The image shows OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sitting in a dimly lit conference environment, illuminated by soft blue lighting that creates a shadowy, mysterious ambiance. He is dressed in a dark suit with a light-colored shirt, and they are gesturing with one hand as if making a point or addressing an audience. 

Less Apocalyptic Rhetoric Can Help Mitigate Anti-Tech Violence

The Supreme Court’s Decision in Trump v. Slaughter is Misguided, But Changes Little

Capitol Building, Montgomery, Alabama. Photo from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive collection at the Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons.

Capitol Building, Montgomery, Alabama. Photo from the 

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Southampton, UK—June 2, 2026: Riot police push forward with shields as violent clashes erupt as protesters gather to express their anger at the murder of Henry Nowak. (Photo by Christopher Walls / Sipa via AP Images)

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Photo by Zackary Drucker and Alyza Enriquez, 

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The U.S. Supreme Court is seen Monday, June 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Who’s Regulating Police Technology? It’s Not the Courts.

The image is a very detailed, black-and-white sketch-like illustration featuring a complex scene of interconnected figures and technology. The artwork portrays various individuals in different environments to represent the relationship between technology and humans. 

In the foreground, multiple people are surrounded by computer screens filled with data visualizations, charts, and technical information. A woman seated in an armchair appears deep in thought, surrounded by data-filled monitors. Beside her, a man leans over, using a tablet to assist with their inspection of a plant or tree. In the centre, a figure holds a large frame or screen displaying anatomical illustrations, representing the use of AI to analyse medical imagery. To the left, another person is intently observing a computer screen, while a second figure nearby is deeply immersed in analysing data. A woman dominates the right side of the composition, gazing upwards as if in contemplation or envisioning something beyond the immediate scene. The background features more people, including a family holding hands, and other abstract representations of data.

AI is Everywhere by Ariyana Ahmad & The Bigger Picture / 

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Protesters against the Trump administration gather in front of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 5, 2025. (The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images )

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A sign opposed to data centers is held during a protest against AI data centers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Saturday, June 27, 2026. (Ethan Cairns/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20 High-Level Event 2025 by “WSIS” by UN Geneva, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20 High-Level Event 2025 by “

As the UN Launches its Global Dialogue on AI Governance, WSIS Offers Critical Lessons

America 250 rally on the National Mall for the Great American State Fair. Wednesday June 24, 2026. (Official White House photo by Patrick B. Ruddy)

America 250 rally on the National Mall for the Great American State Fair. Wednesday June 24, 2026. (Official White House 

June 2026 US Tech Policy Roundup

An electoral official sits at a polling station before polls opened for the presidential runoff election in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

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Members of the UN Scientific Panel on AI. Source

Members of the UN Scientific Panel on AI. 

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The Supreme Court is seen Tuesday, June 30, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Supreme Court Decimates Key Remedies for Tech Complicity in Human Rights Abuse

Social media logos are displayed on a smartphone alongside an under-16 age-restriction symbol in this photo illustration, as governments around the world introduce or consider bans and stricter age-verification rules to limit minors' access to social media platforms. (Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via AP)


Can Regulators Actually Deliver a Presumptive Teen Social Media Ban?

The UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance Should Tackle the AI Language Gap

Hand holding a smartphone displaying the Anthropic "AI" logo, against a colorful collage background with illustrated icons including a code speech bubble, tangled scribble, geometric shapes, megaphone, and DNA helix.

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United Nations Office Geneva located in the Palais des Nations building in Switzerland. Shutterstock

United Nations Office Geneva located in the Palais des Nations building in Switzerland. 

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Broken Chair or Chaise Cassee is a wooden sculpture by the Swiss artist Daniel Berset and Louis Geneve outside the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Shutterstock

 is a wooden sculpture by the Swiss artist Daniel Berset and Louis Geneve outside the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. 

In Geneva, the World Can Anchor AI Governance in Free Expression

A series of tech industry luminaries flash across the screen, the subtitles spelling out statements like “I know people who work on AI risk who don’t expect their children to make it to high school,” “Am I confident that it’ll go right? Absolutely not,” and “This is the last mistake [humanity] will ever get to make.”

 titled “The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist,” which describes the possibilities—and potential disasters—that artificial intelligence (AI) might introduce to the world.

The rhetoric around AI often paints an apocalyptic picture. Hysterical or not, this rhetoric may be worsening a real trend of political violence motivated by opposition to the tech industry advances or industrial society as a whole.

