Excellent interview. Featuring it in our newsletter this week!

hls.harvard.edu/today/transp...

“This project is designed to make it easier [for users] to understand what sites are doing with their data, and how out of sync their practices might be with other sites.” - @zittrain.bsky.social

It's a tool designed to help people search, compare, and better understand the data practices of tech platforms (with support from Frank McCourt and Project Liberty).

Most Americans don't feel in control of what social media companies collect about them.

Now there's a tool to do something about it:

The Applied Social Media Lab at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is launching a new tool to help people reclaim control.

"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow."

What are the implications of AI money in politics?

1️⃣ The AI industry is building political infrastructure for the long term.

2️⃣ A PAC on one side requires a PAC on the other.

3️⃣ The AI industry is shaping its own rules. It is both the subject and the author of its own regulation.

What does the public think? A sizable share of the American public is anxious about AI’s impact on both individuals and communities.

Our friends at Fathom published research recently on what Americans really want with AI governance.
framerusercontent.com/assets/Ej8W1...

Leading the Future opposes state-based regulation of the AI industry. It prefers a national regulatory framework focused on accelerating positive progress in AI and to “not allow for a patchwork of state regulations to slow us down."

Public First Action calls for “reasonable guardrails” on AI to protect the public against the technology’s biggest risks. They propose a balance between federal and state regulations.

AI is betting big on the 2026 midterms

Ads funded by the AI industry are starting to flood the 2026 midterm elections. Super PACs from two factions of the AI industry are pumping millions of dollars into 2026 primaries, backing and attacking candidates based on where they stand on AI regulation.

Is this a tipping point? The verdict that could change social media

19/ Thanks for reading! 🗽

This week’s newsletter on the potential impacts of Big Tech’s unprecedented courtroom defeat: tinyurl.com/y2zzmp2v

Join the fight to build a better internet: projectliberty.io

China’s open approach is reshaping the AI race

18/ China’s open-source approach to frontier models is reshaping the global AI race, allowing Chinese tech giants to scale up worldwide while the US sticks to a proprietary, closed-source approach. 📖

tinyurl.com/4se6pfa9

Bluesky leans into AI with Attie, an app for building custom feeds | TechCrunch Bluesky’s new app Attie uses AI to help people build custom feeds the open social networking protocol atproto.

17/ The Bluesky team launched Hattie, a standalone agentic AI assistant that lets users design their own social media algorithms – creating custom online feeds entirely via natural language prompts. 🦋

tinyurl.com/38wsznbw

Sora’s shutdown could be a reality check moment for AI video | TechCrunch Is this just normal corporate strategy, or are we about to see a broader pullback on AI-generated video?

16/ OpenAI suddenly shut down its flagship AI social media network Sora earlier this week as part of a broader internal refocus toward profitability and away from “side quests” as it gears up for its IPO. ▶️

tinyurl.com/3z3neuw8

Exclusive: Gottheimer presses Anthropic on source code leaks Gottheimer's letter highlights the growing pressure on AI companies from Washington as their tools become embedded in defense and intelligence operations.

15/ Rep. Josh Gottheimer demanded that Anthropic explain a massive leak of Claude Code’s source code, citing the company’s clash with the Pentagon as a major cause for concern around its models. 💾

tinyurl.com/jynj7hbx

Government requests for social media user data up 770 percent in past decade: Research The federal government’s requests for social media user data has dramatically spiked over the past decade, a new report found, revealing major technology platforms reported a 770 percent incr…

14/ A new report from privacy software builder Proton found a 770% spike in the federal government’s requests for personal user data from social media companies over the past decade. 👁️

tinyurl.com/39ub8eu5

Pupils in England are losing their thinking skills because of AI, survey suggests Two-thirds of secondary school teachers report a decline in core abilities such as writing and problem-solving

13/ A survey of teachers in England finds growing concern that students are leaning on AI tools so heavily that their thinking, writing, and problem-solving skills are clearly getting worse. 🧠

tinyurl.com/245ev82p

Perplexity's "Incognito Mode" is a "sham," lawsuit says Google, Meta, and Perplexity accused of sharing millions of chats to increase ad revenue.

