📸🇬🇧 Encode’s @_NathanCalvin in London at the Athens Roundtable on AI and the Rule of Law! At the event, Nathan discussed California’s new AI law and how our work in the U.S. fits within the global AI policy landscape.

“Every emotional moment becomes suspect ... It creates this low-level paranoia within people that kills the spontaneity and magic of social media.” Encode’s @KashyapRajesh14 in TIME this morning, on how AI-generated videos are disrupting our feeds:

Governor Newsom at an event in NY: "And we have a bill -- forgive me, it's on my desk -- that we think strikes the right balance and we worked with industry, but we didn't submit to industry."

Today’s a big day. We just turned 5! 5⃣🎂 In July 2020, we were scrappy high schoolers across Instagram group chats. Now, our young, fast-moving team is shaping how policymakers and the public navigate AI — in DC, SF, and beyond. In the last year alone, we’ve: ✅ Led historic coalitions to block a 10-year freeze on state AI laws ✅ Helped pass the first federal law on deepfake porn ✅ Helped pass the first guardrails for AI in nuclear ✅ Sponsored landmark bills like SB 1047, SB 53, and the RAISE Act ... and more. We’re pretty good at politics, but it’s not all we do. In Chapter 6, we’ll double down on preparing young people for a world with powerful AI — starting with reimagining their careers. We say this every year, and it’s still true: we’re just getting started. If you joined us on the road from 2020 to here, thank you for making Encode possible. If you’re joining us now, welcome. Let’s get to work. 💪

The AI Moratorium has been stripped out of the Big Beautiful Bill in an overwhelming 99-1 vote. We thank Senator @MarshaBlackburn, kids online safety advocates, civil society organizations, and hundreds of grassroots volunteers that came together to stop this.

Over 130 organizations working on children's safety are clear: NO version of the moratorium is acceptable.

Today we released a letter from 130+ organizations in opposition to the new AI moratorium text. The new provision still handicaps states, leaves children without protections, and puts billions in BEAD funding under threat. No version of preemption is acceptable.

Proponents of the moratorium have tried every way they can to jam it into the budget. After waves and waves of backlash it looks like it's finally going down.

The reckless AI moratorium puts billions of dollars of BEAD funding at stake across all 50 states. See how much is threatened and what laws it would strip away in your state at stopaiban.org

Today we hosted a youth-led rally with @DesignItForUs in support of tech legislation like the RAISE Act in the New York State Capitol. Young people and lawmakers turned out, committed to not making the same mistakes on AI that we made on social media.

Thankful to the 15+ Senators and Assembly Members who showed up with young people to support common sense tech guardrails in New York.

@AlexBores speaks alongside young people at Encode and DIFU’s rally in support of the RAISE and SAFE For All Acts.

🚨 BREAKING: Over 260 lawmakers from all 50 states just told Congress: don’t tie our hands with a 10-year AI moratorium. There's bipartisan interest in opposing preemption.

Today we attended the White House signing ceremony for the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a critical step for survivors of image based sexual abuse. We are grateful to everyone in attendance that made this happen! @RAINN @SVPAOfficial @americans4ri @NCOSE survivors like Francesca and more.

🚨 BREAKING: 40 bipartisan state AGs just delivered a powerful message to Congressional leadership: The proposed 10-year moratorium on state AI regulations would strip away critical consumer protections with NO federal alternative in place.

In today's E&C markup @USRepKCastor held up and read a letter Encode assembled with @fairplayforkids @CommonSense @ncypalliance calling on members to strip AI preemption from the current budget reconciliation text: "It ties lawmakers’ hands for a decade, sidelining policymakers and leaving families on their own as they face risks and harms that emerge with this fast-evolving technology in the years to come."

Millions of students know about AI-generated explicit images of classmates circulating at school—but only a few cases make the news. At Encode, we built a deepfake incident tracker so students can report these incidents anonymously to help illuminate the issue and drive changes in legislation and school policies. Out today in @techpolicypress: techpolicy.press/digital-exp…

California must lead the way on AI and do it responsibly. 🚨 We’re sponsoring SB 53, a new bill that gives AI lab employees a voice and proposes public compute for researchers and startups.

Today, we joined with @americans4ri and others urging Senate confirmation of @howardlutnick as Commerce Secretary. His vision for AI standards, export controls, and domestic chip production will help ensure continued US leadership in artificial intelligence.

🚨 Encode filed an amicus brief last Friday arguing to the court that blocking OpenAI's for-profit conversion protects the public interest. The brief has already picked up support from leading AI researchers including Nobel Laureate @geoffreyhinton. The court should require OpenAI to adhere to its founding mission of making sure advanced AI benefits the public. See more details below 🔽

Thrilled to announce the TAKE IT DOWN Act has been included in the House Continuing Resolution, bringing us one step closer to its passage! Huge thanks to advocates like Francesca Mani and the members who have worked tirelessly to get this bill passed.

Over the summer we began working with deepfake victim Francesca Mani to push school districts around the country to update their codes of conduct to include deepfake nudes. Today we published our brief, informed by conversations with victims and experts, that has informed that work.

See Encode VP of Policy Adam Billen’s op-ed in print and online in the Seattle Times today! “I fear that I will look back on today as the chance we missed to end this crisis,” @AdamBillen.

Our language restricting the use of AI in nuclear weapons systems made it into the House/Senate NDAA compromise! Congratulations and thank you to @SenMarkey @RepTedLieu and @RepSaraJacobs.

This Monday at 1pm ET we’re hosting a virtual event with @EDSAFEAI focused on protecting students and equipping districts with the tools they need to combat AI-generated nudes as a follow up to our Empowering Voices Summit with Francesca Mani. Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi……

Today, Encode and @americans4ri released an open letter in support of the DEFIANCE and TAKE IT DOWN Acts. 27 groups ranging from parents’ and victims’ rights organizations to industry associations signed on to call on @SpeakerJohnson and @RepJeffries to pass the two bills.

The EPIC Act is a bipartisan, common sense solution to increase NIST’s capacity and promote American leadership abroad. Former NIST Director @waltercopan and @fiiiiiist explain why Congress should include it in this year’s NDAA.

With the TAKE IT DOWN and DEFIANCE Acts both passing the Senate, the House has an oppurtunity to pass commonsense protections for victims. We launched a petition with @americans4ri today to push the House to take action on both bills. Take action here: StopAIFakes.com

🚨 SB 1047 was just vetoed by Governor Newsom. This was an opportunity for California to lead on AI safety legislation that was supported by a broad coalition ranging from unions to academics to actors.

"The Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act is our generation's moonshot for democracy in the digital age. It ensures that as machines learn, America's values aren't forgotten." — @sgandhi0 on Encode's endorsement of @SenMarkey's groundbreaking new AI Civil Rights Act

.@OpenAI might be worth reviewing Section 1 point 2 of AI 2030…no reason in particular………..

That’s our president! Congratulations @sneharevanur on being named as the youngest of TIME’s 100 most influential people in AI. 🥳 “We are the next generation of users, consumers, advocates, and developers, and we deserve a seat at the table.” time.com/collection/time100-…

Members of our Massachusetts chapter met with @SenWarren on Wednesday to discuss AI policy and her work in the Senate to hold Big Tech accountable! 💪

me when algorithmic harms go unaddressed

Youth turned out at today's Senate AI hearing! More proof that young people are invested in and leading the way on federal AI policy.