Hi, I'm Heather Burns

Follow the money.

How a four-minute video taken on a Scottish train destroyed multiple bad tech policy arguments at once.

I had a natter with David Meyer about the past fortnight in UK tech policy drama. We did this deliberately as a casual chat, as opposed to a techlaw deep dive, so don’t expect anything too heavy. (I had in fact planned to switch off my brain this summer like normal policy wonks do. So […]

Scan your eyeballs, think of the children: how Britain sells surveillance as safety I wrote for The Nerve about the past fortnight in UK tech policy. I know a lot of people expected me to have a lot of things to say about what’s happened, but here’s the thing: aside from that article, there is […]

“Power absent ethics rests on an unshakable ability and desire to punish active resistance – to beat and arrest and try to ruin the lives of people who block freeways and set up encampments and confront lawmakers. But such power has no idea what to do against negative resistance, against someone who refuses to buy […]

On technology that needs to get into a very cold sea.

On those who think differently, and those who never change.

Ladies and gentlemen, here's exhibit AI

I spoke with The National about the proposed UK social media ban for teenagers. That’s an archive link due to their unfortunate adwall. There’s nothing I offered in my delightfully crotchety comments that I wasn’t already saying four, five, six, and seven years ago, but if anyone had listened to me four, five, six, and […]

The siren's songs have lured another government official onto the rocks.

I love this short open-access paper from danah boyd where she suggests shifting the term we use to describe social media.

~with distinction~

Test your goddamn inputs people