The United Nations headquarters in New York. Shutterstock

The United Nations headquarters in New York. 

A Defining Moment for the United Nations and the Future of AI

An illustration of Tigrayan university chemistry Professor Meareg Amare by Alina Pechenckina. Source: Amnesty International / CC by 4.0

An illustration of Tigrayan university chemistry Professor Meareg Amare by Alina Pechenckina. Source: 

Meta Returns to Kenya’s High Court Over Hate Speech in Ethiopia

Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy of the European Commission Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection Michael McGrath speak at a press conference on Wednesday. Source

Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy of the European Commission, Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, Michael McGrath, speak at a press conference on Wednesday. 

Assessing the EU Digital Fairness Act and Its Promise of Consumer Protection

A Close Read of Big TikTok and Meta Settlements Raises Important Questions

A collage of circuit boards interwoven with aerial photographs of water treatment facilities, agricultural lands, industrial sites and mining machinery.

Brazil's AI Development Strategy Needs an Edge Layer

Anthropic's logo is displayed on a smartphone with a stock market chart in the background on October 27, 2026, as Anthropic filed a Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a planned initial public offering in the United States. (Photo by Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via AP)

Could the United States Seize Anthropic at a Discount?

Journalists test AI software used to manipulate images at Phnom Penh Municipal Police headquarters following an operation against scam centers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodia’s Scam Crackdown Has Failed to Stop the Industry’s Global Spread

Two women sitting on a bench smiling with a US flag and an 'I voted' button

Photo by Pocstock, an inclusive, BIPOC-owned media and stock photo company that features real, human-captured photography.

Tech Bros Are White, Progressives Afraid, But Black Women Public Interest Tech Leaders Are Brave

The TikTok logo is displayed through a magnifying glass in this photo illustration in Ontario, Canada, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Fuller/NurPhoto via AP)

Can the EU Make TikTok Take Responsibility for Its Rabbit Holes?

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 / 

In the AI Era, Language is Now an Attack Surface

Close up photo of a pile of US 25-cent coins

10 Things States Should Do with the Meta Settlement Money

The sun rises over the US Capitol and the Washington Monument on the National Mall the day after election day on November 04, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

A New Agenda for Tech Regulation Beyond AI

People attend a watch party for Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on November 3, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. Bottoms defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson to become the nation's first Black woman governor. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

US Midterms Results Present 'Real Moment for Change'

A woman wears a mask with a Wi-Fi symbol as a protest against internet censorship in Iran. Several hundred people demonstrated in Frankfurt, Germany on Rathenauplatz on May 16, 2026, demanding an end to the Islamic regime in Iran on placards and in chants. (Photo by Boris Roessler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Freedom House Charts 'Seismic Shifts' on the Global Internet

Image of map and computer language over binary codes on server racks in server room. 

Global Digital Policy Roundup: October 2026

A protester holds a Fight Data Centers signs Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, in Mason, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Assessing the Impact of the Midterm Elections on US Tech Policy

Protesters fill a city street holding banners and signs. A large pink banner in the foreground reads “Stop Dirty Data Centres.” A teal banner reads “Save Brick Lane.” A handwritten sign reads “Stop Social — Build Homes Not Data Centres.” Demonstrators carry union flags and drums; a man with a megaphone addresses the crowd at right. Scaffolding covers a brick building in the background.

Protesters march outside the South by Southwest festival in London on June 4, 2026, opposing a planned data center development at Brick Lane in east London. The demonstration was part of a series of actions organized by the “Stop Dirty Data Centres” campaign, which is holding Europe-wide days of action this weekend involving more than 100 groups across 15 countries. (Global Action Plan)

Europe's AI Ambitions Meet the Data Center Backlash

View at the Google DeepMind logo at the office building in London. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

The Google Whistleblower Taking on Big Tech Over Its Role in Gaza

A sign supporting the banning of data centers is seen outside of a home near the Meta Prometheus Campus, an AI data center and supercluster project, is seen on November 1, 2026 in New Albany, Ohio. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Data Centers Were on the Ballot Across the US, and They Lost. What Comes Next?

Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks during an event at the US Institute of Peace, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

Pull the Plug on Technofascism Before It Reboots

On Nov. 12, the case brought by two Ethiopian nationals, Abrham Meareg and Fisseha Tekle, and the Katiba Institute against Meta 

. The petitioners allege that Meta’s algorithms amplified hateful content in Ethiopia during the Tigray war between 2020 and 2022. Abrham Meareg’s father, Bahir Dar University chemistry professor Meareg Amare, was 

 after a viral Facebook post identified him as Tigrayan and alleged that he had links with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Facebook users called Meareg a ‘snake’, claiming that he posed a threat to the Amhara community. Some commenters complained that the Facebook posts served to warn Meareg rather than to 

, and urged readers to act with haste. On Nov. 3, 2021, three weeks after the first inciting Facebook post made against him, Meareg was followed home from his university by a group of men and 

. Tekle, an Amnesty International legal adviser, was 

 of being a TPLF agent and linked to a founder of the party. After the posts went viral, he says he 

 the case from being heard in Kenya, arguing that because the company is not registered in the country, it cannot be subject to Kenyan law. Meta also invoked the doctrine of constitutional avoidance, arguing that the dispute was contractual, arising from Facebook’s terms of service, and should therefore have been brought before a United States court, 

. However, the High Court refused to strike down the petition, holding that Facebook’s operation of a content review center in Nairobi when the petition was filed gave Kenyan courts jurisdiction. (Meta told the court that Sama stopped the work in March 2023, three months after Meareg, Tekle and the Katiba Institute filed the petition on Dec. 14, 2022.)

The court further held that the matters raised were substantial, transcended the interests of the parties, and raised questions about the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the digital era, and so met the threshold for certification of a bench under Article 165(3)(b) of the Kenyan Constitution. 

 of the Kenyan Constitution allows the Kenya High Court jurisdiction to determine the question whether a right or fundamental freedom in the Bill of Rights has been denied, violated, infringed or threatened. On Nov. 12, the Court will listen to Meta’s arguments opposing a recent application by Meareg, Tekle and the Katiba Institute seeking to add new evidence to their petition.

The case returns to court as the fragile Tigray truce established by the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement 

. In Ethiopia, where decades of repression have stifled media freedom, people turn to Facebook for information. Meta itself is aware of this. The Meta-funded Oversight Board, in a 

 to the company published in a case decision in December 2021, cited expert briefings noting that “Facebook is an important, influential and popular online medium for communication in Ethiopia” and that “there is little to no coverage on the conflict-affected areas in Ethiopian media, and Ethiopians use Facebook to share and receive information about the conflict.”

Nearly a year before war broke out in November 2020, David Kaye, then the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, 

 to establish regular contact with Ethiopian authorities and civil society groups to better understand conditions in the country and establish rapid-reaction channels to enable civil society to report concerning content. However, Facebook prioritized the use of ‘

’ over outright removal of hateful and inciting posts to avoid negatively impacting the corporation’s Meaningful Social Interaction (MSI) metrics that had 

 by Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to enhance engagement on the platform and thus its profitability.

While Meta has publicly claimed to invest heavily in content moderation including by working with partners with local knowledge and expertise to catch violating content, Ethiopian members of its trusted partner program claimed that the corporation acted complacently when problematic content was reported. One partner reported that Facebook staffers responded that they are not “

 Meta would get rid of fact checkers in the US so as to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms” and “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”

Meta is being sued in Kenya because Facebook’s content moderation work for Ethiopia was being carried out in Kenya. This work was done through Sama, a business process outsourcing firm providing data labeling, computer vision training, and content moderation services. Sama refers to itself as an “ethical” AI outsourcing company which provides “

” to tech laborers. Sama claims to have “helped lift more than 65,000 people out of poverty,” many of whom got their first formal employment contracts from the corporation. However, a 2022 

 revealed “a workplace culture characterized by mental trauma, intimidation, and alleged suppression of the right to unionize.” Sama content moderators, who Facebook relied on to catch hateful content in Ethiopia, complained of pressure from managers to work fast, with requirements to deal with a ‘ticket’ (flagged item) in as little as 50 seconds or less.

One of the Facebook content moderators interviewed by Time complained that they lived “hand-to-mouth,” that they couldn’t “save a cent” and that the need to take care of their child was the only reason they didn’t resign. Youth unemployment rates in Kenya 

, forcing thousands to work under poor working conditions for lack of options. The fact that Sama brings desperately needed jobs into the country appears to be why the Kenyan government is quick to take the side of both Sama and Meta over its citizens, despite the complaints of Sama’s workers about poor pay and working conditions.

