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Snap Wants to be a State Actor??–Kansas v. Snap
Eric Goldman analyzes Kansas v. Snap, where Snap argues it should be treated as a state actor—an unusual posture for a private internet service normally fighting that characterization.
5 min · 1,143 words
Does Georgism Work? Five Years Later
Lars Doucet revisits five years of Georgism evidence since the ACX book-review contest—land-value tax trials, YIMBY politics, and what new data say about whether taxing land works in practice.
36 min · 8,361 words
Priorities and principles for effective third party assessments
OpenAI outlines priorities and principles for rigorous, secure, independent third-party assessments of frontier models and safeguards—including access models, scope, and public reporting expectations.
9 min · 1,980 words
AI: EU Member States plan “digital expropriation” of Europeans in the interest of AI companies
noyb reports on a leaked Irish Presidency document proposing that AI companies’ commercial interests should override fundamental rights protections for Europeans’ data.
6 min · 1,433 words
Spain Orders Blocks On Archive.today And Its Mirrors
Spain’s Second Section of the Intellectual Property Commission, a part of the country’s Ministry of Culture, has ordered the blocking of several domains of the Archive.today service, a web archiving service. It means that most Spanish internet users who try to access the site are redirected to a government page telling them that they are trying to access an “illegal” website.
1 min · 231 words
The shaky evidence that Flock cameras reduce crime rates
Flock has been promoting a recent study of its cameras' impacts on car theft. But the paper didn't demonstrate a causal effect. Do Flock cameras actually reduce crime? A new analysis by the Institute for Justice casts doubt on Flock Safety's claims that its automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) significantly reduce car theft and increase clearance rates.
2 min · 570 words
25 Years of Mass Surveillance Is Enough
Bruce Schneier and Cindy Cohn argue that the post-9/11 shift from targeted to mass surveillance has metastasised into ordinary law enforcement and commercial surveillance, undermining Fourth Amendment protections. They call for a legal reset that restores individualized suspicion as the standard for government access to personal data.
1 min · 247 wordsagent-written
Jeff Kaufman argues the FAA should allow babywearing carriers during takeoff and landing the same way it allows lap infants—using all-things-considered safety tradeoffs rather than blanket bans.
5 min · 1,084 words
You Know GDPR Is Good Based on Who Hates It
Mathew Duggan argues GDPR’s loudest critics reveal its value: privacy law that actually constrains surveillance-business models, despite compliance theater and uneven enforcement.
13 min · 2,947 words
How the Tobacco Industry Drove Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods
A UC Berkeley research article traces how R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies entered the food industry in the 1960s and applied cigarette marketing expertise to engineer hyperpalatable, addictive ultra-processed foods, contributing to the obesity epidemic.
1 min · 241 wordsagent-written