Apocalypticism is not unusual in the American psyche; a 2022 poll found that nearly 

 of all Americans believed “we are living in the end times.” The perception of a looming apocalypse can encourage a higher tolerance for risk, in turn 

 greater support for and willingness to commit extreme actions in order to address perceived threats.

While apocalyptic thinking has often stemmed from theological beliefs, doomsday perceptions have also surrounded conversations on AI—and industry leaders have often been at the head of creating these apocalyptic narratives.

In a recent blog post, Anthropic called for 

 of AI globally, to avoid “humans losing control over AI systems.” In 2025, tech investor and Palantir founder Peter Thiel gave a series of lectures in San Francisco in which he 

the coming of a luddite antichrist and potential Armageddon. Similarly, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 

 at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that his “worst fears” revolve around the technology industry “caus[ing] significant harm to the world” and warning that “if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.” Elon Musk, leader of Tesla and SpaceX, has also made loud statements about apocalyptic AI risks, 

 the claim that AI is a “fundamental existential risk for human civilization.” These are the leaders of the technology, sharing their worries about the risks it could pose.

While it is healthy for companies to be transparent about risks, the use of doomerism in language from top-level executives leads to an understandable concern for the average citizen. Whether the warnings are genuine or credible, using apocalyptic rhetoric about the future with AI should be backed by careful development and deployment so as to not stoke public concerns. However, the industry continues to be in an unending cycle of innovation, whereby caution is not possible given the marketplace competition.

Fear of the end times can cause people to take actions that they might not otherwise. Indeed, Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, began his infamous 

 with “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” An inspiration to many anti-tech extremists, Kaczynski justified his nearly 20-year bombing campaign by the need to destroy modern technology that props up society in order to avoid its eventual disaster for humanity.

Now, concerns about AI are leading a select few to resort to violence. In April, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s San Francisco home and then tried to break into the company’s headquarters. Before the attack occurred, the suspect, Daniel Moreno-Gama, was 

 while reporters were creating an episode of the podcast “

,” at which time he confessed to believing that AI “would likely lead to the end of the human race.” It is this mindset that later led him to attack the OpenAI CEO with a chilling 

 that included a list of AI CEOs and leaders to kill and a description of how AI will lead to humanity’s impending destruction.

Before Moreno-Gama, there was the case of the Zizians, a cult-like group which was linked to six deaths. Ziz LaSota, the leader of the group, became an “ultraradical” within the 

 community—an online group focused on technology and philosophy in which concerns about AI are common (though LaSota is not representative of that community as a whole). Over the years, LaSota began drifting toward the belief that AI will become a threat to humanity and 

An important parallel is that apocalypticism has been present in other extremist movements. The Islamic State (ISIS) has utilized an apocalyptic vision to justify its brutality and create a 

 that mobilizes followers to the cause. In the end of days, traditional ethical rules no longer apply; extreme actions in furtherance of one’s goals are allowed.

Similarly, far-right groups are often motivated by 

, which blends elements of apocalypticism with violence by attempting to bring forward the end of the current system. White supremacist accelerationists have attacked perceived enemies, as well as critical infrastructure as a means of undermining the foundations of society. While anti-tech sentiments have previously played a 

 role within other extremist attack ideologies, the rapid evolution of AI—and the increasingly dangerous narrative around the technology—has led to anti-tech extremist violence.

It is absolutely necessary for AI leaders to be transparent about the risks their technology poses. However, it is also necessary to avoid doomerism. Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, 

 in part about this risk at the beginning of 2026, stating there is a “need to discuss and address risks in a realistic, pragmatic manner: sober, fact-based, and well equipped to survive changing tides.” In order to avoid escalation to further violence, the narrative around AI must be based on facts and not fear.

Amid efforts by the Trump administration and federal lawmakers to stop or limit states from enacting new AI legislation, as of July 1, more than half of US states have together enacted more than 100 new AI laws this term.

Every December, the Center on Technology Policy at NYU 

 of what states did that year in AI and other areas of technology policy. But by July, most states have concluded their legislative sessions, allowing an initial look into the overall trajectory of the year. Below, I offer eight observations on the scope of state AI legislation so far in 2026.

1. States continue to actively pursue AI regulation across topics, despite continued efforts by the Trump Administration and federal lawmakers to limit state AI policymaking.

