Tech & Democracy News Roundup [9/29/25]

Welcome back to the Tech & Democracy News Roundup! This roundup will now be bi-weekly rather than weekly, in order to provide a more robust selection of important news and moderate the number of emails sent to your inbox :)

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News:

• AI companion chatbots have become a big issue, and government is beginning to respond:

  • FTC Launches Inquiry into AI Chatbots Acting as Companions

  • US Senate Hearing on ‘Examining the Harm of AI Chatbots’

  • Study on companions by CIP

  • Americans Want A.I. Safeguards by a 9-to-1 Margin by the Institute for Family Studies

  • OpenAI releases new policy “Teen safety, freedom, and privacy” - building in age-prediction to identify users under 18 years old

  • A California bill that would regulate AI companion chatbots is close to becoming law

    • The bill would prevent chatbots from engaging in conversations around suicidal ideation, self-harm, or sexually explicit content

    • It also requires platforms to alert users they are speaking to AI

• NetChoice forms a super PAC

  • Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Meta, Snap, X, Yahoo and YouTube want to protect Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which immunizes websites from lawsuits stemming from content posted by users and allows website providers to moderate content without fear of civil liability.

• Meta launches super PAC to fight AI regulation

• OpenAI - How people are using ChatGPT

• OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank expand Stargate with five new AI data center sites

• China bans tech companies from buying Nvidia’s AI chips

• Nepal chooses a new prime minister via a poll on Discord

  • Nepal’s social media ban backfires as politics moves to a chat room

• Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption

• Anthropic Economic Index report: Uneven geographic and enterprise AI adoption

• First AI leader of a political party

• American Association of Political Consultants released a Deepfake Compliance Guide

• Tech companies ‘be on alert,’ NAACP says with new guiding principles for data centers

• Microsoft Drops Israel MoD as customer

• New Gallup poll on American’s perspectives on AI

From the Allen Lab:

• Reflections on the ‘Reboot Democracy’ workshop series with Beth Noveck and Danielle Allen

Events & Opportunities:

• Data & Society ‘Understanding AI’ series — A four-part livestreamed series in partnership with the New York Public Library

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