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September 3, 2026

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: Three Features That Put a Child on the Bottom Line

For some background music when reading this post, we encourage you to (re)discover the Eurythmics performing “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”. The previous post in this series, You Spin Me Round, took the three features built to keep a child scrolling: the feed that never ends, the video that plays itself, and the notification built for return. The proposed fix was to switch off the harmful pattern by default, with the possibility to switch...

Blog Post, digital rights, internet policy, technology
September 1, 2026

You Spin Me Round: Three Features Built to Keep a Child in the Loop

For some background music when reading this post, we encourage you to (re)discover Dead or Alive performing "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". The opening post in this series, Non, a Ban Is Not a Plan, described how the French Conseil constitutionnel struck down the under-15 ban because the legislator had set out to address the risks posed by certain features of social media services and then wrote a rule about the user’s age...

Blog Post, digital rights, internet policy, technology
August 27, 2026

Non, a Ban Is Not a Plan: France Struck Down the Ban, Meta Settled on Features

For some background music when reading this post, we encourage you to (re)discover Michel Polnareff’s “La poupée qui fait non”. France adopted its under-15 social media ban on 21 July 2026 but hit a major roadblock a few weeks before its prohibition was due to take effect. The Conseil constitutionnel censured the central provision of the ban on 14 August, and the reasoning for its “Non” travels far beyond France. While the court did accept...

Blog Post, digital rights, European policy, internet policy, technology
July 8, 2026

Zero Knowledge, Full Record: Age Verification And The Infrastructure The Privacy Label Ignores

The “privacy-preserving age verification” label should be understood at two separate levels: on the one hand, it accurately describes a mechanism, yet on the other, it misleadingly describes a system. The protection it refers to covers a single exchange between a user and a website; the infrastructure that makes that exchange work requires knowing who the user is. The former may be preserving privacy, but the latter certainly doesn’t. That distinction has consequences. The label...

Blog Post, digital rights, technology
February 18, 2026

Of Potatoes and Walls: A Generation Muted by Good Intentions

Last week, I found myself sitting around a table at the Lisbon Council, surrounded by policymakers, platform executives, children’s rights advocates and researchers, all wrestling with one question that has become the rallying cry of European digital policy: should we ban children from social media? It is a question that sounds decisive. Even bold. But as the conversation unfolded, a familiar album kept playing in my head. The event, a High-Level Working Lunch titled ‘To...

Blog Post, digital rights, European policy, internet policy, technology
February 11, 2026

The Quiet Burning of Our Digital Library

The story of the Library of Alexandria is often told as a catastrophe: flames, conquest, a single dramatic moment in which centuries of human knowledge vanished. But historians are far less certain about such a clean ending. What they largely agree on is something more troubling. The greatest library of the ancient world did not disappear overnight. It faded. Through neglect. Through political pressure. Through shifting priorities. Through a slow erosion of support, until...

February 4, 2026

European Policymakers and AI: Je T’aime… EUx Non Plus

Brussels has a peculiar brand of rhythm, one that sounds suspiciously like Serge Gainsbourg’s Je t’aime… moi non plus. On one hand, the European Union beats the drum of “digital sovereignty,” professing its love for a homegrown AI ecosystem meant to rival Silicon Valley and Beijing. On the other hand, the European Parliament appears determined to build a regulatory cage so small the bird can’t even hatch, let alone fly. On January 28, 2026, the...

Blog Post, internet policy, technology
January 28, 2026

The Leather-Wrapped Village: Why Social Media Bans Miss the Point

The leather-wrapped village is expanding. Australia just tried to wrap the world in leather, and now France has taken its first major step to join them. Europe should teach kids to wear shoes and make the road makers smooth the stones. And the UK? It is currently standing barefoot at the crossroads, deciding which path to take. When Australia became the first country to ban social media for children under sixteen in November 2024, the...

Blog Post, digital rights, internet policy, technology
January 21, 2026

The DNA’s “Voluntary” Counseling: How to Ruin a Happy Marriage…and the Internet

Picture a happy marriage. It might not be flawless, but it is functional. You have found your rhythm where chores are divided, bills are paid, and toast is toasted without drama. You do not invoice your partner for walking past your side of the bed, nor do you escalate hallway traffic into litigation. You simply coexist pragmatically and peacefully. Now imagine the state steps in. They are not there to fix anything, mind you. They just...

Blog Post, technology
December 18, 2025

Building or Buying AI? What the TDM Debate Means for Europe

As Europe approaches the 2026 review of the Copyright Directive, we are making a choice that goes far beyond copyright. We are deciding whether Europe will be a builder in the AI century—or merely a client. Whether the next unicorn is built in Berlin, or rented from Boston or Beijing. That was the core message I brought to the SME Connect discussion on “TDM Reform and Creativity – What Would It Mean for Europe’s AI Ecosystem?” It...

artificial intelligence, Blog Post, copyright, technology