By our count, as of July 1, states have enacted 109 AI and 28 data center laws. This is slightly behind the pace of last year, when by the same date states had enacted 121 AI and 27 data center laws (by the end of 2025, states enacted 159 AI and 37 data center laws).

This activity has come despite a continued effort by federal officials to stop or limit state AI legislation. In 2025, a group of Republican senators 

 a moratorium on state AI laws as part of budget reconciliation. Although the Senate ultimately rejected that proposal, related preemption efforts continued to appear in other forms. In December, 2025, President 

 creating a new AI Litigation Task Force charged with challenging state AI laws that were not “minimally burdensome.” The order also directed the Department of Commerce to explore withholding federal broadband funding—known as 

—for states that enact "onerous" state AI laws.

2. Federal preemption efforts may have limited the number of states enacting AI regulation, even if they have not dramatically reduced the total number of enacted AI laws.

So far in 2026, 29 states have enacted AI legislation. Last year, 39 states had done so by this point in the year, and in total 46 enacted AI laws by the end of the year. Of the 21 that have not yet enacted AI laws this year, 10 still have ongoing legislative sessions. Some of these states, including California, are widely expected to enact AI laws before the end of the year. Even still, it appears fewer states are on track to enact AI laws in 2026.

That said, the states that have not yet enacted AI laws do not look obviously different from those that have. About 61% of states with Republican trifectas and 69% of those with Democrat trifectas have enacted AI legislation. As of July 1, the 

 that has enacted AI laws has $742.2 million in BEAD funding, while the average state that hasn't has $920.9 million in BEAD funding. Once California enacts an AI law, as it is widely expected to do, those averages will be much closer: $873.7 million for states with AI laws and vs $779.6 million for states without them. While federal pressure may have affected the overall legislative environment, we can not yet see a simple partisan or BEAD-driven pattern as to which states are most impacted.

3. Federal preemption efforts may have influenced the substance of state AI laws.

The AI and data center laws enacted in 2026 look notably different than those enacted in 2025. While there is always some year-to-year variation, there is reason to believe that federal preemption efforts helped shape the types of laws states enacted in 2026.

Specifically, at least two distinct trends are emerging: more cross-partisan alignment on AI legislation, and a shift across states toward child safety, data centers, and consumer protection.

 identified several categories of state AI laws that the federal government should not preempt, including state regulation addressing child safety or “AI compute and data center infrastructure.” So far, there has been substantial state legislative activity in both areas. Both topics would have likely attracted significant attention regardless of the EO. But by signaling that these categories were less likely to be targeted by federal regulators, the EO may have moderated the chilling effect that the EO may have otherwise had.

4. Compared to last year, there is more cross-partisan alignment on AI regulation.

From 2025 to 2026, there was no meaningful difference in the share of AI laws with a bipartisan mix of sponsors. In 2025, 32% of enacted AI laws had sponsors from both parties; in 2026, it is 31%. (Those percentages drop to 11% and 7% respectively when looking only at primary sponsors.) But, while there has not been more bipartisan legislation, we do see lawmakers in both parties increasingly addressing a similar set of topics. In other words, while some AI issues remain largely Republican or Democrat-led, there is a growing set of topics attracting cross-party interest.

For example, in 2025, two Democrat-controlled states, California and New York, enacted companion chatbot bills. This year, six states with Democrat trifectas and eight states with Republican trifectas enacted companion-chatbot or similar laws. A similar pattern is appearing in laws addressing AI and mental health, professional licensing, and nonconsensual intimate imagery.

5. Companion chatbots regulation has become a major initiative for both Republicans and Democrats.

As our last annual state technology policy report 

, AI companion chatbots were the most active area of state AI regulation in 2026. State legislators introduced more than 

. There are notable differences across these new laws, but most build on the two laws enacted in 

 in 2025. These laws require operators to include warnings that chatbots are not human and to address certain risks, including sexual content involving minors and self-harm.

Despite these commonalities, there are significant debates over several other provisions. Most notably, there has been a partisan split over age verification and parental supervision, with Republican-supported bills more likely to include stronger age verification and parental-oversight requirements.

 that remains under consideration in California would extend last year's companion chatbot law by requiring pre-deployment risk assessments. If enacted, it would represent a significant extension of the scope of companion chatbot legislation.

6. For the first time, both Republican and Democratic-led states enacted laws imposing more restrictions, oversight, or requirements on data centers.

