Taking the Internet back for God


Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Category: CN

Pages are turning, in history and lots more besides. Events are about to accelerate faster than any of us can imagine. I’ve been watching them from the top of a (very steep) hill, an ocean away. Thinking.

So I want to set out how I intend to respond to the changing world, or at least the one as of noon today US time.

For the foreseeable future, my research focus will be the impact of Christian Nationalism on tech policy under the second Trump administration and beyond. I will be looking into how the former, as a political movement based in an extreme theology, will be impacting the latter, in law, policy, and internet governance.

This will not just be a US-focused project. Because what happens in US tech policy echoes throughout the world, I will be observing how decisions made in DC have repercussions elsewhere in law, policy, and who knows where else.

I’ve already been looking into this for a good year now, for professional client purposes, and at some point it became apparent that someone needed to upgrade this to a serious research initiative. That someone, for obvious reasons, needs to be far away from the US in every sense, with no ties to it or to anyone there.

That would be me.

If this project sounds like a tall order, it really isn’t. I already had lots of practice for this.

It was called Brexit.

That was also an attempt to apply an ideological belief system to the legal frameworks of internet regulation. The outcome of that experiment, as we all remember, was real risks to the internet’s structural integrity, in addition to the digital rights of the human beings who use it.

Five years after Brexit got done, we are still dealing with the regulatory aftermath of that ideological experiment. Those 4,000 (yes I said four thousand) pages of Ofcom OSA documents I have to read over the next 30 days for my clients? That’s Brexit. Ideological experiments have long tails.

I never thought Brexit would be good for something, but there it is. For me, it turned out to be a practice run.

Unlike my Brexit x tech policy research, though, the work ahead will not be a kitchen table hobby. This will be a formal research initiative, under the best supervision possible, with a hefty deliverable at the end of it.

That’s not been formalised yet, and those preparatory gears are still spinning, but everyone involved is confident that I’ll be given the green light.

If you are an academic or researcher already looking into these topics and thinking “aha! I should be in touch with her”, just wait a wee while. I will be in touch with you. (I have a list. We’re going to be pals by the end of ‘this’, whatever ‘this’ is.) Suffice to say, if you recognised what I did with the title of this blog post, you’re on my list.

And if you are an academic or researcher who wants to look into this topic, or has some inside insight to share, but you feel that you cannot be seen speaking with me for reasons of your own personal or professional safety, get in touch anyway on Signal. I got you.

From far away, safe.

Header image off X is real. It was not generated by AI.

The Author

I’m a UK tech policy wonk based in Glasgow. I work for an open web built around international standards of human rights, privacy, accessibility, and freedom of expression. The content and opinions on this site are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of any current or previous team.