I'm in Tech Policy Press today exploring the intersection of competition law and tech expertise. Who are tech experts? What do they know? And how might competition regulators use them best in an increasingly digital economy? www.techpolicy.press/who-are-tech... @techpolicypress.bsky.social

"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."

The Italian Competition Authority has imposed interim measures on Meta for tying its AI assistant into WhatsApp. An extremely welcome development! I wrote up an analysis in the Kluwer Competition Law Blog: legalblogs.wolterskluwer.com/competition-...

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

1/This week has seen a blitz of what looks like corruption sandals: Saudi development deals for US military tech, Pakistani payments to Trump insiders for tariff relief, Swiss gold bars for a trade deal. Far from a payoff, this is a reordering of internat'l system. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...

This is, of course, a fascinating thread from Kate asking why Google is effectively cannibalizing its own market for both digital ads on third party properties and search ads, by effectively taking away the incentive to click through to third party sites. I have a theory as to why they're doing it.

In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science. The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.

In 1850 the weight of all the world's wild mammals equalled the weight of humans and our livestock Today they are outweighed 1 to 20 Reconfiguring life on this planet to produce cheap meat and dairy www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Big story from Sky news. It is a mistake to think the DSA alone is going to fix this. This requires more, including and most particularly enforcement of GDPR Art 9 news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

"The authoritarian populists target Verfassungsblog not only for what it does, but also for what it is: an open space dedicated to the serious and systematic pursuit of truth."

The dark side of "computational antitrust" is when companies use AI to stymie competition law. It appears that tools to help them do so are emerging, as I wrote about in the Kluwer Competition Blog today. 1/n legalblogs.wolterskluwer.com/competition-...

📣THREAD: It’s surprising to me that so many people were surprised to learn that Signal runs partly on AWS (something we can do because we use encryption to make sure no one but you–not AWS, not Signal, not anyone–can access your comms). It’s also concerning. 1/

As the single most important news story this year, I can't wait to see the detailed and central coverage this will get in every media outlet we have

Doing things simpler may be a good idea. Deregulating may leave people behind and incentivise 27 different answers to replace the common one. www.ft.com/content/adba...

The biggest risk from generative AI isn't about super intelligence. The risk is it creating believable but fabricated realities, which will eat away at our ability to collectively discover what is true.

Code shouldn't be law - as @todddavi.es says, these platforms could just as easily have been coded differently - "No magic going on here" open.spotify.com/episode/7H8b...

Tech companies are potentially as dangerous to western economic security as China, and governments are struggling in the same way to balance the potential economic upsides with the threats.

I was delighted to appear on the Shaping Competition in the Digital Age podcast recently, speaking about some recent work on generative AI and competition law. The episode is here: open.spotify.com/episode/7H8b... The paper it mostly draws from is here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/...

Is it possible to have smartphones digitally sign photos/videos that they take? I can't think of a reason why not (although editing afterwards might be a bit tricky).

Running a private equity firm in 2025 be like...

As we warned in an @openmarkets.bsky.social report earlier this year, our dependence on a handful of US tech giants for essential cloud infrastructure isn’t just a competition problem, it’s a serious threat to national security & societal stability. How many more outages before we get the message?

As it happens, this is almost exactly the same as Nintendo’s annual revenue. Which seems like the right comparison- a successful producer of electronic toys. on.ft.com/4nMkP0B

Excellent essay! It rebuts Marxist pessimism about the anti-monopoly movement, highlights the importance of contesting Capital's control of economic production, and ties it all into the recent failures of the movement (particularly wrt. the recent anti-monopolisation case against Google).

Put differently...

Anyone who claims that Silicon Valley would be better with more humanities education has to grapple with the fact that Peter Thiel was a philosophy major.

Astonishing advance by the Greens, astonishing implosion of Labour. When will Starmer's government get the message that it is destroying its base with deeply unpopular, rightwing policies? By chasing Reform, it legitimises the far right while delegitimising itself.

I'm in ProMarket today arguing that the EU Commission has the legal and methodological tools to tackle excessive prices, but for primarily institutional reasons, hasn't been doing. www.promarket.org/2025/10/08/t... @promarket.bsky.social

2/"We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies." defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

My thread* on authoritarianism in the legal academy, and its origins. *These thoughts are my own and do not reflect the views of my current employer, who has already begun to accept precompliance.

I wish Peters Kyle and Mandelson had someone as smart and experienced as Tim Wu on their side when they were negotiating the "Tech Prosperity Deal" on.ft.com/47WmGLi

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

This was fantastic. We say “touch grass” like a curse on someone, when really the digital realm has become a place to separate us from the sensual (and I’d argue the emotional) connection we have with the world around us and those closest to us

Reform’s call to deport ALL people who legally make a life here - paying taxes, forming families, volunteering and even being elected - needs calling out. Contrary to Farage, ILR doesn’t = criminal. They ARE net contributors to our economy. An expensive, hateful & stupid plan.

This is not OK www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/how...

Today took place the #Carnival4David in London Full with radical optimism.

You'd think that the Brits would be better at spotting a colonial power when they see it.

March route for Wednesday’s Stop Trump demo. Rally in Parliament Square from 5pm to 7pm. Come after work to show your opposition to Trumpismo being imported into the UK by Reform

Prof. Fukuyama is on fire (also about antitrust & democracy in the last quarter).

There's been a shift towards support to the far right here and it's horrible to see. But this remains a vastly less racist/homophobic/anti-semitic country than it has been in the past. Which makes it all the odder that our politicians today seem more scared to make the argument.

This is a huge story. Don't let him get away with it. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Another aspect of the futility of the Commission's decision to postpone the Google AdTech fine: Member States can, and will, fine Big Tech under domestic law anyway.

Telling it like it is, and cutting through.

Ed Balls: the Greens taking votes from Labour helps the Tories @zackpolanski.bsky.social : "I want to see every Labour politician whose voted for a two child benefit cap, for disability cuts, for the ongoing genocide in Gaza to sell arms to them, I want to see them replaced" #GMB

It's only logical that a government which is trampling on the rule of law at home would also try to undermine it abroad. If US corporations refuse to comply with overseas laws then they should lose their market access, it's as simple as that.

The EU must use the anti coercion instrument now, or be humiliated. Europe must be free to enforce its own law on its own soil.

My full statement on the Gaza Famine :

This is such an insane statistic that it's hard to understand. 40% of what is shipped is fossil fuels -- not 40% of things are shipped *by* fossil fuels. 40% of *what is being carried* is the fossil fuels themselves.

My job as a professor is not to create a serviceable worker. My job is to help foster thoughtful citizens or community members. If that sounds fanciful it’s bc corporate interests have spent decades framing how we talk about education so they don’t take the heat for immiserating labor conditions.