Treating surveillance as an isolated privacy problem is the wrong frame, says UN Special Rapporteur Gina Romero, who argues digital monitoring is dismantling the trust, funding, and institutional memory that civil society depends on to function. www.techpolicy.press/the-quiet-er...

Sources: the Trump administration is pressing Meta to submit its AI models for voluntary review; Meta is the only major US AI developer without an agreement (New York Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

UC IT workers added 2,100 employees to their UPTE unit for a total of 8,400—the largest tech union in the US, writes Max Belasco, UPTE UCLA chapter co-chair. He details how months of bottom-up organizing got it done.

I remember the late Clay Christensen, the scholar of 'disruptive' innovation, making the point at a conference we hosted when I was at The Economist years ago that Meta (then Facebook) was, in fact, not a particularly innovative company. It is a follower, a buyer, a copier, often late and behind.

Over at @theverge.com, @seangon.bsky.social and I wrote about how billionaires hijacked a generational $42.5 billion program intended to dramatically improve internet access. Republicans stripped away all affordability and equity requirements, and are turning it into a slush fund.

Our latest report on political violence in the digital age is out! Thanks to my co-author @justinhendrix.bsky.social and to @justsecurity.org for featuring our work.👇

The United States is entering the midterm cycle with more serious online threats than ever—and fewer protections than in a decade. Yaël Eisenstat & I on what platforms can and must do to help mitigate violence. This piece accompanies a new report on the subject—which you can find linked in the post.

World Cup “features a sensor-fitted ball, real-time tracking, AI-assisted offside calls & AI assistant for each of the teams. Behind these innovations are data workers in countries including India, Cambodia, & the Philippines, who are essential for the many AI tools.” restofworld.org/2026/fifa-wo...

NEW: Insane screwup inside Meta. The company exposed worker keystroke data that was being used to train AI — making it potentially accessible to anyone at the company. The data included personnel and performance info, private convos, full transcriptions…imagine your coworkers seeing all of that.

An important piece by @jameeljaffer.bsky.social on the uncertain free speech rights of foreigners in the United States app.lrb.co.uk/2026/02/06/j...

Useful piece:

Treating all opposition to data centers as a national security threat is the wrong move, says Jordyn Abrams, who argues policymakers must address legitimate public grievances about AI—not just police them.

Can the state legally switch off an entire app under a law meant for blocking "specific information"? The Delhi High Court said yes. Amber Sinha, contributing editor at Tech Policy Press, unpacks why that reasoning should worry every platform in India. www.techpolicy.press/indias-teleg...

Many lessons to be taken from this new searchable database including: Todd Blanche's gross mismanagement of DOJ over this period Courts saying: 'presumption of regularity'/government good faith simply gone Courts: increasingly sanctioning DOJ attorneys⬇️ www.justsecurity.org/133928/immig... 1/🧵

Two years ago this month, local officials announced a deal to develop xAI's Colossus data center in South Memphis. The story has sprawled across state lines as the company expands amid legal disputes. I spoke to The Commercial Appeal's Neil Strebig about covering the details day to day.

Did DoD just admit in a court filing that it used xAI's Grok Gov Model to hit the girls' school on the first day of the Iran war? Based on some passages flagged by @rgoodlaw.bsky.social in DoD's recent filing in NAACP's case against X, it looks like it did 1/

"The question we should be asking here is: what do Musk and Vance and others hope to achieve by such obviously incendiary rhetoric? Perhaps the issues of shrinking resources — in housing, healthcare, policing and education — and the interests of the world’s richest man are connected after all."

Joseph Hoefer argues that the question hidden within the US government's move to block Anthropic's Fable and Mythos products isn't about the models or their capabilities. He writes that it's about which legal theory the US government uses to govern them and whether a precedent has now been set.

Ireland’s upcoming EU presidency highlights tensions between simplifying digital regulation and expanding protections on AI, data use, and child online safety, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Liz Carolan.

“.. A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/u...

Nature is healing.

Look at me; listen to me: It is exactly as structurally impossible to remove all "jailbreaks" (cleverly constructed workarounds) from a "generative AI" system as it is to prevent all "hallucinations" (instances of bullshit), and for exactly the same reasons.

AI didn't kill design—it exposed what design was always doing, argues Zach Deocadiz. He says AI makes more visible that the design process has long served company goals over users. Part of a student essay series with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Once again confirming my general rule for major NYC events- go early or don't go. Unbelievable- hope everyone has a blast!

Unable to make it to the Knicks parade in person? @wired.com has found an alternative for you: www.wired.com/story/how-to...

