Protocol

Check out this week’s Override - Protocol’s pick of the top three tech policy stories shaping the moment from South Australia announcing a Royal Commission into AI to scientists using AI to design viruses that can kill antibiotic-resistant E.coli. Bringing you the signal, not the noise, every week.   #techpolicy #technews #override #digitalpolicy #ai

Protocol's founder, Emma Cooney, had the privilege of visiting Parliament House in Canberra this week for the Tech Policy Design Institute (TPDi) Design Dialogue on the Digital Duty of Care. This was Protocol's first opportunity to engage with such a diverse range of people working in Australian tech policy. We are so grateful to TPDi - Johanna Weaver, Zoe Jay Hawkins, Meredith Hodgman and team - for organising such a wonderful event and for elevating young Australians' voices in this conversation. In particular, it was great to meet the TPDi Tech Policy Youth Ambassadors - George Trigenis, Eve Carlin, and Bianca Kendrick. This Digital Duty of Care represents a clear shift towards systemic harm prevention, focusing on the features of online services such as algorithmic recommender systems. It moves us away from the historic content-centric or individual harm based approach to online safety. We were excited to share the research our Digital Harms Focus Area has been working on to identify the need for this Duty of Care. Shoutout to Hamna Mohsin and Zunairah Sinha for their work, alongside Emma, in developing this research. You can check out this research via our website at the link in the comments. Over the coming months, Protocol's Digital Harms Focus Area will continue to work to understand young Australians' perspectives on this topic and advocate for a Duty that serves the public good.

Check out this week’s Override - Protocol’s pick of the top three tech policy stories shaping the moment from Meta being ordered to pay $US567 million in a landmark New Mexico trial to more than 1,200 AI workers from frontier firms calling the US Government to slow AI development. Bringing you the signal, not the noise, every week. #techpolicy #technews #override #digitalpolicy #ai

In February 2024, the Indian National Congress party shared a deepfake video of Prime Minister Modi singing the song “Thief” on its official Instagram account. AI was used to insert the Prime Minister’s voice and face onto the video of the original artist, the message behind the post implying corruption within the Indian government. The US has seen fabricated videos emerge of figures like Kamala Harris and CNN’s Anderson Cooper; some have been disseminated and, in the case of the Trump administration, further shared by political parties themselves. Protocol's Truth in Political Advertising Working Group from our Semester 1 Policy Research Program conducted a comparative review of artificial intelligence (AI) usage in political campaigns across the United States of America, India and Australia between 2019 and 2026. They found it is clear that AI is no longer a hypothetical risk to the Australian democracy. That's why the Working Group, including David Guo, Patricia Larasgita, Tuan Hung Mai, Vanshika Saini and Isabella Yu, called on the Government to implement strong laws at the federal level that bring AI-generated and misleading electoral communication within the scope and authorities of regulators. Read more about the Working Group's findings here: https://lnkd.in/gnChYgwZ

The Senate Environment and Communications References Committee is running an Inquiry into Artificial Intelligence and Data Centres, looking at everything from energy and water use to how these deals get made. Young Australians are the ones who’ll live with the consequences of the AI investment happening now, so we want your voice to be heard. We’ve put together a short, anonymous survey on our website to make that easy. It takes a few minutes, and every response will help shape Protocol's submission to the Senate Inquiry. We all deserve to play a role in shaping our technological future. Share your thoughts here: https://lnkd.in/gYp7_smy You can learn more or make a submission directly to the Senate Inquiry here: https://lnkd.in/gtvYaW5Y

Around the world, we are seeing significant litigation related to the use of copyrighted material in the training of AI, including landmark cases in US courts against Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI. In Australia, the Productivity Commission released their 2025 Report 'Harnessing data and digital technology' and recommended a ‘wait and monitor’ approach over the next 3 years to ascertain whether policy intervention is required in the context of AI and copyright. One of our Policy Research Program Working Groups from Semester 1 examined whether Australia’s current direct copyright licensing model effectively protects the copyrights of creators in the film, music and literary domains, in the context of AI model training and licensing. Massive congratulations to this Working Group, including Martin L., Anna Scotland, Anna Feng, Minami Graham and Benjamin Hung, mentored by Anna Jordan, for this comprehensive summary of the current state of play. Check out their research on our website: https://lnkd.in/gA_MKa5Y

Check out this week’s Override - Protocol’s pick of the top three tech policy stories shaping the moment from discussion over open weight AI heating up in Silicon valley to the eSafety commencing legal proceedings against Telegram over alleged failings to tackle terror. Bringing you the signal, not the noise, every week.   #techpolicy #technews #override #digitalpolicy #ai

As quantum technologies attract growing investment and move from lab towards real-world impact, conversations about their impact on society are becoming as important as the science itself.   We recently partnered with youth-led tech policy lab Protocol to host Our Quantum Future, a public panel discussion exploring the promises, risks and responsibilities that come with quantum innovation.   The discussion tackled some of the key questions shaping the future of quantum innovation: ✅ What are the most impactful applications of quantum technologies? ✅ How do we build public trust in technologies that many people are only beginning to encounter? ✅ How do we separate genuine opportunity from hype? ✅ How do we ensure the benefits of quantum innovation are shared broadly across society, rather than creating a divide between the quantum "haves" and "have-nots"?   What made the event particularly valuable was the opportunity for young people and members of the public to put these questions directly to quantum technology and policy experts, helping to create a more informed and inclusive conversation about the future of quantum technologies.   A huge thank you to panellists Justine Lacey, Alejandra Cau Cattan, Jorge Campos Gonzalez Angulo and Tom Stace for sharing their insights and perspectives, and to Protocol for bringing this discussion to the community.   As quantum technologies continue to develop, meaningful public engagement is essential to ensuring that innovation is not only technically successful, but also trusted, responsible and beneficial for all.   #QuantumTechnology #ResponsibleInnovation #PublicEngagement #TechPolicy #QuantumFuture #QUBIC

Check out this week’s Override - Protocol’s pick of the top three tech policy stories shaping the moment from Moonshot AI's latest open-weight AI model release to OpenAI reporting an experimental model breaking out of its testing space and hacking into AI startup Hugging Face. Bringing you the signal, not the noise, every week. #techpolicy #technews #override #digitalpolicy #ai

This week, proceedings brought by the state of Tennessee against Meta have commenced over claims that Instagram’s platform design is addictive and detrimental to the mental health of teenagers. Tennessee is not alone in this endeavour, with another trial commenced by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey to begin in August. Since a landmark finding by a Los Angeles jury in March that social media giants Meta and Google were negligent in their addictive platform designs, cases brought by individuals and school districts have cropped up around the US, also seeking to hold tech companies liable for the harmful impact of their social media platforms. We glimpsed the ripple effect of these cases in Australia on Monday this week, when Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced new laws that will lower the threshold of child psychiatric harm required to bring social media or AI companies to court in negligence claims. Demonstrated by the global domino effect of Australia’s social media minimum age laws introduced in December last year, which has seen countries such as the UK, France, and Indonesia follow suit, foreign lawmaking regarding social media can give clues into how these issues may be treated on domestic soil. As Professor Terry Flew, Co-Director of the Centre for AI, Trust and Governance (CAITG) at the University of Sydney, said of Australia’s social media minimum age requirement: “Many governments around the world are watching how the power of Big Tech was successfully taken on and are considering their own measures to address the adverse consequences of platform power.” Read more about the Tennessee case here: https://lnkd.in/gnsutTbz