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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Day 2 of TSRC with David Rand presenting on using AI to counteract conspiracy theories

David Rand giving a keynote at Stanford Trust and Safety Research Conference

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I submit that walking past the McLaren dealership to get to Walgreens is peak Silicon Valley

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Also, the age check certification folks who are very involved in the iso standards have written their own document that is much more specific. I think they will aim for this to be the de facto standard

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Did you watch counterpart? Should have made the list!

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Counterpart not being on the NYT list is a travesty

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Digital Trust & Safety Partnership @dtspartnership.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Eleven certified bodies now handle content moderation disputes under Article 21 of the DSA. None charges the nominal user fee the mechanism was designed around. New in @techpolicypress.bsky.social from DTSP's David Sullivan, Farzaneh Badiei and Jonny Shipp.

techpolicy.press

The Overlooked Issue Undercutting EU’s Out-of-Court Dispute System

David Sullivan, Jonny Shipp, and Farzaneh Badiei examine the EU’s DSA dispute system and how fee structures may affect content moderation appeals.

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Daphne Keller @daphnek.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The EU DSA heard you liked box-checking exercises, so it put a box-checking exercise on your... well, you know. Out of court dispute processes for content moderation under Art 21 aren't censorship. But they're not looking like a great use of resources, either. www.techpolicy.press/the-overlook...

techpolicy.press

The Overlooked Issue Undercutting EU’s Out-of-Court Dispute System

David Sullivan, Jonny Shipp, and Farzaneh Badiei examine the EU’s DSA dispute system and how fee structures may affect content moderation appeals.

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Kate Klonick @klonick.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This anecdote--not the episode, which goes in a totally different direction--is hilarious& cute. But more importantly, it poignantly illustrates SO many things that I work on. 1) How endlessly creative kids will be in route around child restrictions, and how ineffective parental controls are. 1/

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

@davidgreene.bsky.social relatedly, did you see that UK Ofcom is taking aim at companies using age inference? they are claiming it is not "highly effective"

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My latest (with @farzdusa.bsky.social and @jonnyshipp.bsky.social) on why we need to take a closer look at the Digital Services Act's out-of-court dispute settlement system.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i still vividly recall a conference coffee break conversation with one of these folks and their blithe dismissal of AI CSAM as having nothing to do with safety 🤬

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

No problem at all! I’m off this week, but happy to compare notes with paddy when I’m back.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

numbers are not my forte, but it seems significant that the settlement only cares about FPRs and doesn't mention FNRs at all.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

💯. i was at an age assurance conference in 2024 where NIST presented the study, and it was *not* what the vendors wanted to hear.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I didn't know him nearly as well as others, but i am nonetheless deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Bertrand de La Chapelle. We're losing the early voices of internet governance, who understood the critical need for a free and open internet, when it is most at threat.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

If you're reading the Meta settlement and wondering about the age assurance/verification contents, might I suggest you first read this new statement from the Internet Architecture Board: datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statemen... HT @farzdusa.bsky.social @johnperrino.com

datatracker.ietf.org

IAB Statement on Age-Based Restrictions and Online Safety

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

ICYMI they publish updated stats here: pages.nist.gov/frvt/html/fr... These stats include "child safety" facial estimation accuracy rates...

pages.nist.gov

Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) Age Estimation & Verification

FATE Age Estimation And Verification

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Just used the "seems like AI slop" button on LinkedIn for the first time, on a Scott Galloway post. Feels good.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

One of the great misconceptions of trust and safety is that it is primarily about removing and suppressing communication. Thankfully @daphnek.bsky.social is putting freedom of expression at the center of T&S.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Masterful keynote. Anyone in T&S who couldn’t swing the budget or approval to make it to TrustCon should watch this on YouTube once it gets posted.

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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 20/07/2026

Once again, @charlottewillner.bsky.social is giving a wonderful opening talk for #trustcon, kicking it off around the theme of "what did you want to be when you grew up?" and connecting to that to how much the entire trust & safety field has grown up and matured.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

new report! with deep appreciation to everyone who joined us in Dublin for this event (which i was very sorry to have to miss).

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

How's it looking for Red Rocks tonight?

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

1) Boulder is not a ski town and lacks ski town hotels and condos 2) Without rentable condos, you can't possibly accommodate 85k festival-goers in a town of ~100k! 3) Did anyone realistically think about this when the city and Sundance were wooing each other?

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🎃🎃🎃Michael Scare-anicolas🎃🎃🎃 @karanicolas.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Hot off the presses! Today Canada released its Digital Safety Act, including a ban on social media accounts for under 16s. More commentary to come, but the age verification rules are likely to trigger significant debate. www.linkedin.com/posts/michae... @privacylawyer.ca @suziedunn.bsky.social

linkedin.com

Digital Safety Act | Michael Karanicolas

Hot off the presses: today the Government of Canada released its Digital Safety Act, including a requirement for social media services to prevent people under 16 from having accounts. More commentary...

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 15/04/2026

Countdown Standard xkcd.com/3232/

Comic. One... two... THREE! [text in red] X Deprecated [line break] One... two... three... GO! [text in red] Deprecated [red curly bracket around top two lines] Too easy to mix up [line break] Three... two... one... GO! [text in green] [check mark] ISO Standard [caption] If I were in charge of ISO, the first thing I’d do would be to standardize the way people count out loud before doing something in sync.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Later in the same story -- this is an incomprehensible word salad that means nothing. Posturing absent policy.

Text screenshot from WaPo article:

The administration considered ways it could use its own regulatory powers to limit the law’s reach. That spring, it called a meeting that included officials from the Commerce, State, Defense and Treasury Departments and White House to discuss potential strategies to advance free expression, according to a copy of the meeting materials viewed by The Post.

The proposals included a system that would use export controls to offer tech companies more legal freedom to refuse requests from foreign governments to take down content, according to a copy of the proposal viewed by The Post. A licensing system run by the Commerce Department would have aimed to give American firms legal cover to object to requests to take down content deemed legitimate under a “speech standard” devised by the Trump administration.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

this part is my favorite: "We did not find anything,” said one of the people. "It was not politically convenient that we could not find anything."

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Daphne Keller @daphnek.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

So... the actual story reported here is that the administration set up a dedicated task force to document EU censorship and THEY COULD NOT FIND ANY. Not that you'd know that from the headline. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The weeks-long investigation, details of which have not previously been reported, uncovered no records indicating censorship, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
“There is no evidence that Member States of the European Union are overreaching the DSA to censor and criminalize online content,” they wrote in conclusion.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

It reports that in early 2025, Vance aides ordered State to document how EU regulators were censoring online speech. “There is no evidence that Member States of the European Union are overreaching the DSA to censor and criminalize online content,” they wrote in conclusion.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Power restored in South Boulder for all of... 5 minutes. sigh. #cowx

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

An important and welcome intervention against the Trump administration weaponizing immigration policy against technology research and trust and safety workers.

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David Greene @davidgreene.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Follow closely this welcome and really important new lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy punishing social media misinformation and hate researchers with immigration consequences.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

To this point, political scientist @chrisblattman.bsky.social is going modestly viral with his embrace of Claude code on X, and it's like it never happened here. Not great!

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Important thread. One of the serious downsides of Bluesky's AI allergy is that what passes for nuanced discourse on this topic is currently happening within the dumpster fire that is X.

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

@masnick.com: best case: more clarity and legal certainty, as uncertainty is as bad as a bad law. expand 230 and rollback FOSTA, have clarity about how it applies to AI

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David Sullivan @davidsullivan.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Matt Perault: hope for experimental approaches, try different liability regimes and learn something about costs and benefits.

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