In March 2024, Kenyan President William Ruto met Nick Clegg, then Meta’s president of global affairs at the State House, and 

 for “offering to consider Kenya for some of the BPOs” (business process outsourcing firms) and offered assurance that he was “reworking the legislation in Kenya” to make it much easier for for firms in that sector to be able to employ young Kenyans. A few months later, in November 2024, Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot proposed the 

 in the Senate, which would remove litigation risk for companies such as Meta when they worked with BPOs in the country. Defending the bill 

, Cheruiyot claimed that the proposed change was a response to “the players in the BPO space. A growing sector that currently employs thousands with the potential to explode and employ millions.” While the bill does not help firms such as Sama by reducing the risk of litigation by workers, it does help them avoid the termination of contracts by corporations such as Facebook once they are embroiled in legal battles. The bill was 

 in August this year, and now awaits presidential assent.

that remittances from exported labor function as subsidies for a state that has abdicated its developmental responsibilities and uses remittances as a subsidy to its role in citizen welfare and social reproduction. One might argue that a similar logic applies to the Kenyan government’s acquiescence to the wages and working conditions by BPO firms in Kenya. These wages, regardless of the oppressive conditions they are produced under (similar to 

Gulf remittances, produced under oppressive conditions

), subsidize the fiscal recklessness of a ruling class that uses state machinery for self-enrichment and has abandoned it as an object of collective transformation. As Africa is a Country editor William Shoki writes, such states are 

. They imagine foreign investors as their key stakeholders and for their citizens, only acting as an ‘interpreter of necessity’, explaining why they cannot act in line with ways that dignify the lives of their citizens, because otherwise, the foreign capital that subsidizes their abdicated responsibilities would leave. 

It remains to be seen how the case by Meareg, Tekle and the Katiba Institute will unfold. One can only hope that a rare instance in which the interests of Africans are upheld will manifest, offering an important lesson to Meta that African states are indeed willing to protect the rights of their citizens and operations on the continent will not be subjugated to corporations’ interests.

The race for the next United Nations Secretary-General kicked off on April 21 with a series of live-broadcast interactive dialogues, as 

 made the case for why they were best suited for what is often described as “the toughest job in the world.”

“The selection of the Secretary-General has widespread consequences that resonate far beyond this building,” 

. “Our choice will shape the direction of the world’s unique multilateral organization and demonstrate whether the United Nations truly represents the more than eight billion people we serve around the world, half of whom are women and girls.”

After a decade as UN Secretary-General, Mr. António Guterres is stepping down. His departure comes at a critical moment for global AI governance.

During Guterres’ tenure, AI emerged as a transformative technological force that promised potential to reshape economies, societies, and security, and rapidly became central to governance debates worldwide. Guterres has 

 that “we must move fast, be creative, and work together to ensure adequate guardrails and ethical standards. AI must not replace human agency. It was created by humans and must always be under human control.”

In response to these disruptions, the United Nations has emerged as a leading force in shaping and advancing AI governance grounded in human rights.

Under Guterres’ leadership, the UN produced a series of landmark frameworks that laid the foundation for human rights-based AI governance. The 2021

UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

 became the world’s first widely adopted global standard on AI ethics. The subsequent release of the 

 supplement the UNESCO Recommendation by helping governments evaluate their readiness to develop AI ethically and responsibly while identifying critical institutional gaps.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time — Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile — led the efforts behind the 2021 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report, 

, which drew attention to the use of AI by States and businesses and its impact on the enjoyment of the right to privacy and related rights. The report recommended “expressly ban[ning] AI applications that cannot be operated in compliance with international human rights law and impos[ing] moratoriums on the sale and use of AI systems that carry a high risk for the enjoyment of human rights,” and became a foundational resource for organizations advocating for the establishment of red lines.

In an effort to foster a more cohesive, human-centered global governance framework, the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body on AI (HLAB-AI) released the 

 report, shifting the conversation from principles to institutional design. During the development of the report, the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) submitted a 

 to HLAB-AI, proposing the creation of an international panel on AI to monitor societal impacts of AI, a contribution that informed the report’s recommendations. The report helped catalyze concrete governance architecture, including the 

Independent International Scientific Panel on AI

. Together, these initiatives reflect a crucial growing international convergence around human rights-based, inclusive, and equitable approaches to AI governance.

