{"slug": "gaslighting-openness", "title": "Gaslighting Openness", "summary": "Armin Ronacher, a longtime open-source advocate, argues that major technology companies are manipulating the narrative around AI safety and security to restrict user access and control. The author contends that Apple's delayed AI features in Europe due to the Digital Markets Act and Anthropic's restrictions on its Mythos and Fable models represent efforts to close off access to devices and data under the guise of protection. Ronacher warns that accepting this framing undermines democratized access to technology, particularly in Europe where capital markets and talent pools are already at a disadvantage.", "body_md": "I have been a staunch supporter of Open Source for a long time, including\n[experiments](https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2023/11/19/cathedral-and-bazaaar-licensing/)\n[in](https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/9/23/fsl-agpl-open-source-businesses/)\n[funding](https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/9/19/open-source-tax/) [it](https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/10/14/mixing-oss-and-money/).\nI’m a true believer in the idea that Open Source always wins in the long run,\nbut not automatically and not quickly. Right now it is being stressed by AI\nslop, shifting contributor dynamics, the falling cost of producing code, and\nlarge companies learning to close doors behind them.\n\nA lot of that battle today is manipulation of the narrative. Opinion makers on\nsocial media and in business circles increasingly frame access as\nirresponsibility. That is why the EU’s DMA matters, even if many people\n(including myself) reflexively hate EU regulation. Apple’s fight over [delayed\nAI features in\nEurope](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-delayed-in-eu-for-ios-27-and-ipados-27/)\nis not about Brussels being annoying: it is about whether users can access their\nown devices and data. The phone is yours, the data is yours, yet Apple decides\nwho may reach it and takes the agency away from you and then tries to make that\nsound like it is in your interest (supposedly it’s for your safety and security).\n\nThe closer you get to the core of AI, the more this shows up. Anthropic has\nevery financial incentive to restrict what people can do with [Mythos and\nFable](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5), and they wrap\nthose restrictions in safety and (national) security language. Some\nrestrictions may be defensible, but not all of them are. They trained their\nmodels on public works, then block Open Source attempts to learn from and\ndistill these systems.\n\nDisliking the EU, China, or any other large government should not make us forget that true democratized access to technology including AI is in all our interest. Some temporary product pain, including delayed Apple AI features, will be worth paying if it keeps gates open. We should not let companies own the narrative that preventing access is in our interest, particularly not as Europeans where the odds are already stacked against us by our underdeveloped capital markets, brain drain and internal fighting.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gaslighting-openness", "canonical_source": "https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/6/10/gaslighting/", "published_at": "2026-06-10 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-11 19:25:54.156944+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-ethics", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Apple", "Anthropic", "European Union", "DMA"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gaslighting-openness", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gaslighting-openness.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gaslighting-openness.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gaslighting-openness.jsonld"}}