The US is already beholden to its AI firms in many ways, and Trump admin officials are scandalously entwined with private interests. This would just create more incentive for the government to absorb downside risks to Big Tech.

More fortifications.

Apart from the war, this is one of the more blatantly disgusting things we are doing abroad right now.

"It's just vibes-based regulation." I spoke to Alex Stamos about the White House yanking Anthropic's Fable with no written standard, no warning, and no obvious procedural path back. He compares it to grounding a jet without telling Boeing why. And, it's sending the wrong message abroad, he says.

As tech companies embrace AI — forcing workers to use it, using it to surveil them, or justify firing them because of it — more tech workers are organizing to fight back as they feel they are losing influence over decisions that affect their jobs, reports Tech Policy Press fellow Varsha Bansal.

"At some point, friends of liberal democracy throughout the advanced democracies—including future liberal governments—will simply have to come together in a concerted and deliberate way to constrain Musk and all he’s unleashing."

The transgender individual erased by training data, the Kenyan worker moderating that data for $2 an hour, and the Black neighborhood choking on emissions required to process the data are all linked, writes Amaia Aguilar. They are all victims of old harms delivered through new technologies.

Elon Musk's incitement of pogroms in Belfast reveals he'll use his immense wealth and influence to foment untold fascist violence in the future. Only a global movement can break his power. New piece from @polphilpod.bsky.social and me. Threading highlights below. 1/ newrepublic.com/article/2119...

Personalized pricing, algorithmic pricing, surveillance pricing are all related yet somewhat different like overlapping circles on a Venn diagram. Airlines use algorithmic pricing. Higher Ed has personalized pricing. What makes some pricing ok and other types not is a complicated issue.

"Experience from tobacco, opioids, gambling, and broader consumer product safety litigation demonstrates that durable and meaningful reform in how companies do business typically rely on both $$$ damages and injunctive relief—in this case, ordering a social media company to change their platform..."

"The marketing agency behind New Mexico’s award-winning Medicaid re-enrollment social media campaign is recruiting influencers to promote Project Jupiter, the controversial artificial intelligence data center under construction in Doña Ana County."

I’m in @foreignpolicy.com taking a big swing (but not a hot take): Trump’s defeat in Iran is a bigger US defeat in strategic terms than the US loss in Vietnam foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/16/i...

Just hours after Brazil expanded platform liability rules, 26 legislative decrees were filed to block them — most from Bolsonaro's party, many word-for-word identical. Tech Policy Press fellow Tatiana Dias on the coordinated counteroffensive.

AI companies exploit legal gray areas to cause familiar harms through new mechanisms while evading existing legal protections, writes Amaia Aguilar. This post is part of a series of student essays produced in collaboration with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Just hours after Brazil expanded platform liability rules, 26 legislative decrees were filed to block them — most from Bolsonaro's party, many word-for-word identical. Tech Policy Press fellow Tatiana Dias on the coordinated counteroffensive. www.techpolicy.press/big-techs-pr...

This is really worrying.

"Uber and Lyft ... routinely charge different customers significantly different prices for the same rides, a monthslong Consumer Reports investigation has found. Across the routes we tested, the median difference between the lowest and highest price groupings was about 50 percent."

"While developers lamented the loss on online forums and Wall Street tried to assess the impact it may have on Anthropic’s upcoming IPO, the bigger picture was lost in the noise: Washington has just done more to boost the appeal of Chinese AI models than Beijing could have ever hoped."

Google calls it the biggest Search overhaul in 25+ years. AI Mode now has 1B+ monthly users—many defaulted in. Elise Silva asks what this shift means not just for competitors, but for billions of users, our shared information environment, and democracy.

The UK's push to ban social media for teens is gathering pace, but critics say key questions about privacy, enforcement, and effectiveness remain unanswered, reports Jade-Ruyu Yan.

"Ties." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Indigenous creators have had to tone down posts, going from documenting systemic prejudice and institutional burdens to posting about local cuisine, to avoid takedowns and account bans on YouTube restofworld.org/2024/youtube...

In partnership with the AI Now Institute, a new series on Tech Policy Press examines the dependencies embedded in Europe's application-layer AI market and why they make sovereignty harder to achieve than policymakers assume. This weekend's Anthropic news underscores the importance:

relevant for my analytical community amidst this dizzying story

On June 4, Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) released a 269-page bipartisan discussion draft of a bill called the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026. Rep. Trahan joined the Tech Policy Press podcast to discuss it, and to invite feedback.