, held July 6-7 in Geneva, brought together world leaders, policymakers, civil society, and academia to discuss the future of AI. During the Dialogue, the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI released its 

, detailing both the risks and opportunities presented by AI. The report underscored the urgent need for guardrails, presenting evidence of human rights violations, increased harms to children and women, and the erosion of democratic institutions.

At the Dialogue, Secretary-General Guterres also announced several new initiatives, including the AI Child Safety Pledge, the Global Network for Exchange and Cooperation on AI Capacity Building, the Global Fund for AI, and the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative. Building on the Preliminary Report and these initiatives will be a key task for the next Secretary-General, ensuring continued momentum toward Guterres' 

 of a future where AI is "built by humanity, with humanity, and for all humanity."

The UN has also played a leading role in addressing the implications of AI use in the military domain. Secretary-General Guterres has repeatedly called for legally binding international rules, 

 that “machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be prohibited by international law.”

Building on this position, the General Assembly adopted 

 on the implications of AI for international peace and security and the impact of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), stressing that international law was applicable to military uses of AI, and highlighting the importance of human-centric, accountable, safe, secure and trustworthy AI. Moreover, the 

Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on LAWS

, established under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, continues to advance discussions towards a 

 prohibiting LAWS that are non-compliant with international humanitarian law.

As military applications of AI become increasingly sophisticated, the next Secretary-General will play a critical role in carrying this work forward and ensuring that the governance of military AI remains grounded in human rights, international humanitarian law, and meaningful human control.

The UN Secretary-General selection process

The selection and appointment of the next UN Secretary-General is governed by a process designed to ensure 

transparency, inclusivity, and accountability

. While previous selections often took place largely behind closed doors, recent reforms have opened the process to greater public scrutiny through live-broadcast candidate dialogues and stakeholder engagement. These reforms have made the selection of the Secretary-General more transparent than ever before, reflecting the growing expectation that the leader of the world's foremost multilateral institution should be accountable not only to governments, but also to the people the UN serves.

This process, set out in Article 97 of the Charter of the United Nations and further elaborated in 

 on the Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, as well as the Joint Letter of the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council, reflects the UN’s continued efforts to strengthen openness and engagement in the selection process.

engagement from a wide range of stakeholders

, including civil society, to contribute perspectives on the qualities and priorities needed for the next Secretary-General. The interactive dialogues were structured around two key themes: (1) candidates’ leadership abilities, experience, and skills, and (2) the UN’s three pillars: peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights. All 193 Member States, alongside selected civil society organizations, were given the opportunity to directly question the candidates. CAIDP also 

 during this process, asking the candidates to indicate their position on how to (1) strengthen international cooperation on AI, (2) advance UN’s role in advancing equitable, inclusive, rights-based global AI norms, (3) limit weaponization of AI, and (4) support coherence across existing UN initiatives on digital cooperation and AI governance.

Opening of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly

At the opening of the General Debate of the 81st Session of the UNGeneral Assembly, and in what is expected to be his final address to the Assembly as Secretary-General, Guterres 

 AI as one of four tests of power, warning that "artificial intelligence moved at a speed that has blindsided even those who created it [...] humans are increasingly handing power to machines, with [AI] agents going rogue." He urged responsible pacing and an independently overseen global risk framework.

Guterres’ warning came amid growing concerns about frontier AI, following the OpenAI-Hugging Face incidents in July 2026. During the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Week, the European Commission and more than 20 nations endorsed a joint initiative launched by Finland and Norway calling for stronger control and oversight of frontier AI models. The statement highlighted several requirements for AI governance that CAIDP has long advocated for, including mandatory pre-deployment testing, independent evaluation, transparent safety protocols, international coordination, reporting of safety incidents, and strengthening oversight institutions.

The UN Independent International Scientific Panel on AI also released a thematic brief calling the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident “an early warning of one possible route to more severe future loss of control.” While panel co-chair Yoshua Bengio drew a comparison between the AI agents’ actions and criminal acts if committed by a human, CAIDP Global Academic Network member and Umeå University professor of responsible artificial intelligence Virginia Dignum and her coauthors 

corporate misbehaviors as a technical mystery requiring computational fixes

The UN is under pressure to step up and take the necessary action that technology companies on their own won’t. Moreover, with major players such as the United States and China rejecting new global governance of AI at the UN-level and later 

 on a bilateral channel for AI incidents, the political landscape is heating up. It is more important now than ever to elect a Secretary-General that will take charge and lead the change humanity needs.

