Anthropic plays defence, Discord pleas for forgiveness and Reddit plans to appeal
Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation's Week in Review, your need-to-know news and analysis about platform policy, content moderation and internet regulation. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw and supported by members like you.
When we created our 2026 bingo card, “US Defense Department strong arms AI safety rules” wasn’t on it. Clearly, we weren’t thinking big — or weird — enough.
That story is central to today’s newsletter (see: Policies) and this week’s Ctrl-Alt-Speech, in which I’m joined by Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of the Hard Fork podcast. As well as some big personal news, Casey has strong views on the future of age assurance. Have a listen.
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Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has this week heaped pressure on Anthropic to allow the military to use its powerful Claude model as it sees fit, after other AI companies removed clauses in their contracts. The company, which has a $200 million contract with the Defense Department, is reportedly concerned about AI-controlled weapons and mass domestic surveillance of citizens — both of which go against its safety focus.
The Washington Post has the gory details, including some potential backstabbing by the famously ethical technology company, Palantir. Anthropic responded by announcing changes to its Responsible Scaling Policy, saying it felt “with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments”, although insiders told CNN that the Pentagon pressure had nothing to do with it. Hard to imagine that they’re not linked.
Do or Amodei: Trust & Safety is how platforms put their values into action is a common refrain of my wise EiM colleague, Alice Hunsberger. This is a perfect example of that. Anthropic has styled itself as the most safety conscious AI company, which doesn’t seem to have harmed its growth in the B2B market. Co-founder Dario Amodei released a statement last night saying “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request”, which is commendable. It’s a shame that he has become the story and not the fact that Google, OpenAI and xAI have all dropped pledges or revised language related to AI use for weapons and surveillance.
In the UK, the much-touted social media consultation is expected to be launched next week with The Guardian reporting that Prime Minister Keir Starmer will back the idea despite senior insiders saying they are “sceptical about whether a ban will work”. Despite many making strong cases against a ban — including, this week, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty — it increasingly feels like a done deal.