There are a lot of details in here about Zuck releasing a half-baked product, but one thing that really stands out is just how weird these folks are. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/t...

@chup.blakereid.org is spot on about the downsides of the Meta settlement and the bigger picture ideological and practical flaws of cyberlibertarianism.

Blake E. Reid@chup.blakereid.org · 4d ago

While IMO the Meta settlement is weak (and probably harmful) soft law, Kingsbury Commitment-style tea, I at least directionally agree with @morganweiland.bsky.social that the reflexive 1A critiques, especially the jawboning worries, are doctrinally (and politically) exhausting and unhelpful.

While IMO the Meta settlement is weak (and probably harmful) soft law, Kingsbury Commitment-style tea, I at least directionally agree with @morganweiland.bsky.social that the reflexive 1A critiques, especially the jawboning worries, are doctrinally (and politically) exhausting and unhelpful.

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 4d ago

Boston University's Morgan Weiland on why reflexively invoking the First Amendment against the Meta settlement is the wrong critique.

This is a very delightful piece from my new pal @quinnanya.me that is just worth reading in full if you're interested in copyright, creativity, and law

What do Spinning and the Law Have in Common? - Quinn Daedal

I was invited to speak on the closing panel for the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic's 25th anniversary. I sat at the front of the room with my tiny Electric Eel Wheel Nano spinning wh...

quinndaedal.com

Not a lot of investment in using euphemisms for the eugenic fantasies anymore.

Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman says the real AI arms race is about controlling your brain

Andrew Huberman says OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic will become biotech firms racing to read and alter the human brain.

businessinsider.com

Livetweeting the court hearing on ABC v FCC. ABC wants the court to stop the FCC's hearing on early renewal of ABC's licenses plus all other retaliation against ABC's speech in violation of the First Amendment. Threshold question is the court's jurisdiction: Must ABC wait for a final order to sue?

On the other hand: 1) The last major non-© tech legislation that Congress wrote *intentionally deregulated social media in advance*, except for... 2) ...a cosmically inept regulatory regime struck down in a 1A case that SCOTUS just ~overruled to uphold an *even more inept state law*

nilay patel@reckless.bsky.social · 6d ago

I keep getting told that we can't fail to regulate AI like we did social media and I keep asking about the First Amendment problems that meaningfully kept that from happening. I thought Schiff did try and engage on that here, which was nice. But also

On the Tech Policy Press podcast, editor Justin Hendrix talks with UNC Chapel Hill researchers Daniel Kreiss and Lorcan Neill about their new paper, "Militant Platform Democracy: A Framework for Democracy-Worthy Platform Policies." "Platforms have to proceed from an analysis of power," Kreiss says.

Why Social Media Platforms Should Adopt a 'Militant Democracy' Framework

Daniel Kreiss and Lorcan Neill on what social media platforms should do when the state itself becomes a threat to democracy.

techpolicy.press

Tangentially, one reason First Amendment jurisprudence for tech platforms is such a hot mess is that when confronted by an unpopular editorial decision, tech companies often shift into the passive voice (e.g., "temporarily restricted by our system"), making it sound like they're not even in charge.

Ann Monster Lipton@annmlipton.bsky.social · 2w ago

Oh. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

You can also see exactly when this happened by watching Congress’ relationship with the courts go from a sophisticated dialectic in tech policy cases (e.g., Turner I-II) straight into the toilet by the time the Internet takes off. Congress hasn’t passed comprehensive tech legislation since 1998.

Meredith Rose (from the grave) 👻@mrose.ink · 2w ago

So, fun fact: ever since 1994, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" campaign stunt, Congress has had a SERIOUS problem with subject-matter expertise and institutional memory. It's why Congress has such a deep and complicated relationship with lobbyists. 1/

Whatever you think doctrinally about the market substitution theory, it's a little tough to fault the rightsholders for pushing it when AI company execs are basically making it themselves

Jason Kint@kint.bsky.social · 3w ago

Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1

Part of the problem is that the law has many ways to deal with people doing bad things with computers for money but can’t operate on fairy tales that write the people out of the story and insist there’s no one capable of turning the computers off or operating them differently

Blake E. Reid@chup.blakereid.org · 3w ago

I thought I signed up to study technology law but I guess it’s eschatology now

I thought I signed up to study technology law but I guess it’s eschatology now

“A company like Meta can justify the development of this technology based on all of these assumptions that there must be a social good here,” Monteleone told me, in a moment when wins for disabled people are depressingly rare.

