Interesting thread on theories of change for (AI) tech accountability. My personal bugbear with the 'change it from the inside' aspiration is that it wholly under-accounts for the degree to which Big Tech internal governance structures are both abnormally underpowered and hierarchical

The House of Lords has been questioning the UK government on UK-EU regulatory alignment on online platform regulation (i.e. the Digital Services Act). Nothing ground-breaking in the response, save a signalling that the long-delayed EU : UK Digital Dialogue will happen in the near future.

The UK government has announced that Caroline Wilson, a career diplomat, will be the next UK Ambassador to the EU. She's previously held UK diplomatic postings in Moscow and Beijing - essential hardening for the negotiations on veterinary standards and visa-free travel for musicians 🙃

More than most subjects of lawmaking, online safety is an area where procedural legitimacy in the rulemaking process is essential because of what's at stake for rights, etc. In the long-run, the optics of this move could be as damaging for the online regulatory project as the substance of it.

As a benchmark of how newspaper values have fallen, this is slightly less in cash terms than was offered for it in 2004. Should be a bit over £1bn.

"On the internet, no one knows you're a <checks notes> regulator". www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

A new Ofcom investigation, this time into the provider of two online 'image board' services. The fact of not naming the service, and the nature of duties the provider is alleged to be non-compliant in respect of, implies another low reach, high risk service. www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

'X had outlined several grounds in its application for a stay, claiming that the continuation of [CnaM's] investigation would cause the platform serious and irreparable harm.' I have a long list of more pressing sources of 'serious and irreparable harm' facing X www.irishtimes.com/business/202...

The EU Commission's expert panel looking into whether to implement a social media ban for kids had its first meeting today. Recommendations to be finalised in summer. I wonder if they're allowed recommend to 'keep working with your existing tools'. digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/...

New Zealand is moving towards a comprehensive online safety regulatory framework, with a new parliamentary report setting out recommendations for government. Amongst them: ➡️DSA-style gradated content responsibility ➡️A new independent regulator, styled on the UK's Ofcom and IE's CnaM

The UK government comms zeitgeist that insists on framing every activity as 'world-leading' or 'world-beating' has now infiltrated the traditionally dry domain of public consultations. Is nothing sacred?

Six months ago, Labour conjured-up the slogan 'delivery, delivery, delivery' to describe its organising principle for government. The idea that it's too 'complicated' to simply implement and enforce a law that <checks notes> is already in force doesn't bode well for 'delivery' writ large.

We're witnessing an increasing intersection of the data protection and content regulation domains, and it's going to keep policy and compliance pros on their toes in 2026. I spoke to @techpolicypress.bsky.social about the latest example of this interplay. www.techpolicy.press/privacy-regu...

The lesson this morning in British politics is the same one that's been delivered in every electoral moment since the mid-2010s: Britons will keep voting for change until they see it.

⏰ Call for #tenders altert for public #discourse, #democracy, and #politicalscience researchers: There is a new EU pilot project on "Advancing Social Cohesion in the Face of Polarized Public Discourse" The project seeks to "produce concrete, actionable outcomes to better understand and address […]

This reminds me of a Brussels meeting, around the time of the EU Terrorist Content reg in 2017, wherein an EU staffer innocently suggested that it would be far easier to scrub the net of ISIS videos if Toyota was to simply exercise its IP rights over online imagery of its pick-up trucks.

Looking forward to joining this @brusselsprivacyhub.bsky.social webinar on the international regulatory horizon for protecting children online. We'll be looking at the intersection between online safety and data protection; global regulatory coherence; and of course, social media bans for children.

Have you been struggling to bring coherence to a set of diffuse, partially-formed ideas in your mind, and then you find something that elegantly brings it all together? This discussion has done just that for me. Fascinating listening on tech, deliberative democracy, and political imagination.

100% this. I am avid consumer of podcasts/newsletters on issue/interest specific topics, but when it comes to 'general' EN news and current affairs, the FT is my bedrock. It's doing a commendable job of resisting the media corrosion from news hypercycles and engagement-driven algorithms.

The notion of 'polycentric' oversight (wherein regulators are just one of several supervisory stakeholders) is baked into the EU's theory of change for Big Tech regulation. It's no wonder then that European NGOs and academics are in the MAGA crosshairs.

Impressive joint-statement by over 60 (!) intl data protection regulators re the harms that can arise from AI image-generating tools (apropos to nothing). Sets clear expectations for industry and signals a commitment to supervisory coordination across borders. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Yes to this. And worth noting that the Council of Europe (powered by @hutko.bsky.social) has developed an excellent set of draft recommendations on how to realise a more empowering online environment for children in line with FoE principles. They should be adopted and operationalised at haste.

This seemed inevitable. The value of public affairs advisory firms to corporate clients who want to remain discreet is their unapparent but real access to, and influence in, political circles. Like gov special advisors, they themselves should never be the story. bbc.com/news/articles/cjd9zx7zne2o

Another day, another Ofcom fine levelled at a long-tail porn website for failure to adhere to the UK's age assurance requirements. Probably too late to change Aylo's mind about website-level age assurance. ⤵️

I'm not sure it's yet properly appreciated outside Dublin that arguably the most dovish* Member State when it comes navigating the EU's geopolitical challenges with the US will be holding the EU Council presidency in the second half of this year.

