---
title: "Laws & Regulation"
description: "How legislation consistently lags behind technology — and what is finally changing."
url: https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-23
license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)"
---

Laws & Regulation

# The governance gap.

Regulators were looking at online behavioural profiling long before the first privacy law with penalties on the scale of the companies it addressed, the GDPR, became enforceable in 2018. International monitors were documenting racist online propaganda feeding hate crimes long before the EU law that can hold platforms accountable for it applied in 2024. This is not primarily negligence. It is structural lag.

[**Section 230** The 26 words that created the internet. Why they made sense in 1996 and what has changed since. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/section-230/)[**GDPR** The most significant privacy legislation ever passed. What it requires, what it has achieved, and where it falls short. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/gdpr/)[**Digital Services Act** The EU's attempt to hold platforms accountable for algorithmic harm. What it requires and how enforcement is going. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/dsa/)[**Online Safety Act** The UK's route: duties of care on almost every service where people can post, enforced by Ofcom. What has happened since 2025. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/online-safety-act/)[**AI Act** The EU sorts artificial intelligence by risk. What is banned outright, what has to be disclosed, and from when. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/ai-act/)[**Age Restrictions** A global wave. By April 2026 the OECD counted 25 countries with age restrictions in force or under consideration — three of them in force. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/age-restrictions/)[**Courts & Liability** The tobacco moment. What the 2026 US liability verdicts mean for the future of platform accountability.](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/courts/)

[See the lag on one timeline →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/timeline/) [What a public record of truth needs — journalism, science, democracy →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/truth/)

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