Becca Ricks

How the House Judiciary GOP Misread Europe's €120 million X Decision Dean Jackson and Berin Szóka assess the House Judiciary Republicans’ criticisms of the EU Commission’s fine against X under the Digital Services Act.

The House Judiciary GOP has made several claims about the EU's decision to fine Elon Musk's X €120 million under the Digital Services Act, arguing it reveals the censorious intent of the European Commission. Do the Republican's claims hold up? Not so much, say Dean Jackson and Berin Szóka.

Rumman Chowdhury: Why the Real AI Crisis Is Moral, Not Technical

"The field has glossed over the fact that our methods of evaluating these models are deeply unscientific and they are more driven by ideology and policy." Great interview with Rumman Chowdhury on AI governance: www.nosmallendeavor.com/rumman-chowd...

Verge headline: It doesn't matter if Alex Pretty had a gun by Sarah Jeong Photo by Steven Garcia depicts several masked law enforcement agents soaked in red light at night

"Why is it so normal for law enforcement — those who are supposed to be keepers of law and order — to kill Americans? And why is the only question at the end of the day how much their victims deserved to die?"

Read more from @sarahjeong.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/policy/86745...

Entropic Boredom How did the internet get this boring? And where is boredom leading us?

"Boredom feels like a trap not because it is a static experience, but because it is an all-encompassing way of being; a fog that dissipates attention and dissolves meaning." I liked this essay on boredom (and where it leads us) from @emptysetmagazine.bsky.social www.emptysetmag.com/articles/ent...

The Big AI State In analyzing major priorities of the Trump administration’s AI agenda, this policy brief finds that the US government is engaging in extraordinary levels of market intervention in order to bolster the...

A new brief from @brianjchen.bsky.social argues that this admin's AI strategy dumps "downside risks onto the American public while actively accelerating AI’s impact on workers, job quality, climate." Instead, we should "reclaim innovation as an essential public good." datasociety.net/library/the-...

Against Generative AI: Is Art the Last Refuge of Our Humanity? None of this is supposed to be easy. Not writing, not life, not love. Louise Glück’s debut, Firstborn, was published in 1968. One poem that didn’t make the cut was “The House on Marshland.” Glück s…

This piece opens with an anecdote about Louise Glück laboring over lines of a poem she rewrites for years, reminding us that artistic ego, "the stubborn belief that we—despite our cosmic insignificance—can create something original" is a bulwark against the ease of genAI. lithub.com/against-gene...

How Markdown took over the world - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Been working on this one for a while — it's a little bit of history of a key foundation of internet technology, and a little bit of an explainer about how people _actually_ invent things. This is the amazing (true!) story of how Markdown took over the world. www.anildash.com/2026/01/09/h...

North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit: State and Local Policy Interventions to Stop Rampant AI Data Center Expansion - AI Now Institute This policy toolkit is primarily geared toward stopping, slowing, and restricting rampant data center development in the US at the local and state level. Our approach recognizes the extractive relatio...

Great toolkit from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social on how to stop and restrict data center development. It’s helpfully organized into local and state policy recommendations: ainowinstitute.org/publications...

Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods 404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or t...

New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant

“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

When Story Loses the Plot | Los Angeles Review of Books Hannah H. Kim ponders the plotless narrative as a tool for meaning-making.

“Much of our storytelling today is individualized and limited in form—therapeutic, gamified…At other times, a prevailing mood of irony ridicules the very desire for narrative coherence.” Great @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social piece on the evolution of narrative forms: lareviewofbooks.org/article/when...

All the Lonely People Researchers Livia Garofalo and Briana Vecchione reflect on what studying AI chatbots reveals about emotional attachment to machines, the power of illusion, and the norms and expectations that define c...

Great piece by @livgar.bsky.social and @briana-v.bsky.social on their @datasociety.bsky.social research into our relationships with AI chatbots. The "auto-intimacy" of chatbot interactions suggests we use tech "to curate the conditions under which we can be honest." datasociety.net/points/all-t...

In Critical Condition – How To Stabilize Researcher Data Access? | TechPolicy.Press Mark Scott and LK Seiling discuss the struggle for researcher access to social media data and an alternative future where transparency is seen as a civic good.

Two years into Europe’s Digital Services Act, data access for researchers is on life support, write Mark Scott and LK Seiling. Yet an alternative future is possible—one built on openness, interoperability, and platforms that treat data access as a civic and scientific good.

Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

@tamigraph.bsky.social and I get to some mythbusting today about data centers and the supposed future they bring. Long story short: 😬

MACHINE YEARNING Sonja Drimmer critically examines art historians’ recent embrace of generative AI as a tool for humanities research.

