Tech Policy Press

Congress’ Child Safety Bills Sound Good. Families Suggest They Won't Work. Lawmakers risk advancing bills that may not be effective nor in line with what some parents and teens actually want, Michal Luria and Aliya Bhatia write.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee considers legislation aimed at protecting children online, it risks advancing bills that while well-intentioned may not be effective nor in line with what some parents and teens actually want, Aliya Bhatia and Michal Luria write.

People Have the Right to Refuse AI Britt Paris is the author of Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up, a new book published by the University of California Press.

You don’t have to participate in AI’s massive hype inflation, writes critical informatics scholar Britt S. Paris. You have a right to refuse the ‘inevitable’.

AI and the Future of Artistic Labor As AI enters the performing arts, the real risk isn’t job loss alone—it’s the hollowing of creative work and the exploitation of labor, argues James Paisley.

When discussing AI and the labor force, we fixate on one question: Will it replace workers? For the performing arts, that’s incomplete, argues James Paisley. The deeper risk isn’t just job loss, but the erosion of creative agency and the transformation of artists into executors of AI outputs.

If an Agent Extension Can Act as You, Marketplaces Need Minimum Duties Malicious AI agent extensions are already appearing in marketplaces. To prevent real harm, platforms need minimum standards, argues Kostakis Bouzoukas.

Malicious AI agent extensions are already appearing in public marketplaces. The real risk isn’t just malware—it’s missing accountability. If a marketplace doesn’t have minimum standards to protect users, “it is not ready to distribute extensions that operate at scale,” argues Kostakis Bouzouka.

What India’s Push for Global Digital Repositories Tells Us About Its Tech Diplomacy India’s push for global repositories promotes its tech leadership while avoiding taking positions in a polarized governance landscape, argues Arindrajit Basu.

Although India’s recent announcement of a global repository of AI use cases will enable it to project tech leadership in the Global South, it has used similar initiatives in the past to avoid firm ideological commitments on contested issues in global technology governance, argues Arindrajit Basu.

House GOP Moves Ahead with Kids Online Safety Package as Democrats Balk House Republicans forged ahead on a child online safety package over the vocal opposition of committee Democrats.

House Republicans on Thursday advanced a package aimed at expanding protections for children online over vocal opposition from Democratic lawmakers, who said the package had been weakened and could actually put more kids at risk, Cristiano Lima-Strong reports.

Americas First War in Age of LLMs Exposes Myth of AI Alignment The military is turning to tools that relieve the burden of conscience and function like a moral sedative, writes Eryk Salvaggio.

The Trump administration’s escalating campaign in Iran marks the beginning of America’s first war in the age of large language models. These events make clear that those who work on AI safety must confront the limits of so-called “alignment to human values,” writes Eryk Salvaggio.

How Researchers Won a Legal Fight to Access X's Data Under the DSA A Berlin court has delivered a consequential ruling, ordering X to grant Democracy Reporting International access to its publicly available data.

A Berlin court has ordered X to grant researchers API access under the Digital Services Act. Daniela Alvarado Rincón, Simone Ruf and Jürgen Bering explain how they won the case, and why it’s a major step for researcher data access.

Key Questions on the Role of Technology in the Expanding Middle East War Tech Policy Press asked experts working at the intersection of technology policy, security, and international affairs to share what they are watching.

The expanding war in Iran brought to the fore questions about the role of technology in armed conflict, including the controversial use of new artificial intelligence technologies. Tech Policy Press invited perspectives from experts on what they are watching for as the situation unfolds.

What the India AI Summit Leader's Declaration Means for the Future of the Digital Commons The summit produced symbolic commitments while changing nothing in the AI innovation paradigm, write Ramya Chandrasekhar and Renata Ávila.

Despite the platitudes in New Delhi, we are far from achieving the vision of shared global infrastructure that the AI Impact Summit Leader’s Declaration proposes, write Ramya Chandrasekhar and Renata Ávila. We must preserve democratic influence over the tools being deployed, they say.

Shareholder Control and the New Politics of Platform Regulation The TikTok deal in the US reveals a new era of tech oligarchy. Paddy Leerssen unpacks why platform ownership matters and how it can be held accountable.

For politically active billionaires and their allies in Washington, social media is becoming an instrument of political power, writes Paddy Leerssen. Broadly, a new regulatory paradigm for content moderation is emerging: the EU writes laws, the US buys shares.

Global Digital Policy Roundup: February 2026 Drawing from the Digital Policy Alert’s daily monitoring of G20 countries, the roundup summarizes the highlights in four core areas of digital policy.

Check out another installment of the Global Digital Policy Roundup for February 2026 from the experts at Digital Policy Alert. Maria Buza and Tommaso Giardini highlight tech policy developments in content moderation, artificial intelligence, competition, and data governance.

In this Tech Policy piece, I criticize how framings of Anthropic’s & OpenAI’s negotiations with the US’s DoW overindex on myopic interpretations of human oversight, papering over what should be the real target of our scrutiny: that generative AI algorithms are a flawed and inaccurate technology.

Will NSO’s US Lobbying Pay Off Under Trump? Now, with Friedman, a seasoned Trump insider, at its helm, NSO might finally achieve its long-awaited US comeback, writes Vas Panagiotopoulos.

NSO Group, creator of the notorious Pegasus spyware, has invested significant resources towards reversing Biden-era trade restrictions, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Vas Panagiotopoulos. Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, its new chairman, has pledged to help NSO make a US comeback.

How Big AI Developers are Skirting a Mandate for Training Data Transparency We need better visibility into what data AI developers are using to train their models, write Dick Blankvoort, Harshvardhan Pandit, and Maximilian Gahntz.