For the last 15 years, state data center legislation has done little beyond granting data centers tax incentives. This began to change last year, with a 

 that created new rate classes or instituted permitting preform. So far this year, state legislators have already enacted 28 laws, many of which grant states more control of data center development and operation. Broadly, these laws fall into four categories:

Protecting ratepayers from energy cost increases.

 In addition to a handful of laws creating new rate classes for data centers or large load customers, several states enacted broader legislation to protect ratepayers from price increases. For example, Oklahoma legislators enacted the 

Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026

, which requires electric companies to create new large load tariffs designed to ensure that large-load customers reimburse utilities for any costs “fairly allocated to them,” including “costs incurred to directly serve the customer that may remain unrecovered if the customer departs the system or materially reduces load.”

Establishing new oversight, audits, or disclosures. 

After several bills requiring new energy or water use audits 

 last year, legislators enacted several new requirements this year. Notably, these are not limited to Democrat-led states. 

 created a large load contract review process by the Public Service Commission. Legislators in 

 limited the sources from which data centers could purchase water for cooling.

At least two states amended their tax laws to end or limit previously granted tax breaks for data centers. 

 legislators removed a tax exemption for data center replacement equipment. 

 legislators excluded data centers from a Business equipment tax exemption.

Dozens of cities across the country have now enacted temporary pauses in data center development; a handful have instituted full permanent bans. States lawmakers have begun considering similar moratoria. Legislators in two states passed moratorium bills: 

 is currently awaiting action Gov. Kathy Hochul.

7. Both Republican and Democratic-led states prioritized new AI-related consumer protection laws.

States have long overseen consumer protection. While legislators have shown consistent interest in AI related-consumer protections in the past several years, they redoubled those efforts in 2026. Over the last six months, both Republican and Democratic-led states have enacted new consumer protection laws, ranging from rules governing professional licensing, to restrictions on AI use by 

For example, states enacted at least six new laws restricting the use of AI by health insurers, including both Republican lead states, such as 

. Similarly, several states enacted laws limiting or regulating AI-enabled dynamic pricing, including Democrat controlled 

This year has seen the near total collapse of broad algorithmic discrimination protection. Most notably, after years of debate, Colorado legislators 

 the broad algorithmic discrimination bills 

, significantly scaling back its scope. But despite this, 2026 still saw the expansion of consumer protection provisions more generally.

8. Blue states are slowly advancing frontier model regulation.

The regulation of frontier models has been at the forefront of both state and federal policy debates for several years. While the Trump administration has consistently opposed state-level frontier regulation, it has 

 or delayed the release of cutting-edge models on national-security grounds.

 enacted laws requiring developers of frontier models to adopt safety frameworks, assess critical risks, and report critical safety incidents to regulators. A handful of states introduced similar bills in 2026. However, only one state is poised to enact a law. 

 legislators recently passed a frontier model safety bill that adds a requirement that covered companies arrange yearly audits of frontier models by third-parties.

 legislators enacted one narrow provision from the New York/California model: whistleblower protections for employees of frontier model developers. Connecticut legislators did not, however, enact requirements that frontier developers conduct risk assessments, report critical incidents, or undergo third-party audits.

Although most states have already finished their legislative sessions and the midterms will pull attention away from policymaking, there remains much to watch. Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey legislators are all considering proposals that would represent significant developments in frontier or chatbot regulation. Successful federal legislation on child online safety or frontier models would strongly disrupt recent state regulation—especially if new laws include either strong preemption or broad moratoriums on state action. Trump’s Executive Order from last December has also injected uncertainty in how the federal government may respond to state AI legislation. How the administration chooses to respond will shape legislation in the back half of the year, and it may also shape state AI policymaking moving forward.

, the Supreme Court overturned the 91-year-old 

 decision, thereby giving the president for the first time unfettered authority to fire members of independent agencies at will. The 

 from many commentators is that this decision represents a significant expansion of executive power that will erode democratic protections against abusive government power and replace technical agency decision-making in the public interest with a political “spoils” system that prioritizes presidential policy preferences. For instance, law professor Steven Vladek 

 that the decision will have “massive ramifications for the functioning of the government long after Trump is gone.”

Time will tell, but I expect the decision is more likely to result in a relatively minor increase in executive power, allowing the president further control over multimember, bipartisan agencies. The decision is unnecessary as a matter of good government since the president already has the power to set the policy and enforcement focus of independent agencies through his nomination of commission members and selection of its leadership. But mistaken as it was, it is not a crisis of democracy.