This is a pivotal moment in history, as the outcome of the selection will shape the future of global AI governance. The central question is which candidate for the UN Secretary-General is best positioned to uphold a future in which human rights, democracy, and the rule of law remain at the center of technological progress.

 at the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance, Secretary-General Guterres identified four priorities for the road ahead: (1) safety, (2) red lines, (3) capacity, and (4) transparency. The next Secretary-General will have their work cut out for them as Guterres steps down, leaving behind a legacy rooted in advocating for a human-centered AI future. Alongside the much-anticipated reforms under the UN80 Initiative, the incoming Secretary-General will also be responsible for advancing the roadmap set out during Guterres' tenure.

This will require the leadership to guide Member States in human rights and democratic values throughout the AI lifecycle; the resolve to establish and uphold red lines, including prohibitions on lethal autonomous weapon systems and AI systems that violate international humanitarian law; the commitment to the UN’s mission of leaving no one behind by preventing the AI divide from becoming a development, security, and sovereignty gap; and the ability to promote transparency within companies and encourage alignment of their AI practices with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Recognizing that inclusive leadership strengthens institutional legitimacy, CAIDP recommends that the UN select a woman as the next Secretary-General. More than eight decades have passed since its founding, yet the UN has never been led by a woman. As an organization that “

serves all of humanity, half of whom are women

,” the UN has a timely opportunity to advance gender equality and inclusive governance at its highest office.

Appointing a woman Secretary-General would be a historic step toward gender equality in global leadership and would make the UN more representative of the world it serves.

CAIDP supports a vision of a future in which AI strengthens, rather than undermines, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. As per the UN Secretary-General Guterres’ 

, “the window is closing to shape AI — for peace, for justice, for humanity.” This moment underscores the urgency of what is ultimately at stake in the selection of the next UN Secretary-General: leadership capable of ensuring that emerging technologies are governed in the service of these principles.

The selection of the next UN Secretary-General is therefore not only a question of institutional continuity, but a critical opportunity to advance a vision of global governance that is inclusive, democratic, and grounded in human rights.

The authors wish to acknowledge April Yodar, Editor-in-Chief, CAIDP AI Index; Grace S. Thomson, CAIDP AI Policy Clinics Director; Jésica Edith Tapia Reyes, CAIDP AI Policy Group Member; Tamiko Eto, CAIDP Senior Teaching fellow; Facundo Bonaura, CAIDP Policy Group Member.

Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy of the European Commission Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection Michael McGrath speak at a press conference on Wednesday. 

This morning, the European Commission published its 

 for the Digital Fairness Act (DFA), a major initiative to update the European Union’s consumer protection framework for an increasingly digital economy. The proposal seeks to address unfair commercial practices that exploit consumers through manipulative online interfaces and addictive design features and other forms of digital commercial conduct.

This proposal translates many valuable ideas into legal language, but questions remain about its scope, coherence and capacity to deliver effective protection.

In this commentary, we look at five central aspects of the proposal, including its title and scope, the move from a directive to a regulation supported by delegated acts, the prohibition of dark patterns, the regulation of addictive design features, and the new rules regarding enforcement. We identify significant advances, but also areas where the legislative text requires clarification or substantive improvement.

The coming weeks will be an opportunity to carefully consider additional aspects, such as respect for the principle of technological neutrality and whether the proposal can deliver a high level of consumer protection in relation, for example, to AI agents and price personalization.

The title is a misnomer. For years, the EU has promised to confront the business models and design practices that exploit consumers in digital markets. The title 

 reflects that agenda, but understates the scope of the proposal: the DFA is not about digital services only. If adopted, the proposal would repeal the 

Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD)

 and replace it with a regulation governing B2C commercial practices, both online and offline. A more accurate title would be 

Leveraging the expressive function of the law does not justify starting a tradition of misnamed legislative instruments. The Digital Services Act (DSA), for example, does not cover 

 digital services. Similarly, the DFA obscures unfair practices that happen in real life. There is little justification for presenting a reform of consumer law with such broad implications as exclusively concerned with digital markets. The politically important phrase ‘digital fairness’ gives the title to Chapter III, the proposal’s most innovative part. Additional emphasis, if deemed useful, could be given in the recitals.

From a directive to a regulation supported by delegated acts

A regulation is directly applicable. It may reduce interpretative fragmentation and facilitate stronger cross-border enforcement, particularly if accompanied by the proposed reform of the 

Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation.