There is a battle raging over the lack of visibility into AI training data, write Dick Blankvoort, Harshvardhan Pandit, and Maximilian Gahntz. A neglected provision in the European Union’s AI Act may prove to be the biggest break in securing more transparency from AI developers to date.

February 2026 US Tech Policy Roundup A roundup of the most important US tech policy developments in the federal government, Congress, and beyond from Freedman Consulting and Tech Policy Press.

Catch up on what happened in US tech policy in February with a roundup from Freedman Consulting’s Rachel Lau and Shirley Frame, including coverage of the Department of Defense and Anthropic dispute, expanding use of AI by the federal government, and child safety-focused trials against Meta.

The Great Green AI Hoax Machine If AI companies want to claim they are helping solve the climate crisis, they should be required to show their math, writes Friends of the Earth's Michael Khoo.

“Nothing puts the ‘artificial’ in artificial intelligence more clearly than the claims that it’s good for energy and the environment,” writes Friends of the Earth's Michael Khoo.

Big Tech’s Affordability Fight is Finally Here Tech giants used the affordability of their services as a shield against scrutiny. In the AI era, that shield is breaking down, Issie Lapowsky reports.

The real cost of data centers for consumers is becoming a political sticking point. “Information may want to be free, but it turns out infrastructure is expensive, now more so than ever,” reports Issie Lapowsky.

House GOP Moves Ahead with Kids Online Safety Package as Democrats Balk House Republicans forged ahead on a child online safety package over the vocal opposition of committee Democrats.

House Republicans on Thursday advanced a package aimed at expanding protections for children online over vocal opposition from Democratic lawmakers, who said the package had been weakened and could actually put more kids at risk, Cristiano Lima-Strong reports.

I was asked by @techpolicypress.bsky.social‬
what I am watching for as a tech scholar in the ongoing war. Here is my take:

AI and the Future of Artistic Labor As AI enters the performing arts, the real risk isn’t job loss alone—it’s the hollowing of creative work and the exploitation of labor, argues James Paisley.

When discussing AI and the labor force, we fixate on one question: Will it replace workers? For the performing arts, that’s incomplete, argues James Paisley. The deeper risk isn’t just job loss, but the erosion of creative agency and the transformation of artists into executors of AI outputs.

People Have the Right to Refuse AI Britt Paris is the author of Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up, a new book published by the University of California Press.

You don’t have to participate in AI’s massive hype inflation, writes critical informatics scholar Britt S. Paris. You have a right to refuse the ‘inevitable’.

Key Questions on the Role of Technology in the Expanding Middle East War Tech Policy Press asked experts working at the intersection of technology policy, security, and international affairs to share what they are watching.

The expanding war in Iran brought to the fore questions about the role of technology in armed conflict, including the controversial use of new artificial intelligence technologies. Tech Policy Press invited perspectives from experts on what they are watching for as the situation unfolds.

Global Digital Policy Roundup: February 2026 Drawing from the Digital Policy Alert’s daily monitoring of G20 countries, the roundup summarizes the highlights in four core areas of digital policy.

Check out another installment of the Global Digital Policy Roundup for February 2026 from the experts at Digital Policy Alert. Maria Buza and Tommaso Giardini highlight tech policy developments in content moderation, artificial intelligence, competition, and data governance.

We Need to Disentangle Hype from AI and Quantum Computing Much like AI in its pre-generative stage, quantum is bursting with promise that feels just out of reach, write Danny Tobey, Ashley Carr, and Michael Atleson.

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.

Congress’ Child Safety Bills Sound Good. Families Suggest They Won't Work. Lawmakers risk advancing bills that may not be effective nor in line with what some parents and teens actually want, Michal Luria and Aliya Bhatia write.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee considers legislation aimed at protecting children online, it risks advancing bills that while well-intentioned may not be effective nor in line with what some parents and teens actually want, Aliya Bhatia and Michal Luria write.

Former Amazon Boss Takes Charge of UK Antitrust Strategy. What Does It Mean? UK sends “very positive” signal to Big Tech with appointment of new Competition and Markets Authority head Doug Gurr, experts say.

Despite investigative findings that Amazon and Microsoft dominate the UK’s cloud services market, former Amazon exec Doug Gurr was named the chair of the UK’s antitrust watchdog, reports Tech Policy Press fellow Jade-Ruyu Yan.

Will NSO’s US Lobbying Pay Off Under Trump? Now, with Friedman, a seasoned Trump insider, at its helm, NSO might finally achieve its long-awaited US comeback, writes Vas Panagiotopoulos.

“Never before has a spyware manufacturer invested such extensive resources or retained so many external advisers — lobbyists, lawyers, publicists, former diplomats and senior officials — to influence US democratic decision-making,” writes Tech Policy Press fellow Vas Panagiotopoulos.

Big Tech’s Affordability Fight is Finally Here Tech giants used the affordability of their services as a shield against scrutiny. In the AI era, that shield is breaking down, Issie Lapowsky reports.

Are tech executives beginning to see AI affordability as a political liability? President Trump’s new ratepayer pledge signals a notable shift in tone for industry, reports Issie Lapowsky.

Rethinking Sovereign AI as Strategy Swarnim Shrivastava says the pursuit of AI sovereignty poses a tough question for nations: how much control is economically and institutionally feasible?

“Sovereign AI is ultimately about governance capacity,” writes Swarnim Shrivastava. Most nations cannot afford to build their own AI stack, turning instead to open source models as a way to prioritize integration and governance over scale.