The narrowness of the decision has escaped a large section of the commentariat because its “massive ramifications” have been trumpeted for years by voices on both sides of the political aisle, erecting a minor scuffle over agency design into a fundamental conflict of principles.

 the confusion. He accuses the Court of siding with “dictatorship—and chaos”. Imagine, he says, how decisions about the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs will now be made by “political appointees” loyal to the President, instead of by the scientists and researchers at the Food and Drug Administration. But the FDA is not an independent agency and its decision-making is legally unaffected by this ruling. It is an administrative agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and 

 its head has been appointed by the president and subject to termination at will. FDA decisions have been left to the expertise of specialists, not because of legal constraints, but because tradition and custom have habituated political leaders to keep their noses out of detailed scientific matters that are plainly outside their generalist background. That might change because of this administration’s disregard of the wisdom of traditional normative constraints, but not because of the Court’s ruling in Slaughter.

The leadership of other executive agencies are subject to at-will dismissal by the president, including the administrators of the free-standing Environmental Protection Agency charged with keeping the nation’s air and water clean and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is part of the Department of Labor, responsible for ensuring worker safety on the job. Their ability to do their jobs is unaffected by Slaughter.

Congress explicitly said in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) statute and in dozens of others like it that commissioners in particular agencies could be fired only for cause. In the case of the FTC, this means only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The Court denied Congress the authority to restrict the president’s power in this way, and its reasoning is not frivolous. It was prefigured in the 2020 

 case, where the Court allowed the president to remove the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, despite the ban on at-will dismissal in the enabling stature.

 that upheld Congress’s capacity to shield commissioners from at-will removal held that the FTC’s duties were “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.” The FTC made adjudicatory decisions that were like what judges did and it established regulatory rules, which was like what the legislature did, but the court thought it did not enforce the law, which is what the executive branch does. Because it had no “executive power” to enforce the law, the Humphrey Court reasoned, the FTC needed to answer only to Congress and the courts.

In Slaughter, however, the Court found the weakness in this rationale. Is it really plausible to think that OSHA and EPA perform executive functions while the FTC does not? The FTC clearly enforces the law. Whenever an agency “executes a congressional mandate against private parties, it exercises executive power.” In that way, the FTC unquestionably exercises executive power, and by the standard the Court set out in Humphrey, it must therefore be controlled by the president through the power to fire its commissioners at will.

Of course, the Court could have invented a separate rationale for agency autonomy, such as respect for the Congressional determination that the mandate of the agency was so important it needed a special layer of insulation from outside control. But it chose not to do this, except in a 

 in the case of the Federal Reserve Board.

The majority opinion says that it does not “determine the fate of officials not before us.” But the dissent says the decision affects “dozens of independent commissions,” and it is hard to disagree with the dissent, since each of them unquestionably performs executive functions as defined by the Court.

 agencies that perform vital economic and public health and safety functions such as regulating securities, consumer product safety, communications, financial services, and energy supplies and safety. Many of them have explicit provisions preventing the president from firing members at will such as the 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

, where the president fired three Democratic commissioners in 2025, an action the Court 

 by a lower court and which will now undoubtedly be upheld.

But even where the statute of an independent agency does not provide an explicit no-firing-except-for-cause provision, such as is the case with the 1934 Communications Act establishing the 

, previous presidents traditionally assumed—along with everyone else—that providing commissioners with a fixed term in office, typically 5 years, meant that they could not be removed except for cause during that term. This decision unquestionably changes that view. All regulatory decision-makers (apart from the Federal Reserve Board Governors), be they at executive branch agencies or at independent agencies, regardless of statutory term of office and clauses preventing dismissal except for cause, are now subject to removal by the president for any or no reason.

This is not a good decision. Precisely because regulators must make normative judgments weighing often conflicting evidence and interpreting statutory standards like fairness and the public interest, it is often helpful to have several people of diverse political orientation reach a consensus on these contested matters. The Court’s ruling attenuates the role of diversity in regulatory decision-making. This is especially disturbing when fundamental rights like privacy are at stake, which was the province of the FTC. For this reason, the EU requires its privacy regulators to be independent of the current political regime and expects other countries to do the same. With the Slaughter decision weakening the FTC’s independence, the agreement governing 

 between Europe and the US is in jeopardy.

