iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

If you care about music, copyright, or the future of creative work, especially as Canada heads into its own copyright debate, I think you’ll find this one useful.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

And perhaps more importantly, what happened to the young people deciding whether it’s worth learning an instrument, writing a song, or drawing every day?

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Our conversation covers the practical fixes (licensing, transparency about training data) and a bigger question I can’t shake: if we flood the world with decent, cheap, machine-made culture, what happens to human creativity?

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

That gap isn’t just legal hair-splitting; it’s about whether we want an information (and culture) economy that compensates the people whose work trains the machines now competing with them.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

This week on Machines Like Us, I spoke with Ed Newton-Rex, a composer and former head of audio at Stability AI, who walked away when he realized the industry wasn’t going to pay the artists it was training on. He calls that theft. AI companies call it fair use.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Velvet Sundown’s “Dust on the Wind” sounds like it came straight out of a 70s playlist—Lynyrd Skynyrd meets CCR with a hint of Tom Petty. It’s also entirely synthetic. And the unsettling part isn’t the fakery; it’s that the song isn’t bad, and millions are listening.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

In the lead-up to recording this episode of Machines Like Us, my producer Mitch shared a song with me from a band that doesn’t exist.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

And we're off. Two days with a remarkable group: www.attentionconferences.com/conferences/...

attentionconferences.com

The Attention Forum: October 23/24th 2025

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

the full agenda is below, and here: www.attentionconferences.com/conferences/...

attentionconferences.com

The Attention Forum: October 23/24th 2025

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Speakers include: Maria Ressa, Yoshua Bengio, Jim Balsillie, Beeban Kidron, Michael McGrath, Frank McCourt, Cory Doctorow, Shoshana Zuboff, Minister Evan Solomon, Gary Marcus, and many many others.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

This week in Montreal we are hosting some of the top digital governance experts and practitioners in the world to discuss how to ensure that AI and digital technologies serve the interests of democratic societies. Agenda below.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

the full agenda is below, and here: www.attentionconferences.com/conferences/...

attentionconferences.com

The Attention Forum: October 23/24th 2025

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Speakers include: Maria Ressa, Yoshua Bengio, Jim Balsillie, Beeban Kidron, Michael McGrath, Frank McCourt, Cory Doctorow, Shoshana Zuboff, Minister Evan Solomon, Gary Marcus, and many many others.

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Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Season 2 of Machines Like Us is out now! AI has thrown universities into turmoil. This week's episode: should educators embrace AI or ban it outright? #MachinesLikeUs #Podcast #AI #HigherEd

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Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

With a new ministerial mandate and growing political momentum, Canada has an opportunity to chart a new course. This final panel looked to the next phase of digital policy – featuring @raisapatel.bsky.social, @taylorowen.bsky.social and Elissa Strome (CIFAR).

Raisa Patel, Federal Politics Reporter, Toronto Star. Photo by Lindsay Ralph.

Taylor Owen, Director, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy. Photo by Lindsay Ralph.

Elissa Strome, Executive Director of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy at CIFAR. Photo by Lindsay Ralph.

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Raisa Patel @raisapatel.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Learned a lot at this event from @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social. Watch our panel with @taylorowen.bsky.social and CIFAR's Elissa Strome on the future of digital policy and governance here: www.cpac.ca/public-recor...

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

I'm just glad one of these men has the nuclear codes and the other has all our personal data.

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The Rundown @therundowntvo.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

In a high-stake federal election, accurate campaign information is essential, and the line between what's real and what isn't is blurry. @spaikin.bsky.social asks @taylorowen.bsky.social (@meo-cdmrn.bsky.social @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social) how vulnerable Canadian voters are to disinformation?

youtube.com

Are Canadian Voters Vulnerable to Online Disinformation? | The Agenda

YouTube video by TVO Today

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Media Ecosystem Observatory @meo-cdmrn.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

“How do you separate the signal from the noise,” asks @taylorowen.bsky.social , “when the noise is just a baseline of really bad content?” Our team is tracking when online chaos crosses the line into strategic, manipulative, or malicious: sites.libsyn.com/434604/elect...

sites.libsyn.com

The Paul Wells Show: Election week 4: it's a jungle online

How concerned should we be about election interference online? Taylor Owen and his colleagues at the keep a close eye on who's trying to sway our elections, and whether or not they're succeeding. He…

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

A wide ranging conversation with @spaikin.bsky.social @tvotoday.bsky.social about our work @meo-cdmrn.bsky.social this election: youtu.be/Ipe6udE0eEE?...

youtu.be

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Media Ecosystem Observatory @meo-cdmrn.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

“News” ≠ journalism anymore. @taylorowen.bsky.social says Canadians are losing their ability to distinguish between reliable reporting and random info online, and it’s reshaping our democracy. The Meta news ban? “Radical.” 11M journalism views a day, gone: share.transistor.fm/s/f862a48d

share.transistor.fm

Taylor Owen from McGill’s Centre for Media, Tech & Democracy | Get Fact by Kevin Newman | Episode 1

A deep dive into how disinformation is evolving—and what it means for Canada’s democracy and elections.