 The draft consolidates interpretations of the UCPD that have emerged over the years, for example, clarifying that continuing to use a service constitutes a ‘transactional decision’ (Article 3(3)). Another example is the recognition that vulnerability is not a matter of categories (age, disability) but can result from personal circumstances (Article 5(3)).

These clarifications matter because they translate developments in the interpretation and application of consumer law into a more accessible and consistent legislative framework.

The choice of giving the Commission updating powers through delegated acts is welcome. In 

, we already advocated such a mechanism. However, the scope of this power forgets what happens in real life. The Commission should have the power to update the whole blacklist, not just the section on digital practices. Moving this delegation from Articles 10 and 17 to Article 5 would ensure that the UCPR is future-proofed in a technology-neutral manner.

Article 10 of the proposal prohibits dark patterns, giving legislative recognition to a concern raised for years. This is welcome. The widespread use of manipulative design online has made it increasingly important to clarify how consumer law applies to these practices and to make those rules easier to enforce.

The case for a standalone prohibition is less clear.

Article 5 qualifies violations of Article 10 as unfair commercial practices. Article 10(1), just like Article 25(1) DSA, provides less guidance than Articles 5-9 UCPD/DFA. In our 

, we identified 42 dark pattern types and showed that they all fall within existing UCPD categories (misleading actions, omissions and aggressive practices or the general prohibition). The problem was never that consumer law did not prohibit dark patterns or lacked the fashionable expression “dark patterns”. It was whether its established concepts could lead to effective enforcement against the widespread use of unfair commercial practices online. That was and still is the goal.

The relationship with the DSA remains troubling. Article 25(2) DSA already excludes practices covered by the UCPD or the GDPR. 

, we argued that this provision reverses the ordinary logic of general and special legislation: rather than refining consumer-law protection, the sector-specific DSA rule risks ceasing to apply whenever consumer law can be invoked. The draft does not repeal Article 25(2) DSA as many had hoped. Instead, in a masterful act of make-believe, Recital 52 declares that the DSA prohibition does not apply to dark patterns covered by the DFA, which ‘relate exclusively to business-to-consumer commercial practices’. One small problem: the DSA prohibition also covers business-to-consumer commercial practices occurring within online interfaces. Thus, the circumstances in which Article 25(1) DSA remains applicable are still an elusive mystery.

Article 17 of the proposal breaks new ground by recognizing features that are intended, or can reasonably be foreseen, to encourage compulsive or excessive use. It lists uninterrupted consumption without breaks and autoplay, engagement-triggering notifications, rewards and penalties for returning, and simulated interpersonal relationships. This is an important clarification: such problematic practices could not be disciplined well only by the elusive notion of undue influence.

However, the proposed regulatory response falls short of the problem it identifies.

Rather than prohibiting addictive configurations for adults, Article 17 requires tools that let consumers switch them off. The Commission is not asking to remove the problematic features: the consumer must choose to disable them. This approach sits uneasily with Recital 67, which recognizes that addictive design exploits consumers’ cognitive and psychological vulnerabilities.

The Regulation acknowledges those vulnerabilities while relying on consumers to recognize and counteract their exploitation. It is easy to imagine that traders would make the opted-out version so cumbersome that consumers will choose to remain with the addictive design. Moreover, consumers have been using these addictive features for years and have grown accustomed to them to exercise self-control and opt out of them. The right to opt out is too weak a response in the face of many years of harmful exposure. It is not even complemented by a risk to inform about the risks associated with these problematic features.

 makes the difference in regulatory approaches more visible. For certain services used by minors, it envisages stronger safety-by-design restrictions (KIDS ACT, Chapter III). This divergence in treatment will require strict scrutiny through the legislative process.

Strengthened public powers, but what about effective remedies?

Perhaps the most important innovation is found in Article 30: the Commission will have direct enforcement powers for infringements in the EU. Most likely, DG JUST will join the club of DGs with enforcement powers. The Commission's extensive experience in interpreting the UCPD and the 

 (UCTD), reflected in its detailed guidance notices, provides a strong foundation for exercising these new enforcement powers.

However, penalties and consumer compensation remain a weakness.

Stronger enforcement powers by the Commission will achieve little without sufficiently deterrent penalties and effective consumer remedies. Leaving Member States to define the amount of fines on their own seems undesirable, as this New Mexico-Italy comparison shows.