While the decision is misguided and unnecessary, it is not the disaster commentators are depicting. The key thing that allows the president to control what goes on in the executive branch and in administrative agencies is not the power to fire officials but the power to appoint and remove their leadership. The president can name any commissioner to be the chair of a multimember bipartisan commission. As administrative head, the chair sets the regulatory and enforcement priorities of the agency and is appointed for general coherence with the president’s overall approach.

The Humphrey’s Executor decision noted correctly that “one who holds his office only during the pleasure of another cannot be depended upon to maintain an attitude of independence against the latter's will.” But Congress has already determined that the agency leaders maintain their office only during the pleasure of the president. And so the president effectively maintains control of both executive branch agencies and independent agencies not through the ability to fire administrators but through the ability to appoint them and remove them from their leadership position at will.

The result of this ability to name and remove agency leadership has been a predictable swing in regulatory philosophy at these commissions when administrations change. When Mark Fowler and Dennis Patrick headed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) during the Reagan administration, they espoused the president’s deregulatory philosophy, weakening generations-old rules against media concentration and repealing the Fairness Doctrine which for decades had imposed a duty of balanced news coverage on broadcasters. Decades later, FCC chair Tom Wheeler embodied the more regulatory approach of the Obama administration, imposing net neutrality rules for internet service providers. Ajat Pai, the FCC chair in the first Trump administration, promptly repealed them.

These swings in regulatory philosophy are part of the democratic process. Do we really want a president to be powerless to implement the protections for consumers, workers and the environment on which he or she ran? Are presidential policies mere whims which the people the president has chosen as agency heads should be free to ignore? At one level, the Slaughter decision just represents an unnecessary but not irrational attempt to slightly increase the power of the president to establish and enforce the policies he or she was elected to carry out.

Critics too often seem to think that the vulgarity and corruption of the current president is an intrinsic feature of the presidency and justifies permanent restrictions on presidential powers. But the next administration might be more progressive and might welcome an increased ability to sweep away the debris of the previous administration lodged in independent agencies in order to put in charge a new team of progressive change agents. It is worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt 

 FTC Commissioner William Humphrey, after first asking for his resignation, because the new president wanted to put his own progressive regulators in control of the FTC in order to carry out his activist antitrust program, which Humphrey vigorously opposed.

, I argued that Congress should create a new digital agency to regulate tech companies to protect privacy, ensure competition and preserve free online speech through transparency requirements. I thought that it should be structured as a multimember bipartisan regulatory commission whose members could be removed only for cause. This structure seemed best primarily because the digital agency would inevitably be close to decisions that affect the content that social media and other platforms provide to the public and so some insulation of specific decisions from executive branch control seemed to be warranted.

I still think that would be the best structure for a digital regulatory agency, even though under Slaughter the commissioners would be subject to at will dismissal by the president. Moving to a single-administrator agency directly under the president would provide no additional protections, and a multimember bipartisan structure would provide some decisional autonomy. Digital regulatory decisions would be made by majority vote of a bipartisan five person commission, no more than three of whom can be from the same political party. With the overturning of Humphrey’s Executor, the decisional independence of such a digital commission has been attenuated, and the president has more power to direct the outcome of specific agency actions, since he can remove any commissioner who is inclined to vote the ‘wrong’ way. But this power of removal is limited by practical considerations, such as whether the number of remaining commissioners constitutes a quorum.

Vast amounts of ink have been spent by conservative commentators on reining in supposedly out of control regulators. But this picture is a fabrication of the right wing imagination, not a reality. The oddity is that liberal and progressive thinkers seem to have adopted the same fantasy of autonomous regulators, only now these officials are seen as technocratic experts bravely defending the public interest against the whims of presidential and congressional politicians who are viewed as controlled by special interests.

The reality is less glamorous. It is thoughtful and dedicated government officials whose everyday work is directed by politically appointed leaders and moved to the left or to the right, sometimes dramatically, depending on the administration in power. That pattern will continue virtually unaltered now that the president can fire at will independent agency commissioners rather than just remove commissioners from their positions of leadership. It will give the president more power to insert his or her own leadership team in independent agencies and carry out his or her agenda and so make partisan swings more pronounced. But it does not portend the end of democracy as we know it, and might even have some upsides for a new progressive administration.

