After reviewing January 2026’s (and all of 2025, 2024, 2023, …) performance I have decided to retire the phrase “happy new year” for good. Going to say “Meet new year, worse than old year” from next year because we already know.

Reading the news and wondering if Heckler's Veto was a country, what would it be called?

subplot to this is that while @mmasnick.bsky.social's post is up. The CNET article linked to as the source has been lost to linkrot.

How old are you?

Good times for big countries with poor records on rights domestically.

Wild how much executive discretion the american president seems to have. In this part of world, we at least had the decency to hollow out institutions over decades / or never build them out in the first place.

Recreated last year, and I’m afraid I’ve already set off a chain of events which suggests 2026 is going to 2026 harder than 2025 2025-ed. You’re welcome.

Waiting for go(od people of the silent majority to say “Not in my name”)dot, after looking at the news + my social media feed. But as the lyrics of Rocket Man go - "... and I think it's going to be a long, long time."

Between the Sanchar Saathi pre-installation + SIM binding orders by DoT, and reports that GoI is reviewing a telecom industry proposal to keep location tracking on mobile devices permanently enabled there is a lot to be concerned about. www.techpolicy.press/india-overst...

Caught in an endless loop of feeling i don’t have enough time to do the things I want/have/need to do, concluding the answer lies in waking up at 5 AM, failing to do that and then feeling like i don’t have enough time to do the things…

Never has been clear to me why we're any more deferential to politicians/bureaucrats (irrespective of perceived importance/seniority) than we would be to a neighbour (with whom there are no conflicts).

Curious to see how our public policy circles respond to INC’s voter fraud allegations in the coming days. Like if we aren’t able to ask for institutional accountability unequivocally at this stage (already years too late) why are we even here (claiming to be) doing whatever it is we’re doing.

"Conversations about 'internet sovereignty' should not mistakenly assume that the exercise of sovereign state power over corporations will necessarily translate into greater agency for its people...

Don’t internet things that don’t need interneting. Anyone know what happened to the “smart locks” that were affected? Were people locked in/out/both/neither?

Should have been called the summer i turned pretty melancholic, because what is this emotional rollercoaster.

It seems amazing and confounding to me that we’re collectively and willingly compounding the inscrutability of information retrieval, distribution and consumption mechanisms with more inscrutability of information generation mechanisms.

It is really not clear to me what GoI has done to earn this much trust on the question of AI governance. What explains this? www.pewresearch.org/...

I think this is extensible to other subjects and regions, and has so many implications for framing and public discourse. ourworldindata.org/d...

Too many of you are doing too many important stories that I cannot read/keep up with. No, don't slow down, keep at it. Thanks!

Really good conversation between @alanrozenshtein.com @jmiers230.bsky.social and @noupside.bsky.social. Esp. 40mins onwards where they really nerd out on the broader question of liability of generative ai speech. Flagging that I am a bit biased here, since ... www.lawfaremedia.org/article/scal...

We’re living in a self-fulfilling hawkcracy.

Bob Dylan… on geopolitics

Err… where i live, this very likely means linking a(n already) problematic government id, with very serious implications in an already prevalent system where the state has pretty actively been shutting down dissenting voices.

This is all pretty central to the Kimmel getting shitcanned story, but if you pluck pretty much any of the journalism about the Kimmel firing off the newswires, it's unlikely you'll find any of this mentioned, which itself is a pretty damning indictment of media consolidation

Someone once wondered whether there were downsides to the "professionalisation" of "policy" as a line of work. I think about that every day.

India’s courts and legislature are enabling, not restraining, the executive’s speech crackdown. Institutions meant as checks are turning into enablers, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Prateek Waghre (@prateekwaghre.com) . www.techpolicy.press/indias-court...

Dissociating by watching UK Reality TV, and Zoey and I are running around the house asking each other “july kit”.

Had a migraine. Made a peanut butter banana mug cake. Still have a migraine, but also have some mug cake. Average day.

Current state of things: - Politics too important to be left to politicians. - Justice too important to be left to justices. - Legislation too important to be left to legislators. What am i missing?

Wait, what?

"Hello world, some professional news." A couple of weeks ago I joined Tech Global Institute as Head of Programs and Partnerships. I've been watching the team do some stellar work and now glad to be able to contribute to it directly.

It constantly surprises me (though it probably shouldn’t) that on a number issues, but speech/censorship especially, people often try to corner the BJP/NDA from more conservative positions or a “what about this” angle — which is something i just can’t wrap my head around.

Any good sources/resources for tracking the fallout of the online safety act going into effect in the UK? Seeing some crazy screenshots.

American anticipatory obedience is leaving my country in the dust.

With the proposed misinformation bill, the Karnataka government will be choosing a coercive route through provisions that will effectively criminalize speech, writes Prateek Waghre.

“this shit is predictable and unacceptable” — need this on a T-shirt.

“Never deleting this app”

Before I watch anything involving a dog or cat.👇

Crowdsourcing request: zenodo.org/records/1557... I first created this list in 2015. I have been updating it since. I am sure there are far more than 30-odd works listed here. Please add to the list here: docs.google.com/document/d/1... If you want to be credited, DM or email me. #IBA #IBSA #TFGBV

How did I manage a blank post?

Lots of updates to Poster Beware, especially instances of people commenting on the India Pakistan conflict.

Lots of updates to Poster Beware, especially instances of people commenting on the India Pakistan conflict.

How have the deplatforming papers written between 2016 and 2021 held up? Anyone done a retrospective literature review? I would be very curious.

Bombast should invite skepticism but we do things in reverse here.

The way people have pivoted from social media to “ai” research over the last few years— one would think we’ve figured out/solved the rapid changes to communicative infrastructure over the last 2 decades.

This is wild, I will never understand why so many outlets (especially the big ones) don't consistently credit loudly and clearly. www.splinter.com/pla...

Interesting, though, at the price point, out of reach for many who probably need to read it (when it comes out).

Damn.

When did we become the sort of place where grieving individuals not wanting their loss to be used to fuel bigotry makes them targets of hate?