Two years ago, my colleagues and I were sued by Stephen Miller's America First Legal. The Hines v Stamos case — built atop a number of false allegations — was a central element of the "censorship industrial complex" myth. Today, that case was dismissed (by a Trump judge in LA). We won.

Tech leaders, scientists, policymakers, & advocates often call transparency a foundation of public trust and fair, effective regulation. Yesterday, @thecoalition.bsky.social took an important step to ensure that transparency laws actually work #FAccT2026 independenttechresearch.org/citr-members...

We, as a nation, are collectively missing a great opportunity to get RFK Jr to drink from the reflecting pool.

Highest declaring corporate sectors in our 2026 lobby league of those spending €1 million+ include: 1. 📱 Big Tech: €73 million 2. 💶 Banking & Finance: €67 million 3. 🏭 Energy: €52 million 4. 🧪 Chemicals & Agri-business: €47 million 5. 💼 Cross-sector: €33 million corporateeurope.org/en/2026/06/e...

Wanna learn how the new #DSA EU data access to platform works for you, even outside Europe? Join our #ICA26 Bluesky workshop on Sat June 6 at 9:00 am in CTICC1, Lev 1, 1.52 with @claesdevreese.bsky.social @dscheykopp.bsky.social @jolukito.bsky.social @kwelle.bsky.social Daniel Angus, Megan Brown

How significant is support in the European Parliament for efforts to undermine the Digital Services Act, and how does that support align with criticism from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress? Tech Policy Press contributing editor Dean Jackson collected public evidence.

A new lawsuit against White House visa restrictions could transform online safety research.

Proud of this one: At @techpolicypress.bsky.social, we created an interactive timeline of linkages between the Trump administration, the US tech sector, and the transatlantic far-right. You can view it here: www.techpolicy.press/charting-the...

In an op-ed for @inquirer.com , @thecoalition.bsky.social @geurkink.bsky.social explains what’s at stake because of a U.S. immigration policy targeting tech researchers who study misinformation and other harmful online content: www.inquirer.com/opinion/comm...

Not just lobbying! our new paper maps 27 mechanisms of regulatory capture used by Big AI + 11 narrative framings that rationalise capture. “Big AI’s Regulatory Capture: Mapping Industry Interference and Government Complicity” will be presented at #FAccT2026 next month arxiv.org/abs/2605.068... 1/

Courtney Radsch sends a dispatch from a DC federal hearing in Coalition for Independent Technology Research v. Rubio, the suit challenging Trump's visa restrictions on researchers who study online harms.

Working hand in glove with the tech bros, the Trump administration is working hard to silence all scientific research into the social and human harms that result from their manipulation of social media feeds. www.inquirer.com/opinion/comm...

In advance of this morning’s oral argument, here’s a great piece from @thecoalition.bsky.social’s @geurkink.bsky.social on the ways in which this policy is making us all dumber.

I’m in Washington today alongside other @thecoalition.bsky.social members for a hearing before Judge Boasberg in our case challenging the US gov’s hypocritical censorship campaign against people who make the internet safer for everyone. Read more about the case: www.inquirer.com/opinion/comm...

Marco Rubio is denying visas to tech researchers because free speech. (Seriously!) We sued over this idiotic and unconstitutional policy on behalf of @thecoalition.bsky.social, and tomorrow my colleague @carriedecell.bsky.social will argue the case before Judge Boasberg. www.npr.org/2026/03/09/n...

"The State Department is excluding tech researchers from the United States because of their constitutionally protected work, and this newly disclosed memo only underscores the unbounded scope and unconstitutionality of the policy" -- @carriedecell.bsky.social knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...

This wild document is the basis for the State Department's decision to cancel the visas and green cards of tech researchers who study the social media platforms and of tech regulators who enforce privacy and transparency laws. Disclosed to us last night in @thecoalition.bsky.social v. Rubio.

Revoking kids' visas because their parents criticized Elon Musk.

Surveillance is a one-way ratchet toward authoritarianism. Yes, even by private companies. Even when people “consent.” Even when the company gives you “free” stuff, or let you stand in a shorter line, or make your life more convenient somehow.

The only responsibility I feel right now, along with many others in Germany, is to keep bookmarking moments like this, so that people here don't turn around and tell the rest of the world "we had no idea what was happening". They know. Everyone knows. At best - at best - they don't want to see it.

The Trump administration is systematically trying to frame European regulations as censorship. They try to find evidence, they leak documents, they intimidate civl society, journalists and scholars. They are not finding anything. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Excellent coverage of the @thecoalition.bsky.social suit against the Trump administration over the misinfo/trust and safety visa ban: www.barrons.com/news/tech-re...

Great piece on why the crackdown on independent tech researchers is so dangerous and misguided, especially in the context of war

Recommended read from @courtneyr.bsky.social on the Coalition for Independent Technology Research lawsuit against the Trump administration for chilling speech and retaliating against researchers working in the public interest to study phenomena on tech platforms. (I am a member of the Coalition.)

