Through To Thriving, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli dives into the nuances of the fight for platform accountability, the future of activism, and the contradictions around "woke AI" with Nora Benavidez of Free Press:

Be very careful with what you share with ChatGPT.

Glad this podcast is back and with such a vital episode

"achieving Net Zero remains a priority for the public. [...] Are data centres going to be backed if the taps in people’s homes run dry or if the UK’s already terrible record on water pollution gets even worse?"

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has released its provisional findings that both Google and Apple should be designated under its new competition law, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Megan Kirkwood. How far do proposed remedies go in correcting the concentration of market power?

Market investigation has recommended that the CMA use its digital markets powers to designate the 2 largest providers – Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) – with SMS in relation to their respective digital activities in cloud services.

Keir Starmer's Government is still refusing to explore whether it should stop using X, or use alternative platforms like Bluesky, despite Musk's site amplifying unfiltered hate and misinformation, and despite its in-house AI bot referring to itself as "Mecha-Hitler" bylinetimes.com/2025/07/31/k...

£15 million fund for AI hype research announced today. According to the AISI Chief Scientist, "AI alignment is one of the most urgent and under-resourced challenges of our time." Not, you know, climate change maybe?

Useful analysis from @megafreda.bsky.social on the recent wave of partnerships that UK government has struck with several (American) tech firms: www.techpolicy.press/uk-deepens-d...

Trump's AI Action Plan makes it crystal clear that they want to use AI as a tool of geostrategic dominance, locking in everyone else. Will Peter 'jangling keys admirer' Kyle continue to accept Google/OpenAI/whoever's offers of 'free AI support!!' with credulity? www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...