merry christmas, my gf got us a print sub to @theonion.com and gave it to me like this

The internet is revolutionary to free speech because it empowers individuals and citizens to route around censorship in all its forms—even a captured “free” press. This is why private platform governance; law on internet access or online content, and anonymity online will always matter.

Runaway supermassive black hole? Did not know this could be a thing. It’s moving at 2.2M mph and “is pushing forward a literal galaxy-sized ‘bow-shock’ of matter in front of it, while simultaneously dragging a 200,000 light-year-long tail behind it”. [space.com]

Mitt Romney: “I long opposed increasing the income level on which FICA employment taxes are applied (this year, the cap is $176,100). No longer; the consequences of the cliff have changed my mind.”

My second post about researchers’ rights to scrape data under DSA Article 40.12 is up! This is dense with legal arguments for researchers to use if they get sued. Or to show their lawyers before that. www.techpolicy.press/how-the-mean... verfassungsblog.de/dsa-fine-x-r...

Can crucial political conversations be friendly? CSPAN’s new show “Ceasefire” thinks so. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/0ZlT8v

@pewresearch.org: "Partisans differ sharply on which news sources they trust"

To grow its ad biz in China, Meta has relied on ad agency partners given the power to create special enforcement-protected ad accounts and share them with resellers. The system produces so much fraud that Meta internally calls China its top “scam exporting nation.” www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Yet another example of what happens if we allow LLMs to become a form of epistemic grounding for society.

Bleakest 2 paragraphs about (c), free speech, and what (whether) we actually want education to be I've seen in a while www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/u...

US policy on artificial intelligence is caught between flamboyant, fantastical claims and government leaders deferring to industry without the imagination to drive toward real societal progress, write Arati Prabhakar and Asad Ramzanali. There is a better way forward, they say.

NYU’s Center on Technology Policy has released its 2025 State Technology Policy Report.

The EU fined X for lying to users about blue checks, failing to disclose basic info about ads, and impeding researchers from studying publicly available info. "This is not about censorship," says @daphnek.bsky.social, who'd be the first to call it out if it were. www.techpolicy.press/the-eus-fine...

Florida #AIBillofRights meets the Blueprint for an #AIBillofRights 🤝 Safe and Effective Systems 🤝 Algorithmic Discrimination Protections 🤝 Data Privacy 🤝 Notice and Explanation bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ostp/ai-bill...

X isn’t being penalised for hosting lawful speech. It is being penalised for business practices that make fraud easier and transparency harder. In any other sector, a product that enables impersonation or conceals the identity of advertisers would be recalled.

(3)Preventing researchers to scrutinize what is going on on its platform. X imposed unnecessary barriers and rejected valid applications from eligible researchers. A platform that calls itself a champion of transparency shouldn’t be afraid of independent scrutiny. What is there to hide?

Today’s 120 million euro fine against X under the Digital Services Act (DSA) will be spun as a decision against “free speech.” It’s not. (1/7) #digitalservicesact #dsa #dsa ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Don't let anyone tell you that the Commission's DSA enforcement against X is about speech or censorship. That would, indeed, be interesting. But this is just the EU enforcing some normal, boring laws that would get bipartisan support in the U.S. (I bet similar bills *have* had that support.) 1/

This is truly a journey

More on young adults and their news habits:

Young adults are slightly more likely than the two oldest age groups to say they get news from AI chatbots (13%), but the share who get news this way is still relatively small compared with other digital platforms.

Young Americans are generally less likely than older Americans to get their news from traditional platforms, like television and radio. Instead, 93% say they at least sometimes get news from digital devices.

Get ready for the transatlantic battle over "free speech" to start in earnest.

This morning is oral argument at the Supreme Court in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment. Cox unfortunately isn't pressing this point but it is an enormously important First Amendment case involving online free speech. Here's the amicus brief I wrote: www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/s...

Hi everybody, It's Black Friday, a big day for us at The Onion, since we rely almost entirely on your memberships. Our goal for 2026? More print subscribers than the Washington Post. This is, somehow, feasible. So sign up! A year of print is $75 for the year today. Help us do a very funny thing.

we have to go back. to warn them.

It’s like that Golden Girls episode where Rose is jazzed about seeing Charles Nelson Reilly

I've given up on pointing this out, but it is 100% true. The list of "new discoveries" about platforms that I literally filed public affidavits about in 2010 or testified on live TV about in 2012 is... really long. We could skip a bunch of bullshit by looking at what is already public.

"State public utility commissions are emerging as indirect regulators of artificial intelligence, as the race to develop AI brings more energy-hungry data centers seeking commission approvals for energy infrastructure..."

This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.

OPPORTUNITY: @knightfoundation.org is looking for curious, motivated, civically-minded students or recent grads for our 10-week summer internship program.

So this ad revenue metric is indicative of such a fascinating and weird set of business decisions by Google to inexplicably kill of SEO-- and I honestly don't get how they think this is going to pay off for them in the long run. 🧵 1/

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

We recently concluded a special article series, “Seeing the Digital Sphere: The Case for Public Platform Data,” in collaboration with the Knight-Georgetown Institute, in which experts explored why access to public platform data is critical. Here’s a snapshot: (1/9)

Publicly available social media data may appear low-risk, but it raises complex privacy questions, writes Anna Lenhart. A new report, “Performing in Autonomy Theater: Perspectives of High Profile Figures,” explores this issue and outlines some ethical guidelines for researchers to follow.

Some inspiring words on cinema in the streaming era from the Pope. Yes, THAT Pope.

Do Republicans and Democrats trust the United States, EU, and China to regulate AI? 🔵🔴🤖 🧵👇 Full analysis here:

💡 A new KGI expert report lays out a framework to facilitate access to high-influence public platform data—“the narrow slice of public platform data that has the greatest impact on civic life due to its reach, source, or role in shaping what people see online.” kgi.georgetown.edu/research-and...

📣 Online platforms shape what we know, how we connect, and who gets heard, yet researcher access to public platform data is shrinking, while platforms monetize this data. Our new report "Better Access" offers a framework for accessing this critical data: kgi.georgetown.edu/research-and...

Meta's fraud problem: The social media giant projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by @Reuters show reut.rs/4qJTpdH

💡 A new KGI expert report lays out a framework to facilitate access to high-influence public platform data—“the narrow slice of public platform data that has the greatest impact on civic life due to its reach, source, or role in shaping what people see online.” kgi.georgetown.edu/research-and...

Rob Leathern and Rob Goldman, who both worked at Meta, are launching a new nonprofit that aims to bring transparency to an increasingly opaque, scam-filled social media ecosystem. www.wired.com/story/scam-a...

Anthony Hopkins recitant un fragment del poema The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock de T.S.Eliot, al programa del Stephen Colbert 😍

Many Americans say they often come across inaccurate news – and have a hard time knowing what’s true

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv. There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

American students are falling behind, and the most common explanations overlook the main problem, Idrees Kahloon argues.

mexico lindo

New copyright scenario: lawyers threaten researchers over cryptographic solution found in Smithsonian archive