, a state with 2.1 million inhabitants secured a $ 25 billion judgment against the company. The court calculated a potential penalty of approximately $219.5 billion by applying the statutory maximum of $5,000 to each of the violations found by the jury. It subsequently reduced the award to $25 billion.

It did so with the functional equivalent of the UCPD. How? One such statement led to a 10 million EUR 

 under the UCPD. The contrast shows how important dissuasive sanctions are. Old legal principles can be powerful when backed by evidence, institutional resolve and effective remedies.

At the same time, private enforcement needs more. It is relatively easy to find a commercial practice unfair, much less so to prove the damage consumers suffered. Thus, Article 34 should be reworded to grant explicit evidentiary support also concerning the harm caused by the relevant commercial practice. Moreover, as 

, indemnities based on a percentage of the price, or at least a fixed amount, which are common in EU passenger regulations, or other benchmarks (e.g., turnover) are crucial to make consumer rights effective in most cases of mass harm.

The DFA is an important opportunity to strengthen the EU’s response to unfair commercial practices. It remains to be seen whether the Parliament will be able to amend the text as needed.

 accompanying the DFA proposal cites several academic publications by the authors of this article.

 its child safety litigation with US state attorneys general, with great fanfare. It committed to make a series of product changes, to pay the states at least $12 billion, and to pay them an additional $5 billion if they convinced Meta’s competitors to join in and make similar commitments. That mechanism — a corporation paying state officials a bounty to impose specific rules on its competitors — is not one I’ve found any precedent for.

A month later, TikTok made the next move, 

 litigation with the Alabama attorney general. It makes similar-looking product concessions, sometimes using language identical to the Meta agreement. Its payments take tech platform cooptation of government power to a new level. Alabama gets 

 up front, but will more than double its payout — collecting another 

 from TikTok — if enough other attorneys general settle with the platform.

TikTok’s settlement has drawn far less attention. It was filed at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday at the end of summer. The official 

 could not be searched, annotated, or even easily converted to other formats. (A cleaned-up, annotated copy is 

.) The settlement’s product commitments are also pretty weak compared to Meta’s. This piece will explain why, and compare TikTok’s settlement in broad strokes with Meta’s. More details about Meta’s settlement from Electronic Frontier Foundation senior counsel David Greene are 

This is a long-ish read, but it has clear section headings to help busy readers skip to the parts they need. I did my own reading and reached my conclusions for this the old-fashioned way, but I used Claude quite a bit to check my work. To the extent it provided useful additional answers, I put them 

My goal is to increase the number of people who understand the settlements, because they are building blocks of our future online. These two documents may be the subjects of major First Amendment litigation. They may be emulated around the world and define the invisible, state-backed rules shaping information access for a generation of young people in an era of global 

. Clear-eyed understanding of the agreements’ intricacies will matter.

These settlements reflect two larger issues. First, Congressional inaction has spurred fragmented efforts by individual states to address child safety issues through new laws or lawsuits. Second, the First Amendment bars many of the laws proposed by state legislators, and many of the legal claims advanced by attorneys general. Private settlements with platforms offer an apparent work-around — a way for governments to achieve outcomes that, if mandated by law, would be unconstitutional.

These backroom deals between state officials and private companies provide no opportunity for meaningful public oversight or challenge by affected internet users — including children. As I will discuss in a forthcoming paper, the result is a set of platform commitments that may or may not make kids safer, but come with major downsides for free expression, privacy, and competition. We can’t begin to assess those tradeoffs without being clear about what the settlements actually say.

Both settlements are long and detailed. Copies with decent OCR and section headings in the left navigation bar are 

 for TikTok. AI-generated answers to some in-the-weeds questions are 

 tracking some differences in these and possibly future cases and settlements is here.

Meta’s settlement resolved child safety claims with 51 attorneys general (representing 47 states, plus DC, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico). The per-state payout varies greatly, but on average the 51 attorneys general get about $235 million now, and an eventual potential total of $333 million. The three states that did not join the settlement are 

, which reached a separate settlement for $1 billion; 

, which has won a series of cases against Meta including a staggering 

, which is still litigating and accused the others of settling for “peanuts[.]” Most of the Meta settling attorneys general, including Alabama, also settled unrelated claims dating to the Cambridge Analytica privacy brouhaha, getting $459 million to split among them.

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