Drew Randall Liebert

Drew Liebert and David Evan Harris are the director and senior policy advisor, respectively, of the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy (CITED), a project of California Common Cause. The Assembly Chamber at the California State Capitol. Ben Franske / / CC BY-SA 3.0 While Washington remains gridlocked on technology policy, California is charting its own course. Earlier this week, Governor Newsom signed critically important AI legislation on transparency and protecting children.

By Drew Liebert Special to CalMatters California has always been a place of extraordinary contrasts. It has some of the wealthiest enclaves, and some of the poorest. It has some of the greatest diversity, and some of the most segregated neighborhoods. It is the birthplace of the world’s social media technology revolution and now is ground zero for its reckoning.

By Guest Commentary published: March 18, 2020 With coronavirus, we should practice ‘physical distancing’ not ‘social distancing’ Illustration via iStock Even in the midst of the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, indeed especially because of it, now is not the time for “social distancing.” What we need to be practicing, just temporary, is “physical distancing.” If there’s one thing the past several years have shown us is that we’ve all been seeing too much of the tearing apart of our...