12/ A lawsuit alleges that Perplexity AI's "incognito mode" doesn't actually protect user privacy and that the company has been quietly retaining search data it promised not to keep. 🥷

tinyurl.com/282hvjd8

11/ An essay arguing that the economic gains from AI are being captured almost entirely by its Big Tech owners, and that workers urgently need new frameworks to claim a share of the AI boom’s windfall. 🥧

tinyurl.com/mrst4c43

As more Americans adopt AI tools, fewer say they can trust the results | TechCrunch AI adoption is rising in the U.S., but trust remains low, with most Americans concerned about transparency, regulation, and the technology’s broader societal impact, according to a new Quinnipiac poll...

10/ A new poll finds that while AI adoption among Americans is growing, trust in model outputs is declining, a gap that suggests the technology is outpacing public confidence in its reliability and safety. 👎

tinyurl.com/3czude8w

Key nonprofit pitches tech giants to pay $100M each for AI safety effort California-based nonprofit Common Sense Media is asking top AI firms to help fund new safety assessments — and it’s offering companies input into the process, according to documents and people close t...

9/ A major child safety nonprofit is asking top AI companies and philanthropies to contribute $100 million to launch a new AI institute that would help steer frontier models under a technical advisory board. 🛟

tinyurl.com/44eksezc

How Europe's Digital Omnibus Could Gut Privacy Protections A “move fast and break things” mindset is entering EU digital regulation, write Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal and Chiara Casati.

8/ The EU's proposed Digital Omnibus regulation — a fast-tracked package of legislative changes — contains provisions that privacy advocates warn could quietly dismantle hard-won personal data protections. 🔒

tinyurl.com/3hznz8ex

Sen. Warren slams Trump administration for pressuring EU to relax tech regulations Sen. Warren said the Trump administration trade negotiations are focused on giving advantages to Trump's "tech billionaire friends."

7/ Sen. Elizabeth Warren is criticizing the Trump administration reported efforts to push European regulators to ease enforcement of tech regulation, calling it a giveaway to Silicon Valley at consumers’ expense. 📢

tinyurl.com/mtp32hzt

Scoop: New pro-AI PAC preps $100M midterm blitz to boost Trump's agenda The group has the blessing of tech mogul David Sacks.

6/ A new pro-Trump AI super PAC is gearing up to spend $100m+ in the 2026 midterms, backing candidates aligned with Big Tech’s preferred agenda and testing whether AI will be a defining electoral issue. 💰

tinyurl.com/3k8df42m

Amazon, Microsoft dodge UK cloud market dominance designations Both companies have made a range of commitments to the competition authority that address the fees customers pay to change between different providers.

5/ Meanwhile, the UK's top antitrust regulator decided not to designate Amazon and Microsoft as dominant cloud services providers — letting the hyperscalers off easy just as AI intensifies their power. ⚡

tinyurl.com/fz8xv46c

MP rejects Palantir’s claims that criticism of NHS England deal is ‘ideologically motivated’ Committee says it was appropriate for government to seek guidance on way out of £330m deal with US data company

4/ Opposition to Palantir’s growing array of lucrative contracts with the UK government is growing, with Parliament asking whether the firm’s control over public data systems is being adequately scrutinized. 💂

tinyurl.com/4rsp2za3

California to impose new AI regulations in defiance of Trump call Gavin Newsom signs order to prioritize public safety and rights as president seeks to prevent ‘cumbersome’ rules

3/ California is pressing ahead with its own AI regulatory agenda with a new proposal for public safety guardrails – putting it on a collision course with the Trump administration’s efforts to kill state AI laws. 🐻

tinyurl.com/mpakb5km

Meta’s Oversight Board warns that “Community Notes” aren’t a proper substitute for fact-checking globally. Duh. The quasi-independent board says that expanding Community Notes outside the US — where it launched in lieu of fact checkers in early 2025 — could “pose significant human rights risks and contribu...

2/ Meta's Oversight Board ruled that Community Notes are not a proper substitute for its fact-checking program, warning that expanding them globally could "pose significant human rights risks.” 📝

tinyurl.com/cz38rawr

Meta's bad week sparks Hill action Meta's court losses are adding urgency to lawmakers' push for legislation that could reshape how social media is designed.

1/ Back-to-back legal defeats for Meta in major child safety cases seem to finally be giving Congress the political urgency to act on kids' online safety legislation. 🦺

tinyurl.com/mdrx29b7