Rogers: State Department shifts digital freedom policy toward VPNs and Community Notes
Sarah Rogers · Digital Freedom, AI Regulation, and the Fight for the Western Internet | The a16z Show · May 4, 2026 · at 6:43
Sarah Rogers, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, explains changes in U.S. digital diplomacy, opposing centralized content moderation while backing crowd-sourced user transparency tools.
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“Like, that was the kind of thing that was countenanced before that's not countenanced now, and we're much friendlier to initiatives like censorship circumvention VPNs and to initiatives like X's Community Notes that put that power in the hands of the users or the crowd in a way that's transparent.”
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