Join us today at 2.30 PM CET online for a conversation addressing the emerging regulatory framework of social media bans and age verification.
Mathias Vermeulen
@mathver.bsky.social
EU law and tech policy, mostly musings on content moderation, platform governance, privacy, AI. Now: Co-Founder & Director @awo.agency. Fellow at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Then: EU Parliament. UN. Mozilla. PhD in EU law.
This wild document is the basis for the State Department's decision to cancel the visas and green cards of tech researchers who study the social media platforms and of tech regulators who enforce privacy and transparency laws. Disclosed to us last night in @thecoalition.bsky.social v. Rubio.
Great to see @eurosky.social launch access to PDS accounts for AT Protocol hosted entirely on EU servers today. We were pleased to be able to support the initiative with legal advice on EU data/platform law in its early stages. www.euronews.com/next/2026/04... eurosky.tech
What you need to know about Europe's new social network Eurosky
A Netherlands-based initiative is offering European users a homegrown alternative to Big Tech's social media offerings.
euronews.com
It’s always interesting to see which subjects Meta will refuse to do content moderation on because “free speech,” and which content moderation the CEO will volunteer to do in advance to curry favor. In this case it was “naming a DOGE employee”
Hadas Gold@hadasgold.bsky.social · 4mo agoSome new exhibits just dropped in Musk v Altman trial including these texts with Mark Zuckerberg and Musk
Mistral CEO: AI companies should pay a content levy in Europe ft.trib.al/yNs1TET
Mistral CEO: AI companies should pay a content levy in Europe
A revenue-based charge would protect the livelihoods of copyright holders and bring legal certainty
ft.trib.al
“The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in Sweden at a recent board meeting moved to exclude Meta as a member of IAB Sweden. The board claimed during a meeting that Meta is not doing enough to prevent fraudulent ads.” www.mediapost.com/publications...
IAB Sweden Expels Meta: Warns Advertisers About Fraud, Brand Safety 03/13/2026
The Interactive Advertising Bureau in Sweden at a recent board meeting moved to exclude Meta as a member of IAB Sweden, claiming that Meta is not doing enough to prevent fraudulent ads. The move sets standards for other European bodies to demand higher advertising standards from major tech platforms, and highlights the need for increased protection against advertising scams.
mediapost.com
“The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda” - www.reuters.com/world/us-pla...
Exclusive: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere
The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propagan...
reuters.com
Today’s 120 million euro fine against X under the Digital Services Act (DSA) will be spun as a decision against “free speech.” It’s not. (1/7) #digitalservicesact #dsa #dsa ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
Commission fines X €120 million under the Digital Services Act
Today, the Commission has issued a fine of €120 million to X for breaching its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
ec.europa.eu
Translating the CJEU judgment in Amazon vs EC on art.40 DSA: (1) giving vetted researchers data isn’t a disproportionate privacy intrusion; (2) compliance may be costly but you can bear it; (3) if you have a better way to study systemic risks, we haven’t heard it. curia.europa.eu/juris/docume...
This is real news. Reporters, please report on it. ELEVEN former top FCC officials, Republican and Democratic, came together to condemn FCC Chairman Carr's abuses of power and efforts to suppress legal speech. It's not just Jimmy Kimmel. The FCC's jawboning and chill on legal speech is ongoing.
TechFreedom@techfreedom.org · 9mo agoGovernment has no business policing media for viewpoint bias or balance. The FCC must repeal its news distortion policy, urges a bipartisan group of 11 former FCC Chairs, Commissioners & other top officials in a petition we filed today with @protectdemocracy.org protectdemocracy.org/work/fcc-new...
Attention, freelance tech reporters: Omydiar Network has an open call for their Winter 2026 Reporters in Residence program. Deadline: November 15. $8,000 a month stipend and $2,000 travel budget (totaling $50,000). Good luck! job-boards.greenhouse.io/omidyarnetwo...
Reporters in Residence (Winter 2026)
Remote
job-boards.greenhouse.io
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show
Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, and it internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day, company documents show.
reuters.com
The biggest source for any DSA investigation into addictive design features might not be platforms' risk assessments, but the more than 6 million documents that are part of the pretrial discovery process in the US www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
‘Massive Legal Siege’ Against Social Media Companies Looms
Thousands of plaintiffs’ complaints, millions of pages of internal documents and transcripts of countless hours of depositions are about to land in US courtrooms, threatening the future of the biggest...
bloomberg.com
NIEUWS: AIVD en MIVD delen minder informatie met hun Amerikaanse partners. Dat zeggen de hoofden van de Nederlandse diensten in de Volkskrant. Peter Reesink (MIVD): ‘Dat we soms ook dingen niet meer vertellen, dat is waar.’ 1/5 www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/n...
Nederlandse diensten delen minder informatie met de VS: ‘Soms vertellen we dingen niet meer’
Het aantal dreigingen dat op Nederland afkomt is groot, zien de hoofden van de AIVD en de MIVD elke dag: niet alleen Russische agressie, maar ook de opmars van China als digitale macht en binnenlands ...
volkskrant.nl
The UK government must tackle resistance from those who want to return to a “mythical past” as it develops its plans for AI-led economic growth, the new UK junior minister for artificial intelligence said www.mlex.com/mlex/artific...
UK's AI must reflect heritage, reject 'mythical past,' junior minister says | MLex | Specialist news and analysis on legal risk and regulation
The UK government must tackle resistance from those who want to return to a “mythical past” as it develops its plans for AI-led economic growth, the new UK junior minister for artificial intelligence ...
mlex.com
They always start with free speech. It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Free speech? And they can use it to shut down anyone who criticises them, because it’s all “free speech” After “free speech” it’s “protecting women and girls” And then it’s whatever they actually wanted.
Henry Mance@henrymance.ft.com · 10mo agoThe right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage. Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech" www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...
Data compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy suggests at least 22,000 jobs were lost in the sector in the first six months of the year on.ft.com/4nBgdu4
‘Enormous fear’: Trump’s threats against George Soros chill US non-profits
Civil society groups funded by billionaire’s charitable foundation feel vulnerable to administration’s attacks
on.ft.com
Strong report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Freedom of Expression on "the paradigm shift" in the governance of social media platforms that has "alarming consequences for freedom of expression online". www.ohchr.org/en/documents...
A/80/341: Threats to freedom of expression online in turbulent times
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression focuses on a paradigm shift in the governance of social media platforms ...
ohchr.org
We're delighted to be ranked in this year's Legal 500 in 3 practice areas (Civil liberties & human rights, Data protection, and Administrative & public law) and as a 'Firm to Watch' in Artificial Intelligence. Thank you to all our clients and referees! 🎉 www.legal500.com/firms/234760...
Interesting development in the X vs. Mekic case in the Netherlands, which partly deals with "Guano Notes" - X’s internal system that tracks users’ reputation scores and labels them. Those scores can determine whether posts are blocked or accounts are hidden. Very little is know about the system(1/6)