New in @techpolicypress.bsky.social, I reflect on the UN Scientific Panel on AI and the tension in the UN’s wider AI governance approach that critiques concentrations of AI power, while simultaneously promoting a vision of rapid AI adoption that risks reinforcing those same power concentrations.

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 2w ago

“The UN’s global AI governance discourse appears to simultaneously throttle the gas and brakes on AI, promoting global AI adoption while it warns about the serious risks it poses to society,” writes Bradley McNeil. Its "AI vision risks entrenching the very concentration it warns about," he writes.

Pleased to share my research article, published in Critical Policy Studies about the UN’s AI governance discourse. It shows how the UN advances a neoliberal economic development approach to global AI adoption that threatens to reinforce global reliance on Global North digital infrastructure.

Hegemony without hierarchy: how the United Nations Global Digital Compact discursively constructs global AI governance norms

The United Nations’ (UN) Global Digital Compact (GDC) is presented as a necessary response to a fragmented global AI governance landscape. Conducting a poststructuralist discourse analysis of UN po...

tandfonline.com

As Jake Tapper reports, Nexstar’s decision to cancel Kimmel must be seen in light of FCC chair Carr’s willingness to enable Nexstar’s purchase of rival Tegna. Taking a page out of Putins playbook, Trump will offer corporations monopolies in exchange for larger networks of loyalist to punish dissent.

Many thanks to @aoir.bsky.social & @zemki.bsky.social for the opportunity to share my research on the UN’s Global Digital Compact at the #AoIR2025Symposium. I discussed how its approach to data flows/AI governance reflects data colonialism and sidelines Global South calls for digital sovereignty.

“The world is now seeing Trump’s America for exactly what it is becoming: a rogue state led by an impulsive strongman disconnected from the rule of law and other constitutional American principles and values.” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/o...

Opinion | I Have Never Been More Afraid for My Country’s Future

Trump’s worldview is stuck in the 1970s, and his whole administration is a cruel farce.

nytimes.com

Republicans chanting "USA" in Congress reminds me of Padmé in Star Wars Ep. III: "So this is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause." But this is more than just Trumpism - it’s an act of political othering, casting those fighting for social programs like Medicaid as enemies of the state.

This is the first page of this morning’s edition of the Globe and Mail (arguably the English Canadian paper of record) I don’t remember seeing anything like this before

So would chapter 1 of the Trump’s handbook on the subversion of democracy be about the weaponization of misinformation?

Still processing how Meta justified its decision to end third-party fact checking so as not to be ‘out of touch with mainstream discourse’

"There is no gray area here — it’s plainly unconstitutional for presidents to deny news outlets access based on their word choices," @seth-stern.bsky.social told @washingtonpost.com. "But this type of case shouldn’t even need to go to the court of law."

Associated Press sues White House officials over press access ban

The wire service’s journalists have been banned from White House events since Feb. 11 over the organization’s use of the name Gulf of Mexico.

washingtonpost.com

Elon labelling his role in the WH as "tech support" highlights the 'growing pains' of Big Tech’s transition from covert political influence to a more overt, public infiltration of politics and its attempt to maintain the myth of tech neutrality.

As DOGE began infiltrating government agencies and targeting federal staff for termination, I started interviewing tech workers on the front lines. With the mass layoffs unfolding today, and with their permission, I'm sharing their stories. This is what it's been like to endure Musk's campaign.

The federal tech workers facing down DOGE

What it's like to be a federal worker during the dark days of Elon Musk's DOGE campaign

bloodinthemachine.com

If Meta is cancelling fact-checking, what's there to review? “Meta’s Oversight Board should resign en masse,” says Ben Wyskida, a spokesperson for the Real Facebook Oversight Board. www.fastcompany.com/91257773/wha...

What does Meta's Oversight Board even do?

Experts have criticized the watchdog’s response to Meta’s major overhaul of fact-checking. But was it ever a real check on power in the first place?

fastcompany.com

1. Forbes posted the unedited clip of Elon's defence of DOGE in the oval office. I can' get over how many comments are praising Forbes for not 'spinning a partisan narrative' against Elon, as if his own speech is a neutral/objective analysis of government bureaucracy.

BREAKING NEWS: President Trump & Elon Musk Take Multiple Questions From Reporters In The Oval Office

YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News

youtube.com

Time for the media to call it what it is... a coup. Excellent article by @carolecadwalla.bsky.social

IT IS A COUP

This is what should be on every front page in 150 point banner headlines. All I have is this Substack but I lay it beneath your feet and pray to a higher power that I'm wrong.

open.substack.com

The corporate-libertarian fantasy has always been to utterly dismantle government except for elements of the national security & carceral state, perhaps a few bare essentials, and whatever is conducive for oligarchs to continue accumulating yet more capital & wielding power over society & the earth.

So…is Trump the Emperor Palpatine and Musk the Darth Vader, or is it vice versa?

Have we seriously been asked to grant Musk grace and accept his fascist gesture? The same guy who used X to stoke and mobilize the far right, who spent 1/4 billion to shape the outcome of the US election, the shadow president who is now meddling in the democracies of the UK, Germany, and Canada..

A trans person didn’t deny your health insurance claim, a giant corporation did. An asylum seeker didn’t raise your rent, a billionaire’s private equity firm did. Our focus must be taking on the billionaires & corporate greed.

Why does Musk still value X? It’s economic value has plummeted, a considerable portion of users have fled to alternative platforms, he has alienated advertisers… It’s the political power he’s gained. Musk has used the platform as a tool to further his own economic and political agendas.

Musk Reinvented Platform Power. We Should Take Heed | TechPolicy.Press

João C. Magalhães says the creation of X and Musk’s radicalization exposed an unprecedented–but potentially replicable–politicization of platform power.

techpolicy.press