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Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

"We're in a pretty big reset moment with two potential governments that have very different views of what the state's role in governing our digital technologies is," says director @taylorowen.bsky.social on the Paul Wells Show with @inklesspw.bsky.social. Listen: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/e...

podcasts.apple.com

Election week 4: it's a jungle online

Podcast Episode · The Paul Wells Show · 2025-04-16 · 51m

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Marie Lamensch @marielamensch.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Great to hear @taylorowen.bsky.social on Paul Wells @inklesspw.bsky.social podcast talking about mis-and disinformation and foreign influence in the Canadian elections. Tune in paulwells.substack.com/p/election-w...

paulwells.substack.com

Election week 4: It's a jungle online

Making sense of the online invective-scape. Plus: Continued effort to make sense of Quebec!

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

@markcarneyforpm.bsky.social framed the problem correctly, but now they need to propose the policies to solve it.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

This would enable researchers to use the data provided by platforms and tech companies to help Canadians better understand our always evolving information ecosystem and to hold tech companies accountable for their design, safety and moderation decisions.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Third, in order to address threats to the integrity of our information ecosystem, we need to better understand it. Therefore we should adopt the recommendation of the Hogue Commission to establish an independent arm’s-length national digital observatory.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Building on the widely supported core duties of the online harms act, this could also include data protections, the inclusion of AI chatbots, ad tech policy, and cybersecurity measures.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Second, as Helen Hayes and I argue, previous efforts to protect our digital infrastructures were spread across multiple cumbersome bills. We suggest pulling core components from each into one piece of legislation: The Tech Accountability and Sovereignty Act. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

theglobeandmail.com

Opinion: How the next government can protect Canada’s information ecosystem

A unified digital governance agenda would help the next prime minister quickly buttress our democracy, which is now under attack from the United States

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

As has been the case at various points in our history, how we communicate in Canada has again become an issue of national sovereignty. We think this moment demands a dedicated Minister tasked with protecting Canada’s information system and coordinating our digital and communication policies.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

First, as @petermacleod.bsky.social and I argue, we need to think of online harms as situated within the context of the sovereignty of our information and communication infrastructure. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

thestar.com

In a changed world, Canada faces an information war. There is an answer

To fight misinformation, we need to re-establish a critical cabinet portfolio for the digital age.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Here are three things they could do:

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

What’s more, Carney may have a unique opportunity to reset the digital governance agenda of the previous government and to build an approach purpose-built for the moment we are in.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

It includes, risk assessments, mandated transparency, a strong independent regulator, specific rules for tech likely to be used by children, better data privacy, and user empowerment tools and processes.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Luckily, we know what to do. Over years of policy experimentation we have learned from the experiences of the EU, UK and Australia and have a pretty clear idea of the broad tool set required.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

The challenge is the solutions he has so far proposed, embedded in a criminal justice based approach, are necessary but insufficient to address it. They rely on limited tools to address a very important subset of problem. But don't address the broader structural issues he is addressing the speech.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

And he is right to argue that much of the problem ‘washes in from across our virtual border,’ as we have shown through many studies at the Media Ecosystem Observatory www.meo.ca

meo.ca

The Media Ecosystem Observatory

MEO is an interdisciplinary collaboration between McGill University and the University of Toronto that studies information ecosystem health.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

It is very encouraging that @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social is framing the issue of online harms within the broad context of the health and sovereignty of our information ecosystem. www.youtube.com/live/hhozjmi...

youtube.com

YouTube

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

This week on the Machines Like Us podcast, the changing face of election interference, with leading information manipulation experts @abridgman.bsky.social, @ninajankowicz.com, hosted by @taylorowen.bsky.social. Listen: lnk.to/machineslikeusTX

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Exactly what should be in the Tech Accountability and Sovereignty Act should be debated, but here are some initial ideas:

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

This act would not negate the value of broader digital governance, but would respond to the urgent need to protect the integrity, safety and sovereignty of our information ecosystem at a time when it is under attack.

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Taylor Owen @taylorowen.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Instead of retabling multiple large tech bills the government could first pull out the core components from each that are needed to protect our information ecosystem into one piece of purpose-built legislation immediately when Parliament returns: The Tech Accountability and Sovereignty Act.

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