Southampton, UK—June 2, 2026: Riot police push forward with shields as violent clashes erupt as protesters gather to express their anger at the murder of Henry Nowak. (Photo by Christopher Walls / Sipa via AP Images)


The pattern is becoming too familiar. A moment of tragedy or injustice is caught on camera devoid of context and spreads on social media like wildfire. No one trusted can explain what happened fast enough, and so that fury mounts. Every other injustice people feel is channeled into a collective moment of outrage—then amplified beyond control.

Engagement-driven algorithms ensure millions have the chance to ride each roar of collective anger. Political actors—at home and abroad—smell an opportunity to score points and drip poison into the mix. Conspiracy theories are amplified from the fringes and spiral through communities. A hot mirage of social consensus is fabricated via bots and virality goes unchecked. A real event is warped by distorted online discourse.

, this pattern towards anger and violent disorder has become a predictable, often summertime, event.

Outgoing UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s government recognized the problem, but failed to meet its scale. It has seen how our platform-based information environment is fueling mistrust and sewing division between us. It is 

 and setting out ambitious plans to ensure 

 online. But, it was never enough. A new administration needs to make defending democracy a central mission to show it can take back control on the people’s behalf.

In 2022, Rishi Sunak’s government introduced the 

—a cross departmental and inter-agency initiative— to protect the democratic integrity of the UK, with a special focus on foreign election interference and disinformation. Andy Burnham's new government should now move that critical task force into Downing Street—and the Prime Minister should personally chair it, leading and publishing a new strategy for Information Ecosystems Resilience.

This strategy should strengthen the UK’s 

 and improve its collective response by designating information crises as part of the 

 and, via an Online Safety Act amendment, mandate that Ofcom enforces

for platforms rather than allowing for voluntary application.

 for the digital age—yet its scope is unnecessarily limited. The UK should curb online threats against candidates by adding an "Elections Code" to the Online Safety Act via the Bill. It should also tackle deepfakes and AI-generated false text claims by clarifying how election law applies and announce new AI legislation that tackles 

While mitigating the risks of harmful and misleading content during vulnerable moments should be key to this strategy, so should the visibility of high-quality, trustworthy information. The government should accelerate plans for mandating the 

prominence of public interest news on platforms

 in tandem with crucial democratic safeguards, and 

strengthen the independence and accountability of the BBC

—ensuring it maintains the trust of the public in polarized times. Innovation funding for local news is an important first step, but the government needs a longer term strategy for sovereignty and public digital infrastructure that unlocks a plurality of online spaces as alternatives to the current cesspit of provision that only corrodes our democracy.

All political leaders—at every level of the system—need to get on the playing field and be active on social media—providing opportunities to rebuild connection as an antidote to the poisonous void. The government should build a cross party coalition for its strategy; democracy is a cross party concern.

The roll-call of violent flashpoints are not random events, and they will continue. They are a symptom of our democratic emergency: the loss of faith in fairness, justice, our safety and security—and the democratic system’s failure to do anything about it. They are an expression of the disillusionment with the idea that the state can effectively respond to the public’s needs and an attempt to demand that it takes back control.

Digital platforms are not the cause of this frustration, but they are a pivotal and toxic catalyst. If we no longer share the same reality as a country, if we are divided by algorithms and physically separated by mobile phones, how can we act as fellow citizens in a democracy building a more hopeful future together?

The public is clearly demanding an alternative path. The 

 of the social media ban shows that people want the government to have these battles. But the challenge is so much bigger. Successive governments have ceded too much power to digital platforms, distracted by the pursuit of growth and the Big Tech lobby. The public feels it. The rampant effects of digital change is met with a sense of powerlessness, a recognition of elite capture, and a resulting loss of faith in government to tackle it.

The geopolitical threats and technological advances will not slow. As the world becomes less secure, and as adversaries of democracy wage information wars, these issues are only becoming more pressing. Agentic AI is paving a future where citizens no longer need to enter shared online spaces at all, introducing a new set of challenges to the equation. 

To defend and upgrade democracy, the next government needs to 

build a more resilient information ecosystem

June 22, 2026—Andy Burnham with colleagues from the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament in central London, as he returns to the House of Commons to take up his seat after winning the Makerfield by-election. (Yui Mok/Press Association via AP Images)

How Will Andy Burnham Handle Tech Policy as UK Prime Minister?

In this photo illustration, the Telegram logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen with the Indian flag in the background. (Photo by Thomas Fuller / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

India’s Telegram Ban Was Temporary. The Power Behind It Is Not.

A Meta sign at Meta Headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in January 2025.

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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a cabinet meeting at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

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