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Todd Davies

@todddavi.es

1.5K followers 1.1K following 190 posts

Competition Law PhD Candidate @ University College London Working on a theory of the competitive process, polycrisis, private power, political economy, ecology and democracy. Previously a software engineer. https://todddavi.es 🍉🌱

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Todd Davies @todddavi.es · Mar 21

How can decisions about whether competition authorities should intervene against tech platforms have implications for democracy? 🗳️

@spencercohen.bsky.social and I tackle that question in a new paper published in Journal of Competition Law & Economics! 🧵

doi.org/10.1093/jocl... (OA)

Error Costs, Platform Regulation, and Democracy

Abstract. Competition law has long favoured an error-cost framework that advocates for non-intervention under the assumption that market power self-correct

doi.org

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Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 3d

2/"We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."
defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

"Europeans, let's wake up!" — Defend Democracy

“We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.” President Macron on the occasion of German Unity Day, 3 October 2025.

defenddemocracy.eu

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Lawprofblawg @lawprofblawg.bsky.social · 3d

My thread* on authoritarianism in the legal academy, and its origins.

*These thoughts are my own and do not reflect the views of my current employer, who has already begun to accept precompliance.

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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 15d

I wish Peters Kyle and Mandelson had someone as smart and experienced as Tim Wu on their side when they were negotiating the "Tech Prosperity Deal" on.ft.com/47WmGLi

When it comes to tech, Britain must avoid becoming Nebraska

Silicon Valley’s investment may be welcome but the UK should not allow itself to be a data-centre farm

on.ft.com

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Tom Clark @tom-clark.bsky.social · 15d

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds

open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 16d

This was fantastic. We say “touch grass” like a curse on someone, when really the digital realm has become a place to separate us from the sensual (and I’d argue the emotional) connection we have with the world around us and those closest to us

What emerges is something like an upside down Gnosticism, a world designed to remove you from the sensual, and thereby rob you of community, autonomy, or self-knowledge. As Audre Lorde writes in her essential essay Uses of the Erotic:
"When we live outside ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives only rather than from our internal knowledge and needs, when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves, then our lives are limited by external and alien forms, and we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human
need, let alone an individual's...in touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial."
What people want to replace you with is what they think you already are. If companies, bosses, and boyfriends want to replace you with a robot or an AI model, that's because they already see you and what you do as simply the workings of a machine with far too many bugs. When we buy into this framing, we lose half the battle. The way out is through the senses.

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Stella Creasy MP @stellacreasy.bsky.social · 16d

Reform’s call to deport ALL people who legally make a life here - paying taxes, forming families, volunteering and even being elected - needs calling out.

Contrary to Farage, ILR doesn’t = criminal. They ARE net contributors to our economy.

An expensive, hateful & stupid plan.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 17d

This is not OK

www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/how...

Reform, with 0.7% of all MPs, featured in 25% of BBC's recent 10pm news bulletins

Astonishingly, a party with 18 times as many MPs as Reform has received one-third less coverage on BBC News at 10.

www.thelondoneconomic.com

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David Graeber Institute @davidgraeberinst.bsky.social · 18d

Today took place the #Carnival4David in London

Full with radical optimism.

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Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 20d

You'd think that the Brits would be better at spotting a colonial power when they see it.

Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 21d

Look who came with

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Billy Bragg @billybragg.bsky.social · 23d

March route for Wednesday’s Stop Trump demo. Rally in Parliament Square from 5pm to 7pm. Come after work to show your opposition to Trumpismo being imported into the UK by Reform

Stop Trump Coalition @ukstoptrump.bsky.social · 23d

FOR WEDNESDAY:

Here is the route of the march against Trump & the far right

GATHER: 2pm Portland Place (BBC)
MARCH: at 3pm
RALLY: 5pm at Parliament Square!!

Route map for Trump not welcome demonstration

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Todd Davies @todddavi.es · 22d

Prof. Fukuyama is on fire (also about antitrust & democracy in the last quarter).

Francis Fukuyama @frankfukuyama.bsky.social · 22d

Our coming plutocracy:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wet...

Our Coming Plutocracy

YouTube video by Frankly Fukuyama

www.youtube.com

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 25d

There's been a shift towards support to the far right here and it's horrible to see. But this remains a vastly less racist/homophobic/anti-semitic country than it has been in the past.

Which makes it all the odder that our politicians today seem more scared to make the argument.

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is a huge story.

Don't let him get away with it.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Nigel Farage uses private company to pay less tax on GB News earnings

Exclusive: Reform leader’s use of personal services firm is a practice criticised across the political spectrum

www.theguardian.com

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Todd Davies @todddavi.es · Sep 3

Another aspect of the futility of the Commission's decision to postpone the Google AdTech fine: Member States can, and will, fine Big Tech under domestic law anyway.

