Jennifer Huddleston and David Inserra
The year 2025 was certainly busy in tech policy, with both positives and negatives. While, of course, there were many concerns about tech and expression in 2025, it’s also important to reflect on the good that happened and what could go right in 2026.
Reflections on 2025 Technology Policy Wins
So, what were some of those 2025 successes when it came to tech policy, innovation, and expression:
Recognizing the need for a federal standard on AI policy and preventing a patchwork of state laws.
While it was ultimately removed, this summer’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” sparked significant discussion about a federal moratorium on state AI policy. Such an approach prevents a patchwork that could fragment or deter the development and application of this important technology at a key stage.
In December, President Trump issued an executive order that directed the Department of Justice to form a litigation task force that would respond to the impact of state AI laws that could obstruct the development of this important technology. Further conversations around potential preemption of state AI laws by Congress also occurred. The specifics of a federal approach to AI should be light-touch while remaining committed to important values, including free expression.
But as state legislatures return with an increasing number of AI-related bills under consideration, they must recognize that a patchwork could not only increase compliance burdens but also derail applications of AI or the development of the technology more generally.
The consumer welfare standard continues, and the courts reject less objective approaches to antitrust.
2025 also saw a reminder that the courts continue to focus on the sound economics and objective approach reflected in the consumer welfare standard. This was seen when the courts once again rejected the FTC’s attempt to undo Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp from over a decade ago.
Another significant moment in this area was Judge Mehta’s decision regarding remedies for the previously found antitrust violation. In this decision, he not only rejected the extreme actions proposed by the Department of Justice but also reflected on how quickly AI had advanced and perhaps even changed the market since his initial decision. If an appeal is filed and as other cases are considered, it will be interesting to watch how the changing dynamics and disruption of new technologies play out in the decisions.
AI is literally saving lives (and improving them).
For all the negative headlines about AI, the technology itself is so much more than just publicly available generative AI products like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini.
My Cato colleague Jeff Singer and I have been working on a series on AI in healthcare, given the potential impact of the technology there. Already, these technological advancements are improving the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases, including cancer. In other cases, it is improving stroke victims’ quality of life by giving them their voices back.
But it’s not just the medical field where AI is saving lives. Other applications, like autonomous vehicles, are increasing road safety. AI is enabling authorities to find lost hikers quickly. It is helping to better predict and respond to natural disasters.
As 2026 starts and we think about what happens next with AI, hopefully, we remember that “AI” means far more than just generative AI consumer products. It is also the key to breakthroughs that are both amazing and life-saving.
The US rhetorically refutes international censorship.
For all the very real concerns about threats to free expression under the Trump administration, one bright spot has been their willingness to condemn direct censorship and online speech-harming regulations. For example, the Trump administration has directly condemned laws against hateful or offensive speech in Germany, the UK, Sweden, and elsewhere. It has condemned Brazil’s crackdown on “misinformation” as a pretext to silence critics of Brazilian policies and officials. And it has directly challenged the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) for its host of speech-threatening requirements. This was most clearly on display when the EU’s former DSA chief, Thierry Breton, threatened Elon Musk with penalties under the DSA for hosting a conversation with then-candidate Trump before the 2024 US election.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean that the Trump administration’s response to these events has always been ideal. Imposing massive tariffs as a punishment, for example, only further harms American prosperity. It also doesn’t mean the current administration is a perfect champion of free speech, given its record at home. But it is good to see foreign censorship and onerous online speech regulations clearly called out.
How to Make 2026 An Optimistic Year for Technology Policy
The importance of online speech and avoiding censorious impulses.
As Section 230 reaches its 30th anniversary, it is important to remember that the law benefits both speakers and innovators. This anniversary comes at a time of growing pressure to regulate online speech in the US and around the world. Some of these may stem from good intentions, such as protecting children or ensuring individuals are aware that information has been manipulated, but they often have far-reaching consequences and may even undermine these goals.
As we have discussed in our work on these topics over the last several years, these laws have significant consequences for the rights of expression, privacy, and innovation. Such laws often have more far-reaching consequences than advocates with good intentions might realize. European hate speech laws and youth online safety laws have made this increasingly clear.
Of course, 2026 is also the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. While some would say our founders never would have understood AI or social media, they did fundamentally understand the underlying values of expression in a free society. This includes the need for anonymous and pseudonymous speech that many of the founding fathers relied on at the time of the founding. Some policymakers have directly attacked this historic right that is particularly important to marginalized voices and political dissidents. Other policies, like age verification requirements, attack it more indirectly.
Given the anniversary of so many critical speech and innovation principles in 2026, hopefully, this can lead to a renewed understanding of their importance rather than attacks.
Bipartisan need for government transparency.
During the Biden administration, Republicans rightfully criticized government pressure and demands of social media companies to suppress online speech. The Biden administration felt it was necessary to lean on platforms to make sure that harmful COVID misinformation was stopped. While there was certainly a lot of false information peddled during the pandemic, some of the claims raised by critics and skeptics turned out to be right or at least worthy of debate and discussion.
Pushing platforms to remove such information not only raised serious constitutional concerns, going all the way to the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri, but also made clear that the government wielded significant power in its secret communications with companies.
With the first year of the Trump administration behind us, Democrats are now concerned to see similar threats, both private and public, being used to jawbone companies into removing speech. The FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, demanded ABC-Disney fire Jimmy Kimmel for his remarks about the murder of Charlie Kirk, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Privately, the Trump administration has been leaning on companies to remove content and apps that are critical of immigration enforcement and monitor ICE operations in public.
No administration should have the power to pressure platforms into removing or restricting speech. And since so many of these conversations and demands happen in secret, it is impossible for the public to know if the government’s communications are proper or improper. Now that politicians of both parties can see this power being wielded against them, perhaps they can work together to demand transparency into these sorts of communications, defending the rights of American citizens and platforms from government overreach.
Innovation’s Intersectionality
AI policy can provide opportunities to reexamine existing policies that not only enable technological innovation but also improve governance across a wide range of industries. This has been particularly true in recent debates over AI and energy, but it also holds for a range of innovative technologies and their applications in already heavily regulated fields. Rather than seeing innovation as a reason to impose even more regulation, policymakers should also see it as an opportunity to allow other innovative solutions in these fields and to consider the appropriate application or reduction of existing regulations.
One area where this has been increasingly considered is transportation innovation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Department of Transportation (DoT) have taken a leading role in recognizing the need to incorporate safety-improving technology like autonomous vehicles, as well as to consider the impact that regulation could have on them.
There are other areas where this could play out, such as the healthcare sector, where AI has tremendous potential to improve systems.
In short, while it’s important that we get innovation policy right, it is also important that we consider how this disruption may create opportunities to reexamine policies that can yield benefits beyond any single innovation. Our Cato colleagues in a variety of disciplines have discussed many of these issues as well.
Conclusion
There will be plenty of concerning policy proposals over the course of the year, and there are plenty of threats to the advantages of the light-touch approach to technology that can encourage and support the values of a free society. Hopefully, policymakers can build on the positive momentum in certain areas from last year and avoid top-down policies or shifts away from the values of free expression that could negatively impact consumers and innovators.
