Ashkhen Kazaryan

Armenia remains a dream, a subject of stories; it is still, against all odds, a place - Anthony Bourdain

TMZ is about one more week away from just releasing their own version of Politico Pro

WSJ: After Claudia Goldin became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics in 2023, she received hundreds of invitations and requests. She accepted just three. One of them was advising the WNBA players union as the women prepared to negotiate a new labor deal with the league.

Let's assume that @JonHaidt is right - which is possible - that social media is the cause of increasing mental harm among children. Doesn't that justify Haidt celebrating Indonesia's new law banning under 16s from SoMe? A 🧵

@LindsayPoss @jrhuddles Omg

cc @Ashkhen @jrhuddles

the way I immediately thought of multiple people who would do this

Even if social media's harms to minors are as devastating as some claim, will age restrictions effectively mitigate them — or will they create new, greater risks for free speech, privacy, and access to information?

I keep thinking of this and laughing harder and harder. Imagine if books were a gun, imagine if Spotify was an atom bomb, imagine if every group chat was an AK 47

This is absolutely true.

Every time you load a page, your data travels through physical infrastructure - cables under oceans, satellites overhead, fiber under cities. Most people never think about. That's why I decided to map it. This is Project Backbone. It's free, interactive, and live.

A recap of all the theories of the case Judge Lin has ruled Anthropic is “substantially likely” to ultimately prevail on: 1. Unconstitutional government retaliation for first amendment-protected speech—the government’s actions were motivated by Anthropic’s political beliefs and speech. 2. Violation of Anthropic’s 14th Amendment due process rights 3. The Administration acted entirely outside of any legal authority granted to it by Congress 4. Violation of the procedures of 10 USC 3252–to the extent government acted within the bounds of 10 USC 3252, even here it likely violated the plain text of the law, which requires the DoW to evaluate less restrictive options than the “supply chain risk” designation 5. Arbitrary and capricious—the government’s actions violated the arbitrary and capricious standard of the Administrative Procedure Act Again, this is NOT a ruling on the merits. The judge is not saying anthropic definitively wins on any of these. She is saying they are “substantially likely” to win. The government will appeal this procedural ruling, which will yield another procedural ruling from an appellate court. Nonetheless, the “substantial likelihood” standard is not a small hurdle to clear, especially given we are dealing in an area of law (national security procurement) where the executive branch typically gets maximal deference from the courts. And of course, the supply chain risk designation is stopped, at least for now. There is a long way ahead, and of course the government could escalate even further. But this is a good day for America, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

"What you won’t get out of this is anything approaching 'accountability.' You’ll get the end of the open internet, cheered on by people who think they’re punishing a bully but are actually handing the bully’s biggest competitors a death sentence."

“Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government…” storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Reminder that the same people claiming social media is "harming" teenagers today have been making the exact same arguments about every single iteration of the internet for the past 30 years. techdirt.com/2006/06/19/tee…

They're gonna make us all have to show ID just to listen to music.

A unanimous #SCOTUS, in an opinion by Justice Thomas, holds that an Internet service provider "is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights." supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…

At least TSA at DCA had no line

They want LeBron

The very notion of "kids online safety" has always confused me. I've been online since 1999. The internet has only gotten "safer" since, given the rise of big platform, content moderation, security features, etc. If anything the internet is *too* safe now.

Get Disney on the phone right now

Are AI outputs free speech under the First Amendment? Yes. AI is polling down there with ICE and the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, I'm like Butters in South Park, unironically marveling at how awesome it is. So maybe I'm just asking for a ratio, but I wrote a whole big paper arguing that AI outputs deserve First Amendment protection. The case has little to do with whether you like AI, and a lot to do with how scared you should be of letting the government control what AI says. I threw a ton into this thing, and I hope my law nerds will read it all. Link and some highlights below.