Marco Rubio is confused about "censorship" and a lot of people inside and outside the United States are paying a high price for it. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...

This is a vitally important issue for the future of global Internet research—really, for all research. Delighted to see @knightcolumbia.org, @protectdemocracy.org, and @thecoalition.bsky.social taking on this fight.

ICYMI, @thecoalition.bsky.social @knightcolumbia.org & @protectdemocracy.org filed a new First Amendment lawsuit earlier today challenging the Trump admin's denial of visas to tech researchers, tech workers, fact-checkers. Here's a post explaining why we're suing. mailchi.mp/knightcolumb...

Researchers in the US live in "pervasive fear" of immigration enforcement. It has “chilling effects" on independent research and advocacy. Now the researchers are suing 💪🏽 www.npr.org/2026/03/09/n...

Excellent news: people are fighting back. The @knightcolumbia.org and @protectdemocracy.org (via @thecoalition.bsky.social) just sued the Trump administration for using visa revocations and deportation threats to silence researchers and academics. This is how you respond to abuse of power. 🧵

It's pathetic that the Trump administration thinks it can frame research, regulatory inquiry & content moderation by private companies as censorship. Yet here we are. Good lawsuit to defend free speech principles globally @knightcolumbia.org @protectdemocracy.org: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...

The Coalition for Independent Technology Research is standing up for free speech and against a government Censorship Policy that is threatening every American’s right to understand how technology impacts them, their children, and so much more. www.npr.org/2026/03/09/n...

We @thecoalition.bsky.social sued the US State Department today. The govt's Censorship Policy, which it is using to revoke and deny visas of technology researchers, students, fact-checkers and trust & safety workers, is clearly aimed at punishing those whose speech the government doesn't like.

It arrives in the middle of a solidarity action: we (3000 French academics) just published an op-Ed in @liberation.fr newspaper in solidarity with @standupforscience.bsky.social, highlighting how French academia faces very similar issues if less spectacularly.

"It's not a legal story, but a question of political attitude," Thierry Breton told the European Parliament yesterday. He said he’d spent years explaining the law to platform CEOs and US govt officials, that they understood it, and that their current posture was a deliberate political choice.

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41... We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance 1/

The biggest threats to journalism in this country, and to the possibility of an informed and empowered electorate, stem from the political economy of the media. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

really excellent assessment of House GOP claims about EU fine of X, showing just how seriously hollow the claims of censorship are. jordan & musk & friends overreach when they put out such patently tendentious reports, which could be boiled down to: don't you ever touch american platforms!

Interesting next step: @democracyreporting.bsky.social taking X to court again over researcher data access. (In Hungarian elections) @jakubjaraczewski.bsky.social www.politico.eu/article/hung...

hear that? it's the silence of Republican lawmakers who spent the last bunch of years pretending to be "First Amendment absolutists" when they got mad about specific content moderation decisions made by private platforms

The arrests of Lemon and Fort are intended to deter journalists from doing work we need them to do, and that the First Amendment was meant to protect. DOJ should drop these prosecutions or the courts should throw them out. knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...

CITR's @geurkink.bsky.social on @techpolicypress.bsky.social podcast breaking down why researchers need #BetterAccess to public platform data to better understand our digital information environment 🎟️ Sign up for the Better Access webinar next Weds January 28: kgi.georgetown.edu/events/bette...

The Trump admin's sanctions on researchers and regulators who work on content-moderation, fact-checking, and disinfo are part of an effort to protect the tech ecosystem that has allowed the the far right to flourish. Good piece from @davidakaye.bsky.social. www.techpolicy.press/the-trump-li...

It doesn’t fix things, but it really does bring me comfort to know how miserable some of the worst people are. Donald Trump tweeting over 200 times on Christmas. Billionaires fighting with strangers online during the holidays. Everything about Elon Musk

Four public-interest researchers have been barred from the US for holding tech companies accountable. When governments target researchers, journalists and watchdogs, it is an assault on free speech and we should call it out as such. Researchers are not censors. They are being censored. 1/3

The US has sanctioned European researchers and policymakers studying misinformation, framing independent inquiry as a free speech violation. The Trump admin's refusal to allow regulation of platforms is US tech policy by other means—now being enforced through sanctions. Scholars must pay attention.

NEW: last night, the US govt launched an assault on the ‘global censorship industrial complex’, aka European tech researchers/campaigners. It’s a deeply chilling move & speaks as to why we need international solidarity more than ever. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

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...

Per usual, @mmasnick.bsky.social offers astute analysis of the Bullshit Industrial Complex’s claims, this time regarding new H1B visa vetting policies. This sentence is 🌟: “This policy censors non-censors for not doing the thing that the White House and MAGA folks are actively doing every day.”

Very cool and important job for someone in NYC!

As a kid who used to love to sit up late in my rural county peering into the vastness of space, I find it almost physically painful to stare into the cluttered sky and find my gaze constantly interrupted by all of this disposable litter. This graph does not indicate progress to me.