For @motherjones.com, I looked into how Meta could be using disabled people to promote its Meta glasses to the masses. As one expert told me, “companies have used accessibility...as a Trojan horse for a tool that poses significant privacy and security threats.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Is Meta using disabled people to promote its glasses?

AI glasses are a double-edged sword for disabled people, who face unique risks from surveillance.

motherjones.com

Sam Gregory analyzes Apple's new Reference Image feature on the iPhone 18 Pro — "a serious piece of engineering, and a genuine response to the epistemic crisis of AI" — and the unanswered questions it raises.

Will Apple’s ‘Reference Image’ Feature Help Defend Against AI Manipulation?

Apple’s Reference Image addresses some serious challenges raised by the epistemic crisis of AI and presents some unanswered questions, writes Sam Gregory.

techpolicy.press

Copyright has always been a conceptual wreck that has served to launder political power through policy fairy tales with terrible distributive consequences. It‘s kind of disappointing to see people forget that just because oligarchs and authoritarians now have some nominally pro-fair use fairy tales

In retrospect, maybe we should not have organized society around frictionless platforms with the engagement dials turned all the way up and run by detached billionaires who do not have their bad ideas and amateur philosophies tempered by law, money, or even ordinary interactions with other people

Note here how the "unitary executive" / "no independent agencies" Court is leaning on the fact that FCC Bureau staff, and not the FCC itself, issued the guidance doc, to deny jurisdiction, but crediting broadcasters' earlier compliance with the guidance as helping establish irreparable harm.

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · last mo.

#BREAKING: Over a dissent from Justice Jackson, #SCOTUS granted the National Republican Congressional Committee’s emergency application, seeking to allow it to take advantage of an FCC rule that requires TV stations to impose on candidates only the “lowest unit charge” for ad time as elections near:

#BREAKING: Over a dissent from Justice Jackson, #SCOTUS granted the National Republican Congressional Committee’s emergency application, seeking to allow it to take advantage of an FCC rule that requires TV stations to impose on candidates only the “lowest unit charge” for ad time as elections near:

Substance aside, pretty extraordinary to see the DOJ attack the credibility of the Register of Copyrights in a public filing like this (from the U.S. OpenAI copyright MDL).

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISN'T EVEN A COHERENT CONCEPT THAT TRADEMARKS ARE CAPABLE OF NOT BEING

Ed Timberlake@trademarksaremagic.bsky.social · last mo.

TRADEMARKS AREN'T "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY"

There have been leading indicators of political backlash in tech law/policy silos—e.g., copyright and AI—for years. But there's an elaborate permission structure in place for ignoring them.

Brian Merchant@bcmerchant.bsky.social · last mo.

The backlash to data centers, Flock, Meta glasses, and AI, is loud, animated, bipartisan, and wielding real power. It's the most popular and united political movement in the nation right now, and it's still growing. So of course Silicon Valley is in complete denial.

a big story of Big Tech over the last 20 years is that these companies had wildly lofty goals (connect the world, organize the world's information) and went about it recklessly and a number of them succeeded in ways that produced a slate of very concerning societal, political, & economic outcomes

Notorious RBMK@comraderobot.bsky.social · 2mo ago

bro shut the fuuuuuuck uuuuup

Happy to release (with Jerry Kang and @alanindc.bsky.social) Edition 9.0 of our Communications Law casebook. If you're reporting on or studying dense telecom topics like the fracas over broadcast TV licenses, this book is meant as a gentle, conceptual introduction to the field. (And it's free!)

While Cook/Slaughter demolish much of what's left of the foundations of modern administrative law, I think a remaining separation-of-powers red line sits at the door of Congress itself in the dispute over the leadership of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office. Initial reactions here...

Anthony Michael Kreis@anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This is the most transparently absurd set of twin decisions in Cook and Slaughter.

Another new piece: Jawbreaking and Counterboning, now out in @connlrev.bsky.social. It uses the FCC Chair's threats over Jimmy Kimmel to explore the role of corporate resistance to unlawful demands and the weird dynamics of making the First Amendment ~mandatory. 1/2 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Law and policy try to encompass a lot of different threat models but "mendacious children with bare-metal control over discourse and information flow and entrusted with the fate of the global economy" is a pretty tough one to handle

Elizabeth Lopatto@lopatto.bsky.social · 5mo ago

maybe I do not count as a professional but I did just spend a month in court hammering home home much OpenAI and xAI are run by mendacious children. saw a lot of other outlets covering it too...

Emerging from lurk to drop the final version of Separation of Copyright Powers, my new explainer on all the legal and historical puzzle boxes surrounding the administration's attempt to take over the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office. A quick summary... 1/ papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....