Luis Alberto Montezuma 路易斯·阿尔贝托·蒙特祖玛 @montezumachavez.bsky.social · Sep 3

The French DPA fines GOOGLE €325 million for displaying advertisements to Gmail users without consent. lnkd.in/d3n4V6Y3.

Reposted by Todd Davies

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · Sep 2

Telling it like it is, and cutting through.

'We’re here to replace you,’ new Green leader Polanski tells Labour as he terms Starmer’s politics ‘despicable’ .
Landslide winner of leadership election says migrants are backbone of UK and his party should not sell out patriotism to Farage

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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · Sep 3

Ed Balls: the Greens taking votes from Labour helps the Tories

@zackpolanski.bsky.social : "I want to see every Labour politician whose voted for a two child benefit cap, for disability cuts, for the ongoing genocide in Gaza to sell arms to them, I want to see them replaced" #GMB

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Max von Thun @maxvonthun.bsky.social · Sep 1

It's only logical that a government which is trampling on the rule of law at home would also try to undermine it abroad. If US corporations refuse to comply with overseas laws then they should lose their market access, it's as simple as that.

WIRED @wired.com · Aug 31

The FTC notified companies like Google, Meta, and Apple that they must not apply the Digital Services Act, which regulates digital platforms, if it jeopardizes the freedom of Americans. www.wired.com/story/big-te...

Big Tech Companies in the US Have Been Told Not to Apply the Digital Services Act

The FTC notified companies like Google, Meta, and Apple that they must not apply the Digital Services Act, which regulates digital platforms, if it jeopardizes the freedom of Americans.

www.wired.com

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Todd Davies @todddavi.es · Aug 30

Imo the law can totally help push back against Google in this case. Details in this working paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Innovation or Infringement? Generative AI and the Potential for Exclusionary Abuse under Article 102 TFEU

This paper asks whether, and how, the integration of generative AI powered features into large online platforms raises novel questions pertaining to abuse of do

papers.ssrn.com

Todd Davies @todddavi.es · Aug 30

FYI, there are several competition law cases being filed in the EU to try and stop, or at least tone down, the AI overview. E.g. movementforanopenweb.com/legal-compla...

Legal complaint calls for urgent opt-out from Google’s AI news theft - Movement For An Open Web

A landmark legal challenge to stop Google stealing the work of British journalists has been launched in a case brought by tech justice non-profit Foxglove, the Independent Publishers Alliance, and the...

movementforanopenweb.com

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Johnny Ryan @johnnyryan.bsky.social · Aug 26

The EU must use the anti coercion instrument now, or be humiliated. Europe must be free to enforce its own law on its own soil.

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Tom Fletcher @tomfletcherun.bsky.social · Aug 23

My full statement on the Gaza Famine :

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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · Aug 20

This is such an insane statistic that it's hard to understand. 40% of what is shipped is fossil fuels -- not 40% of things are shipped *by* fossil fuels. 40% of *what is being carried* is the fossil fuels themselves.

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Aug 20

We ship 11 billion tonnes of stuff around the world and 40% of that is fossil fuels.

Baltimore shipping channel reopened after explosion on cargo ship near site of 2024 bridge collapse

Authorities are investigating the cause of an explosion aboard a cargo ship that was leaving the Port of Baltimore when it issued a mayday call.

apnews.com

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Aug 18

My job as a professor is not to create a serviceable worker. My job is to help foster thoughtful citizens or community members.

If that sounds fanciful it’s bc corporate interests have spent decades framing how we talk about education so they don’t take the heat for immiserating labor conditions.

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Aug 18

Do not accept the premise that education is to blame for abysmal jobs outcomes.

“The fantasy economy's framing of economic inequality… focuses exclusively on education…deflects attention away from decades of public policies and changing business practices that have…contributed to stagnating wages”

Cover image of Neil Kraus’s The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism inequality and the education reform movement

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Max von Thun @maxvonthun.bsky.social · Aug 12

The entire reason that Google *might* be forced to sell Chrome is to prevent it from using the browser to unfairly promote its search engine. Perplexity would have exactly the same incentives to self-preference, defeating the purpose of the remedy.

An independent Chrome is the only viable solution.

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · Aug 12

BREAKING via WSJ

AI startup Perplexity offered to purchase Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion as it works to challenge the tech giant’s web-search dominance.

A judge is weighing whether to force Google to sell Chrome after ruling that Google illegally monopolized the search market.

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · Aug 10

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

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