News
The featured The People’s Internet post for the next month is on The People’s Bid for TikTok.
The People’s Bid is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Americans to reclaim a voice, choice, and stake in the future of the internet. In April 2024, Congress passed legislation forcing a ban or sale of TikTok in the U.S.
Project Liberty is building a broad consortium of technologists, investors, community leaders, and creators to purchase TikTok and migrate the platform to new infrastructure that allows people to control their own data.
- Throughout the month, we will be adding to this post articles, livestreams, and videos about the latest DSNP related projects, organizations, and events.
- You can also participate in discussions in all these posts as well as share your top news items and posts (for onAir members – it’s free to join).
May 13, 2025 Project Liberty Newsletter:
Fifteen years ago, Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs) didn’t exist. Today, they have become a popular legal structure for some of the biggest tech companies in the world.
In the 200+ year history of U.S. corporate law, PBCs are a recent legal invention. The first state to pass PBC legislation was Maryland in 2010. Today, 41 states (and the District of Columbia) have laws that enable PBCs.
Unlike traditional corporate structures like C-Corps and S-Corps, which are designed to maximize shareholder value, PBCs promise an alignment between profit and a defined public benefit to society.
PBCs have been making news recently, with OpenAI’s recent decision to convert its for-profit business to a PBC controlled by a nonprofit parent entity.
Becoming a PBC has many benefits:
- Mission alignment: By legally embedding its social mission into its company’s DNA, a PBC structure can help tech firms stay focused on long-term societal impact.
- Public goodwill: A PBC structure can lead to enhanced consumer, employee, and investor trust in the brand. For AI companies responsible for the development of disruptive technologies, becoming a PBC is a step (though a small one) in assuaging the public that those in power have broader societal concerns in mind.
- Greater transparency: PBCs are required to adhere to regular and transparent reporting requirements. However, these requirements do not require AI companies to reveal how their AI algorithms work (a complaint that many have raised). It’s unclear if a shift in legal structure will lead to the type of transparency critics seek.
// Apply now: McCourt TPP Visiting Fellows Program
Deadline: June 6
The McCourt School’s Tech & Public Policy program is now accepting applications for its Fall 2025 Visiting Fellows cohort. This semester-long opportunity invites policy professionals to share their expertise with Georgetown students through lectures, discussions, and events in Washington, DC.
May 6, 2025 Project Liberty Newsletter
For & Against
The current regulation-innovation debate is not new. It’s a dynamic that has shown up in various industries and markets worldwide. Here are a few examples of the relationship between regulation-innovation:
- Regulation can hinder: In most countries, regulations vary based on firm size. The bigger the company, the greater the regulation. Researchers found that companies in France that were nearing a 50-employee size (a headcount threshold that leads to greater labor regulations) innovated less.
- Regulation can enable: Section 230 in the U.S. gave online platforms legal immunity for user content moderation. This protection allowed countless online business models to flourish and is credited with helping create today’s internet (for better and worse).
- Regulation can hinder: America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been recently criticized for regulatory overreach. Those who see nuclear energy as necessary to build a clean-energy economy believe “crushing regulation” has made it virtually impossible for new nuclear reactors to be built in the U.S. (Only three new reactors have been completed in nearly three decades, reflecting widespread criticism of regulatory overreach.)
- Regulation can enable: Antitrust regulation to break up monopolies has created a level playing field upon which new technologies could emerge. Two separate antitrust lawsuits against IBM in 1969 and AT&T in 1974 helped create the conditions for Microsoft and Apple to launch the personal computer revolution.
There are countless other examples highlighting the complex relationship between regulation and innovation, from net neutrality laws in the U.S. to environmental rules that incentivized the formation of new industries like carbon capture, to government regulation that contributed to a boom in domestic manufacturing (in the case of China’s electric vehicle sector).
This hub focuses on the People’s Internet that has been catalyzed and supported by Project Liberty and Frank McCourt.
