In a new piece for our Reconstructing Free Expression series, @mikeananny.bsky.social writes about the “Media Industrial Complex”—our current media environment shaped and driven by powerful individuals—and how we can move towards a media environment in line with the public interest.

In the first Article, @aliciasn.bsky.social argues that the rise of artificial intelligence has triggered an "inter-regime doctrinal collapse" between privacy law and copyright law, enabling leading AI developers to exploit data acquisition and evade legal oversight.

Uh, no

"AI threatens to enclose what’s left of our threadbare epistemic commons — the bottom-level online communication where people still figure out what they think, together," @edwardongwesojr.com writes. www.thedriftmag.com/directing-th...

My colleague @ajdamico.bsky.social wrote about our approach to funding research.

This is amazing.

Social media is no longer social. Most of it is passive viewing of videos and pictures from people we've never met. But we're still studying social media like it's 2010. We've entered the post-social media era — and research needs to catch up. osf.io/preprints/so... preprint w/ Richard Rogers

Attention to local news has declined since 2016, mirroring trends in attention to national news and news in general. www.pewresearch.org/... #PewKnightInitative

About two-thirds of Americans say they at least sometimes get news from their local TV news station – down slightly from the 70% who said the same in 2018. www.pewresearch.org/... #PewKnightInitative

Why It’s Crucial We Understand How A.I. ‘Thinks’

The Trump admin’s rewriting of rules governing college accreditation “obliterates” autonomy & is is being described as “a cluster bomb being dropped on American higher education.”

India’s internet censorship is not a centralized “Great Firewall,” says Tech Policy Press Contributing Editor Amber Sinha. He discusses research that illuminates an opaque system where ISPs enforce blocking through practices such as DNS manipulation, producing often invisible restrictions to users.

Anthropic's Mythos model represents a dangerous new moment for cybersecurity. Experts tell me that hackers and nation states may catch up within months — and that the cat-and-mouse game between attacker and defender is about to become much more high-stakes www.platformer.news/anthropic-my...

@knightfoundation.org is currently accepting applications for the Knight Cities Challenge, a $5 million open call inviting individuals and organizations across its 26 communities to submit new, creative ideas for projects that can spark change and leave a lasting local impact.

Interesting data point on the discussion over "addictive feeds"

I wrote a lot about Bob Mueller across a lot of chapters of his career. I wanted to share two @wired.com pieces that I wrote about his defining life experiences—both a picture of an era of public service all but lost today: 1) His brave *voluntary* service in Vietnam: www.wired.com/story/robert...

Chicken soup for the soul (which is apparently still around)! is suing Anthropic for pirating copies of the book to train Claude. The number of AI copyright lawsuits is inching closer to 100 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I wrote about why @knightfoundation.org invested in @bsky.app: philanthropy can act when mission & opportunity align. We believe in @jay.bsky.team's vision for a better social web—& in ideas (like @masnick.com's) that grow out of the research ecosystem Knight has long supported. kf.org/kfbluesky

💆‍♂️

Crazy crazy story. Times of Israel reporter ( English language Israeli news site ) gets escalating death threats to change story that’s at center of big polymarket bet. www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-try...

REQVIESCAT IN PACE JVERGEN HABERMAS

🗯️ Can #middleware save social media? Join @noupside.bsky.social, @nadinefj.bsky.social, @lehogg.bsky.social, @daphnek.bsky.social, @ryanheadedsouth.bsky.social, @rreisman.bsky.social, @oliviersylvain.bsky.social, @ethanz.bsky.social, @ramyakrishnan.bsky.social to discuss. RSVP: bit.ly/3P3Uf6M

Heroes. Quite the effort and dedication on this one. Unfortunately, not an easily repeatable process for most researchers looking for access, but can hopefully inform lawmakers.

Quantum is bursting with promise that feels just out of reach—much like pre-generative AI. A breakthrough 'LLM moment' may soon arrive, write DLA Piper's Danny Tobey, Ashley Carr and Michael Atleson. What hopefully won't follow: the hyped product claims that plagued AI.

"When fluent speech without responsibility becomes normal...it changes what it means to be human," Deb Roy writes, weighing how AI might be training us to “accept words without ownership and meaning without accountability.” www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

“Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.”

had a death in the family and was almost completely off the internet for a few days & my observation is that there is too much happening too fast such that basic facts abt the world are difficult to ascertain unless you are mainlining info all the time & doing that seems to drive people insane

Writing earlier than we thought: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Teens in the US are much more likely to say AI will have a positive than negative effect on them personally over the next 20 years (36% vs. 15%). www.pewresearch.org/internet/202...

Human interaction is going to shift to discords and group chats, invite-only. The open web and social media are going to be left for the agents lurking amongst the ruins. Everything public will be Moltbook. It hasn’t fully hit BlueSky yet, but LinkedIn and X are just meaning-shaped comments by LLMs

The universe of critical, fundable research is much, much bigger than gen AI

This paper argues that the rush to study gen AI has led researchers to focus on the same topics and rely on the same methods. As a result, creativity is limited and the diversity of ideas needed to keep research flexible, strong, and innovative is being pushed aside. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS The Consequences of Abundant Intelligence

Today I'm helping to lead the first convening of the Reconstructing Free Expression project at @knightcolumbia.org. I'm excited to brainstorm with the other participants (including @genevievelakier.bsky.social, @jamalgreene.bsky.social & @ksabeelrahman.bsky.social). Preview here 👇

Such a great column by new @washingtonpost.com food dude — I hate a bossy restaurant www.washingtonpost.com/food/2026/02...

New: A comedian set up a fake ICE tip line as a joke. Then 100 calls flooded in: neighbors ratting on neighbors, a teacher reporting a kindergartener. Fans say the viral TikToks revealed deportation's "banality of evil." Conservatives say he should be in prison wapo.st/4kM4qbF

First contribution to @knightcolumbia.org’s new initiative on “Reconstructing Free Expression” is from @jamalgreene.bsky.social—and it is exceptionally insightful and worth reading. knightcolumbia.org/blog/free-ex...

Can we talk a bit about the terms “First Amendment absolutist” and “free speech absolutist,” and whether they have any agreed-upon meaning? I promise to try, to the utmost of my ability, to Be Respectful Of Other Opinions. /1

Discussing news is a key way Americans make sense of what is happening around them. At the same time, a growing share have stopped talking to certain people about political news.

“Monsters are something exceptional, an inverted miracle that comes out of nowhere with no real explanation” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Happy Valentine's Day?

@jkbjournalist.bsky.social making trouble with @postbaron.bsky.social at #kmf26 @knightfoundation.org

When I wrote Section 230 I did so knowing it would be critical for protecting free speech online. 30 years later and it’s one of the last things standing in the way of Republican censorship of the internet. Here’s to many more years of defending this vital safeguard of free speech.

From the bestskeeting author of the Bluesky-famous six-week Bad Bunny 101 comes this essential close reading of the halftime show! 🧵

I was really hoping that halftime show from a stellar Peurto Rican artist would have beem more political. Bad Bunny should have looked at the camera and said loudly in English "End the Jones Act Now"

Unpredictable Head-turning Majestic...