Burning Platforms

The co-founder of the Tech Policy Design Centre on the development of new laws to hold tech companies to account for the harms of their products.
Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also dig into:
The new salt mines of AI
Australia’s pitch for AI sovereignty
and ARIA’s purge of slop from the music charts
For show notes go to: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/

The co-founder of the Human Technology lays down his megapixel provocation and challenges us to stop thinking about AI as being so different that we can’t control it.
Panellists Digital Rights Watch chair Lizzie O’Shea, ABC National AI Reporter Cam Wilson and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also discuss
Can Automated Decision Making work for the people?
Is the Social Media Ban making things worse?
Is surveillance-busting ‘adversarial fashion’ the new black?
For show notes go to: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/

The national security expert on the strategic risks of cognitive readiness and information is the new theatre of conflict.
 
Panellists  Australian Writers Guild CEO Claire Pullen, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also discuss:
Pornography as harbinger of digital doom
Mark Zuckerburg’s values-free ‘Encyclical’
Australia’s nascent Digital Duty of Care.
 
For show notes go to: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/

The author of 'Reboot: AI and the Race to Save Democracy' on how citizens must seize new technology to ensure it works for them.
 
Regular panelists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O'Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita's Peter Lewis also discuss
Anthropic's rare book-breaking binge
Backlash over the surveillance of open models
How to regulate perv glasses
For show notes and further discussion go to: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/

Burning Platforms is back for another live show, this time recorded  at the 2026 ALP Conference in Adelaide where we launched the "FairAI Initiative" with Digital Rights Watch chair Lizzie O’Shea, Human technology Institute co-director Ed Santow and Senator Tony Sheldon.
Join the Burning Platforms for show notes, resources, and regular updates from the Big Tech Policy space: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/
For more on the Centre of the Public Square and it's research into AI policy, check out: https://percapita.org.au/the-centre-of-the-public-square/
Last but no least, learn more about the Fair AI Initiative here: https://www.fairai.au/ 

In a world of relative facts and filter bubbles how do we build a common base of reality to anchor democracy?Burning Platforms will bring themes from the ABC series ‘A Matter of Facts’ to life in a fun and interactive live event that will challenge you to pick the truth from the lies.
Featuring:
Hamish Macdonald, award-winning journalist
Lizzie O’Shea, Co-founder and Chair of Digital Rights Watch
Jess Scully, Executive Director of RadicalXChange
Emma McDonald, Media Lawyer, policy, regulatory and communications executive
Professor Leo Robba and social design students from Western Sydney University 
Hosted by Essential’s Peter Lewis, and supported by Democracy Counts, we’ll explore what it means for democracy when so much of the content we’re consuming blurs the lines between fact and fiction, when our shared sense of reality becomes fractured.

Burning Platform is back from its brief hiatus for a special live Virtual Town Hall, convened on July 6th, looking at the growing fight to resist the US tech behemoth, in partnership with Digital Rights Watch and GetUp!
Hosted by Per Capita's Peter Lewis, with speakers:* DRW chair Lizzie O'Shea
* GetUp! campaigner Hayden Rodgers
* Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge
 
Show notes available at: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/p/your-palantir-primer

This week on Burning Platforms, we're joined by the head of the Local and Independent News Association, Clare Stutchbery, to get her insights on the importance of media diversity in an age of information hierarchies.
 
Panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Australian Writers Guild CEO Claire Pullin and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also explore:
 
Why has Trump blocked Anthropic’s latest model?
Is Google responsible for its AI news summaries?
Are Gina and Elon a match made in heaven?
 
For background notes on these discussions go to Burning Platforms on Substack: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/
 

The political strategist and author of ‘Angertainement', Ed Coper, joins the Burning Platform this week to discuss how social media outrage ruined everything and outlines his blueprint for harnessing the toxic information ecosystem.
 
Panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into: 
is Anthropic really calling to hit pause? 
will Microsoft’s agentic AI play land safely?
can a government automate discretion? 
 
For background notes on these discussions go to Burning Platforms on Substack: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/

This week on Burning Platforms we dive deep into Pope Leo’s XIV’s  encyclical with Dr Michael Walker from the Justice and Peace Office at the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney .
 
Our panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, ABC AI reporter Cam Wilson and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:
AI’s Trust Deficit 
Amnesty International’s new report: Unlawful by Design
and Greenpeace’s new research on data centres ‘Energy Vampires’
 
For background notes on these discussions go to Burning Platforms on Substack: https://burningplatforms.substack.com/