Tech Policy Press

> It’s clear there are forces pushing censorship in the continent of Europe.

I don't believe that the author Mike Masnick is denying the existence of pro-censorship forces within the EU, and Masnick has criticized the censorship aspects present in the DSA itself [1] (as distinguished from censorship relating to only specific interpretations and implementations of the DSA, as in Thierry Breton's case).

> Trying to claim there is “no EU Internet Censorship” is a blatant lie.

The claim was not that there is literally no EU internet censorship, but that the US federal government under the Trump administration has been claiming instances of EU internet censorship while thus far failing to identify any such instances even though the administration controlled which criteria its investigators used.

As I interpret it, the purpose of TFA is to point out that:

- The US federal government has been using instances of non-censorship as evidence of censorship (e.g. TFA cites [2], which cites [3]).

- The US federal government has censored speech in ways that the DSA could do but hasn't yet done, and the US justified its own censorship by pointing to supposedly-already-happening DSA censorship that hasn't happened.

- The EU "removed" Thierry Breton (actually, he resigned), the current US administration has yet to punish one of its own censors. (This argument is weak to the point of uselessness because Breton's resignation might be unrelated to his censorship, but it's an argument that…

> An easy way to solve for this is customization -- if no two users have the same "algorithm" powering their feed, it becomes hard for anyone to do this, because perhaps one user's algorithm filters out anything tagged with politics, or with a low Flesch–Kincaid score, or non-text posts, etc.

The problem, and where I strongly agree with the parent's statement that "I feel like social media has changed human behavior", is that the users themselves seek the engagement. Content creators want feedback about their content. You can codify that as "views", "likes", or whatever, but the whole problem here is fundamentally that most creators try and pursue strategies that increase whichever metric they are tracking to get value out of their posting.

I watched Bluesky grow up and become a "real network" and once Bluesky hit a certain scaling point it became the exact same as all the other supposed algorithmic-engagement optimized sites. Posters started posting snippy, sneery comments because it made the Like count go up.

> perhaps one user's algorithm filters out anything tagged with politics, or with a low Flesch–Kincaid score, or non-text posts, etc.

Zuck talked about how Threads specifically filtered out political content [1] and how that decision was reversed [2]. It turns out that users didn't like filtering out political content even though as most of us know, it tends to turn into dunking competitions online.

So I largely agree with what the parent said. The expectations…

Most of the people working on AI, and even those on the specific sub-domain of AI where Roko's basilisk was coined which isn't the majority of the field by a long shot, have been rolling their eyes at Roko's basilisk since the moment it was coined.

Even a brief moment of thought should reveal that, even if you think the scenario likely, there are an infinite number of potential equivalent basilisks and you'd need to pick the correct one.

I'm less worried about Roko's basilisk*, and rather more worried about the people who say this:

I think you have said in fact, and I'm gonna quote, development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity. End quote. You may have had in mind the effect on, on jobs, which is really my biggest nightmare in the long term.

- https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-senate-judiciary-subcommittee-hearing-on-oversight-of-ai/

Because this is clearly not taking the words themselves at face value; either you should dig in and say "so why should we allow it at all then?" or you should dismiss it as "I think you're making stuff up, why should we believe you about anything?", but not misread such a blunt statement.

(If you follow the link, Altman's response is… not one I find satisfying).

* despite the people who do take it seriously, as such personalities have always been around and seldom cause big issues by themselves; only if AI gets competent enough to help them do this do they…

I don't know what to tell you other than this is well-established [1][2][3][4].

Also, what exactly is a "well run utility"? IMHO all utilities should be municipality or state owned. All privatization does is transfer wealth from the government and the not-wealthy to the already-wealthy. I suspect you might not agree however.

There are caps on how much utilities can charge but they're allowed to absorb capex (eg by building new transmission lines to a new DC) and if the utility has to buy electricity on the spot market because of increased demand (as was the case with crypto mining in upstate New York), then that raises the per-kWh cost of electricity for everyone, which is great in a cost-plus model.

We've seen this exact thing with healthcare insurance premiums. By law, a certain percentage of premiums has to be spent on giving care. Sounds good, right? So how do you, as an insurance company get around that? You push for higher premiums because that same percentage of profit now means more money. And how do you increase healthcare spend to keep that percentage intact? By spending with providers you also own.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/

[2]: https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2025/09/29/what-will-data-centers-do-to-your-electric-bill/

[3]: https://www.techpolicy.press/how-your-utility-bills-are-subsidizing-power-hungry-ai/

[4]: https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/how-data-centers-are-driving-up-your

In a Supreme Court case the burden of proof is on the petitioner, and it's the duty of the Court to critically question that evidence and proof. See, for instance, comparable coverage on the Roe vs Wade case, where you will see similar grilling. [1] Something quite important is how the judges responded to the claims and the follow ups. For instance in the transcript [2] follow the dialogue from the quotes you gave versus the grilling of Prelogar, representing the government.

She was, at times, being overtly mocked with quotes from judges like, "That's your best argument is that the average American won't be able to figure out that the cat feed he's getting on TikTok could be manipulated, even though there's a disclosure saying it could be manipulated?" Prelogar in general found herself struggling to defend the claim that the attempted ban was based on data access and not content (which would be unconstitutional), why there were no alternatives if the claims were based solely on data access, and the implications for any other foreign company that has access to user data (which is basically all of them). TikTok was met with some tough questioning but generally responded competently.

[1] - https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/12/majority-of-court-appears-poised-to-uphold-mississippis-ban-on-most-abortions-after-15-weeks/

[2] - https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-us-supreme-court-oral-argument-on-tiktok/

Right, I pointed out the competition to show that the donors are suffering actual damages from the restructuring. I don't think any of the critics here seriously expect the PBC model to fulfill the nonprofit's stated mission in any case.

This is not just an issue for the change that OpenAI is contemplating right now, but also the capped for-profit change that happened years ago. If that's found to be improper, I'm curious if that entitles the donors to any kind of compensation.

ETA: looking into this, I found the following precedent (https://www.techpolicy.press/questioning-openais-nonprofit-status/).

> A historic precedent for this is when Blue Cross' at the time nonprofit health insurers converted into for-profit enterprises. California Blue Cross converted into what's now Anthem. They tried to put a small amount of money into a nonprofit purpose. The California Attorney General intervened and they ultimately paid out about $3 billion into ongoing significant health charitable foundations in California. That's a good model for what might happen here.

So my guess is there's no compensation for any of the donors, but OpenAI may in the end be forced to give some money to an open, nonprofit AI research lab (do these exist?). IANAL so that's a low-confidence guess.

Still, that makes me so queasy. I would never donate to a YC-backed nonprofit if this is how it can go, and I say that as a YC alum.