“…what we are left with is a structure of feeling that is now a part of AI as an artifact, the aspirations pinned to its potentials, which are directing its adoption into spheres of intellectual inquiry where it may have little or even nothing to offer.” www.artforum.com/features/gen...

AI Generated Business: The Rise of AGI and the Rush to Find a Working Revenue Model By Brian Merchant In This Article Introduction OpenAI and the Generative AI Boom Silicon Valley Mythology, Distilled and Accelerated From “Safe AI” to AGI — and the Hype-Led Business Model Genesis Mar...

And while you’re at it - also read @bcmerchant.bsky.social's excellent AI Now report AI Generated Business, on how OpenAI has used narratives around AGI (front and center in this report) to inflate its business proposition: ainowinstitute.org/publications...

AI for good, with caveats: How a keynote speaker was censored during an international artificial intelligence summit Q&A with Abeba Birhane on how she was censored during the AI for good summit and how the industry can do better.

thebulletin.org/2025/07/ai-f...

Amazing group of AI auditing scholars and practitioners at the AI Accountability Lab @aial.ie, led by @abeba.bsky.social ✨

'They're Not Breathing': Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls Records of hundreds of emergency calls from ICE detention centers obtained by WIRED—including audio recordings—show a system inundated by life-threatening incidents, delayed treatment, and overcrowdin...

NEW: 911 audio and EMS records from ICE detention centers reveal a surge in medical emergencies — including staff sexual assaults, suicide attempts, and head injuries.

Records also show calls over severe pregnancy complications.

Free to read: www.wired.com/story/ice-de...

w/ @dell.bsky.social

The Proposed AI Moratorium Will Harm People with Disabilities. Here’s How. | TechPolicy.Press A proposed 10-year federal moratorium on state AI laws could expose people with disabilities to harm, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.

While existing disability rights statutes do provide some legal recourse against AI-enabled discrimination, state-level regulation remains a vital avenue for harm mitigation. The proposed federal moratorium on state AI laws threatens those very protections, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.

What actually happened at the Salt Lake City ‘No Kings’ shooting? One man is dead. Another is in jail—but not the one who fired his gun.

NEW: A protester was shot and killed at the Salt Lake City 'No Kings' march. A man is in police custody, booked on suspicion of murder—but not the one who fired the gun. From video, witnesses and interviews, @schotthappens.com and I tried to piece together what really happened Saturday.

Our report-

Most reporting on AI examines worst-case systems deployed under the guise of efficiency. But what would a good faith effort at Ethical AI look like? For two years, we’ve been looking over the shoulder of a city trying to do things differently.

Public Sector Triage of the Federal Government’s Data Hemorrhage | TechPolicy.Press Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer urge state and local governments to take action to protect the public amid a federal data-sharing crisis.

Federal data misuse is accelerating, but state and local governments can still act, argue Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer. “Before DHS, ICE, or others come knocking, governments should run, not walk! — through this triage checklist to protect the privacy of the most vulnerable.”

I'm biased, but this report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of AI in 2025.

It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.

A banner for the "Ideologies of Control: A Series on Tech Power and Democratic Crisis" series. The title "The Myth of AGI" is large, and followed by the Tech Policy Press and Data + Society logos. The quote from the article is below: The next time you see someone talk about the promise or threat of AGI, you should ask: What social or political problems are they interested in papering over, and how are they implicated in creating them or making them worse? By Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender

Today, as part of the @techpolicypress.bsky.social and @datasociety.bsky.social "Ideologies of Control: A Series on Tech Power and Democratic Crisis" series, @emilymbender.bsky.social and I write about the myth of AGI.

www.techpolicy.press/the-myth-of-...

Tech Power and the Crisis of Democracy | TechPolicy.Press Announcing a new series, Jacob Metcalf and Meg Young examine how a small group of tech billionaires is pushing an anti-democratic agenda.

"Actual reform is done carefully...Instead, AI appears to be understood within this administration as a highly effective tool for consolidating power..." Great piece by Jake Metcalf & Meg Young introducing a @techpolicypress.bsky.social series on technofacism: www.techpolicy.press/tech-power-a...

When it comes to Trump's brain drain, “the damage is already done” How the DOGE-triggered attack on government research left America in the dark.

I spent five weeks talking to federal workers about knowledge loss and brain drain across the federal government, and its implications, both right now and for decades to come. Their stories are frightening, but I think it's important to know what we're facing: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Happy to have a shared piece on trust in relationality in the new @datasociety.bsky.social Trust Issues Anthology! Read below 🪢