Turns out when you look at empirical evidence, the world looks different. Old joke: chemist, physicist and economist stranded on island with canned goods+ no can opener. Chemist: try to make acid, Physicist: heat to increase pressure, Economist: Assume a can opener.

The FTC’s New Settlement With Ad Agencies Still Misses the Point The FTC and a coalition of eight states reached settlements with three advertising agencies to resolve a complaint about whether the agencies had worked with third parties to anticompetitively boycott...

Advertisers avoiding placing ads next to harmful or misleading content isn’t “censorship” – it's capitalism at work. So why is the FTC treating it like a conspiracy? Read the latest from Policy Director @lisahmacpherson.bsky.social:

publicknowledge.org/the-ftcs-new...

Internet in Australia is rapidly becoming unusable without a VPN due to age verification. You need to verify your age to use some weather and calculator apps now. Scam apps and phishing sites are starting to realise they can just ask for your ID straight up and people will give it up. Insane shit.

And I write for enjoyment. Because I like writing (which as those who followed my blog career can tell you, was not fiction or poetry (although I like writing those too) but analysis and advocacy.

Will we ever have another independent FTC? Director of Government Affairs Sara Collins breaks down takeaways from the @commerce.senate.gov FTC Oversight Hearing.

Capture in real time — @cbsnews.com new boss hosting Trump's WH, correspondents in tow

Competition is essential for democracy — consolidation in the hands of Trump's allies is a threat to it

& why 2,000+ already signed our letter supporting AGs block it
blockthemerger.com/openletter

People kept assuming that since states and private plaintifs lost TMO/Sprint, they could not win against fed support for merger. But cases were radically different. I also think the general loss of presumption of regularity is hurting even antitrust.

Lesson from today's LiveNation verdict and the NXSTR/TGNA TRO -- states have teeth. Getting DoJ (and FCC) clearance isn't enough.
Also a fine demo of why state right of action and private right of action are not "redundant."

A really important piece... open protocols + agentic coding tools really opens up a ton of power for people to build social tools in their own interests...

Graphic with Public Knowledge logo and text that reads, "We're proud to support Local News Day. Local news is a public good but the market isn't delivering. This Local News Day we're calling for action."

Local news is a public good, but the market isn't producing enough of it. @haroldfeld.bsky.social has thoughts on what policymakers keep getting wrong – and what a real fix looks like.

publicknowledge.org/america-need... #LocalNewsDay

The Google Search Remedies Are Already Failing: How Weak Antitrust Relief Handed Google an AI Advantage Apple and Google recently announced a multiyear, $20 billion partnership to integrate Google’s Gemini technology into Apple's own AI features.

Read the latest from @publicknowledge.bsky.social intern Lydia Giannini on what this could mean for competition in the tech market:

publicknowledge.org/the-google-s...

Federal Judge Approves Trump Effort to Extract List of Jews From Penn The decision to allow the government to collect the names and phone numbers of Jewish people on campus could allow the government to pursue similar tactics elsewhere. • Listen • 3:32 min < 1 TODAY

As a Jewish historian who works at a university, I think it’s great that an administration committed to destroying “the internal globalist enemy” which is staffed by groyper antisemites is collecting lists of Jews. Can’t see any potential downside here at all.

Designing a New Digital Regulator | Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics (IDDP) | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences | The George Washington University IDDP and the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator hosted a day-long summit to discuss the need for an New Digital Regulator and open questions related to the design of the agency.

Informed by those discussions, today we are publishing a research agenda that outlines questions we believe still deserve additional research attention. Read at: iddp.gwu.edu/designing-new-digital-regulator-0

Carr Pushes for State, Local Authority to Combat Illegal Drone Drops at Prisons ATLANTA, GA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is leading a multistate effort to combat the alarming rise in drones that are illegally dropping contraband into prisons, including narcotics, weapons...

I actually think giving prisons the authority to track down and shoot drones entering prison facility airspace is a better idea than jamming cellphones. For one thing, drones smuggle in a lot more than cell phones. (BTW, this is not the FCC Carr. Its the GA AG Carr.)
law.georgia.gov/press-releas...

I continue my lonely campaign to make "it" a viable non-gendered pronoun referring to a single human beings. The only reason "it" did not refer to human beings was that we assumed human beings had 2 genders, therefore humans were "he," "she," "you" or "I" and anything not human was "it."

Here's @freepress.bsky.social statement on this important rebuke of Brendan Carr's attacks on free speech and freedom of the press, w/ @techfreedom.org, @publicknowledge.bsky.social, @eff.org, @penamerica.bsky.social, @knightcolumbia.org, @aclu.org & dozens more.

www.freepress.net/news/leading...

Public Knowledge Warns New FCC Order To Accelerate Phone System Upgrades May Jeopardize Service for Consumers, Disconnect Rural America Public Knowledge promotes freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works. We work to shape policy.

“Today’s Order puts people at risk." Read more in our statement from @haroldfeld.bsky.social:

The FCC's call center item is some serious weird sh*t.

But Catherine the Great was competent

I have discovered a new level of scared in that I cannot tell if DJT is deliberately lying or if he actually thinks he is negotiating with Iran.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr is weaponizing the “public interest” standard against viewpoints he dislikes. Such jawboning violates the First Amendment, due process, and the rule of law. 75+ civil society groups & free speech experts joined us in this coalition letter 🧵
techfreedom.org/fcc-threats-...

Okay but what if Trump was personally criticizing you as an official act in his capacity as president?

this is basically a big chunk of the work I've been doing in reporting form across years and wow, i've never seen anything more perfect from *that* very specific perspective: frame it, put it in a museum.

I've had this.

Google Wants To Hit Pause on Search Remedies. The Court Should Say “No.” Public Knowledge submitted an amicus brief recently opposing Google’s motion for a partial stay of the remedies in the search monopoly case.

Google requested that the court pause most of the remedies while it appeals the ruling — and last week, we filed an amicus brief urging the court to deny their motion. @bergmayer.net explains why in his latest:

Late last week, FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued what some are describing as a new veiled threat to the nation's broadcasters. @haroldfeld.bsky.social joined @thebradblog.bsky.social for a breakdown of what this could lead to:

bradblog.com?p=15648

Remember when Fox News and other conservative outlets went on the attack by accusing AOC of wanting to get rid of hamburgers?

I’m pretty sure I saw this movie. Also see Harlan Ellison “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.”

I can hardly wait to see how the NYT sanewashes this tomorrow!

FCC's New 'Threat' to Broadcasters; NPR Confirms DOJ's 'Missing' Trump 'Rape' Docs: Today's #BradCast

Guest: @haroldfeld.bsky.social of @publicknowledge.bsky.social; Also: Dem calls missing docs on 'rape' of 13-year old, 'largest cover-up in U.S. history'

FULL STORY, LISTEN: bradblog.com?p=15648