While this Freedom[dot]Gov domain now shows a holding page—saying "reclaim your human right to free expression"—it also appears to be the same US government domain that was used for a 'Victory in Iraq' site more than two decades ago Archived version: web.archive.org/web/20040110...

When the access blocking provisions of the EU Digital Services Act and the UK Online Safety Act were being drafted, I doubt anyone anticipated that one of their early use cases might be vis-a-vis a .gov domain name. 2026 in tech policy continues to surpass itself 😶‍🌫️

The Snap CEO has penned an FT op-ed today setting out the case for why EU governments shouldn't follow the AU social media ban experiment. By its lack of introspection on the role of Big Tech in driving (and overcoming) the banning discourse, it won't win hearts and minds www.ft.com/content/45ed...

A stellar line-up to kick things off at the 2026 @dsaobservatory.bsky.social conference in Amsterdam, featuring @hutko.bsky.social, @rachelgriffin.bsky.social, @knightgtown.bsky.social, @cdteu.org, and Roberto Spano 👏

I'm not sure I could ever forgive this government if it allows the BBC World Service to die

'Generally, economies with higher levels of competition and with stronger enforcement of competition law, have higher levels of productivity, higher levels of growth, and higher levels of innovation'. Very much enjoyed this Law and Disorder episode on comp law open.spotify.com/episode/5CSM...

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

As an Irish person who lived through the Great Financial Crisis, I have an instinctive antipathy towards banks. But on the subject of online financial scams - for which banks are subject to duties to compensate customers - I feel genuine sympathy. They're effectively carrying the can for Big Tech.

UK regulator Ofcom has announced a new fine against a porn company for failure to adhere to the UK's age assurance rules. The company has been further fined for failure to respond to statutory requests for information. www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

The promise of prudential regulations like the DSA is that they hopefully serve as a catalyst for endogenous safety cultures to develop within firms. The nature of the sector and the risks means no alternative regulatory model is really sustainable. More evidence that this will be a slow burner.

This interview with @tom.sulston.net of Digital Rights AU gives a fascinating insight into the origins and implementation of the Australian social media ban. The origin context is unique to AU, but the implementation lessons have global relevance. www.interface-eu.org/events/socia...

An eye-catchingly forthright assessment of EU-US diplomatic relations from President Marcon in an FT interview today. The hawkish view has been in the room since the onset of Trump II, but post-Greenland, it is clearly in the ascendancy. www.ft.com/content/b5b2...

Last week the ES government made global headlines by announcing its intention to 'protect [children] from the digital wild west', via a social media ban. That the government has not yet acted to implement key regulatory responsibilities under the *existing* rulebook should give pause for thought.

With the obvious caveat that it's a different policy area and a different legal instrument, the fact that the EU Commission is finding more ease in floating interim measures as an enforcement tool in the competition space is worth noting by DSA enforcement watchers.

That this is a preliminary finding means we should temper expectations for any impending impact on how TikTok (and similar services) operates TikTok will surely challenge these findings, focusing on the evidentiary thresholds for harm and commensurability of its risk mitigation efforts.

Big news out of Brussels this morning, as the EU Commission finds TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act rulebook on the basis of addictive design. This is a big flex of the DSA's change potential with respect to online experience. ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Important reporting by @annasophiegross.bsky.social and the FT team confirming what many of us working on this had anticipated: US government 'internet freedom' funding will now being channelled to destabilise Europe's platform regulation rulebooks. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

It's encouraging to see the regulators of the EU, UK, and Australia deepening coordination of how they implement their respective platform accountability rulebooks. digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/comm...

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but amidst the more robust defending by the EU Commission of its rulebook in the face of US criticism, we're seeing the return of the descriptor for US tech uniquely associated with former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton. 'Too big to care'.

Tuned in late for this, but just in time to hear one of the star witnesses assert that 'speech is the greatest threat to the European Union'. And then something about the DMA and GDPR (?) being used to censor Americans. Vibes.

At a UN summit in 2015, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard on a hot mic imploring Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to do more to tackle anti-migrant hate speech on his platform in Germany (1/n)

Ahead of tomorrow's hearing, the US House Judiciary committee has dropped another of its reports on Europe's 'decade-long campaign to censor American speech'. From an initial skim-read, it appears similar in tone and deduction to the last committee report. judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

A helpful status update from UK regulator Ofcom on its investigation into the Grok/xAI nudification scandal. Two observations in thread ⤵️

It was a similarly-styled dawn raid arrest and conviction by German authorities of a local CompuServe executive in 1997 - for violating CSAM laws - that partly inspired the creation of EU intermediary liability protections in 2000 I doubt this incident will trigger a comparative policy response.

The US House Judiciary committee renews its overwrought inquisition into European tech regulation tomorrow. This is the first time I've seen the - quite obscure - EU regulations on supply chain due diligence thrown into the mix. I wonder who's been briefing grievances about those laws on the Hill 🤔