Hi Global Recap readers,
Anonymity online gives people the freedom (or at least the feeling of freedom) to test ideas in public without immediate personal consequences. But it also changes behavior:
People say things they wouldn’t say in a normal social setting, where social pressure and reputational risk act as guardrails. Those guardrails can be stifling, but they can also help keep communities coherent.
Trolls and bots can exploit it to sow division and distort what looks like “public sentiment,” pushing societies toward polarization.
So after watching X become a live experiment in largely unfiltered speech, it’s worth asking whether it’s why governments and companies are trying to roll back anonymity.
This time, by tying accounts to biometric identity. 👇🏼
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES
OpenAI's Biometric
Social Media
OpenAI is quietly creating its own social media platform to rival X by solving the bot plague with biometrics user authentication.
As we noted last week, the EU’s “de-anonymized” social platform W, and the broader global push toward de-anonymizing the internet, suggests we may be moving toward a world where we lose one of the internet’s most valuable features: practical anonymity (even if true anonymity has never been absolute).
Project. OpenAI is building an in-house social network pitched internally as a "real-humans-only platform," trying to make "proof of personhood" the product.
Proof. The team reportedly explored verification via Apple’s Face ID or the World Orb (a ball-sized iris scanner operated by Tools for Humanity, the company co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman).
Privacy. Unlike other social media platforms typically only ask for email addresses and optionally your phone number, a biometric gate is designed to maximize certainty and accountability. That said, the tradeoff is severe:
With other platforms, a security vulnerability event may only expose a relatively limited dataset.
If biometric identifiers like iris scans are compromised, the damage can be far more severe, since you can’t meaningfully “reset” them the way you can a password.
Trend. UK PM Starmer recently dropped plans to require workers to enroll in a new digital ID system, while keeping existing identity checks in place. Critics are calling it a U-turn in response to public backlash, though the government rejects that characterization.
So, if such requirements are so unpopular, why are governments and companies pushing for it?
📊 Poll
It’s no secret that social platforms have struggled to distinguish humans from automated accounts at scale.
Personally: A huge chunk of my time on social media is spent blocking obvious bots, or accounts that are thoughtlessly using AI to churn out content.
What is most damaging is this: People end up arguing with bots, getting genuinely angry, and having their worldview shaped by what they think is real public sentiment, when it isn’t.
That said, is de-anonymizing social media is a viable way to address the bot problem? I’m skeptical because even with verified-identity requirements, users can still rely on APIs and other AI tools to mass-produce low-effort AI slop—just under a “real” identity.
So, my choice answer to the question below: No.
🇨🇦 CANADA
Alberta Separatists
Meet Washington
Canada's PM Carney warned that he expects the Trump administration to respect Canadian sovereignty after reports that Alberta independence activists met repeatedly with US officials.
They got labeled treason by a provincial premier, but the thing is, Elections Alberta has approved a citizen-initiated referendum question that asks voters whether Alberta should become an independent state.
Signal. Speaking in Ottawa alongside provincial premiers, Carney framed the issue as basic state-to-state respect, saying he tells Trump to "respect Canadian sovereignty" and then focuses on what the two countries can do together.
Opinions. British Columbia Premier David Eby escalated the rhetoric, calling it "treason" for citizens to ask a foreign government to help break up Canada.
On the other hand, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she does not share the separatists' goal but resisted demonizing them, citing an Ipsos poll suggesting about 28% of Albertans might vote yes.
Alberta Prosperity Project legal counsel Jeffrey Rath said his group plans to return to Washington next month to explore whether US financial credit could be available if Alberta became independent.
However, the White House said that officials meet with many civil society groups and that no support or commitments were conveyed.
Mechanics. Alberta's government approved a petition for an independence referendum earlier this month, and activists have until May to collect 178,000 signatures from eligible voters.
📌 Context. Alberta is an oil-rich, more conservative province with a long-running but usually marginal separatist movement that argues it is over-taxed and under-represented in Canada's federation.
🇨🇳 CHINA
China’s 30-Day Visa Shift
British PM Starmer speaks at the UK-China Business Forum at the headquarters of the Bank of China in Beijing on Friday.
China announced that British citizens will now be able to enter without a visa for trips under 30 days.
Move. Starmer said the change will let UK passport holders visit China visa-free for stays of up to 30 days. The policy was announced in Beijing during his four-day visit, which he framed as a practical win for UK business following talks with China’s President Xi Jinping.
Pitch. Downing Street claims that companies have been "crying out" for easier ways to expand in China, and cast smoother travel as a growth lever for jobs back home.
Britain exports about 13 billion pounds in services to China each year, and wants deeper links across healthcare, finance, professional and legal services, and education and skills.
Plan. The two governments also agreed to launch a feasibility study that could pave the way for a bilateral services agreement, aimed at making it easier for British firms to operate in China.
Critics, however, argue that deeper economic alignment with an authoritarian communist state poses significant national security risks and can undermine Western democratic values.
President Trump warned that Starmer’s plans to “reset” economic ties with China is “very dangerous.”
📌 Context. London is looking to rebuild working ties with Beijing, even as it doubles down on Britain’s services-heavy economy. For decades, much of the West offshored manufacturing (largely to China) to capture cheaper labor. The result was a hollowing-out of domestic industrial capacity and a deeper dependence on a strategic and ideological rival, leaving Western economies more exposed in the event of a military conflict.
This is the dynamic President Trump says he wants to reverse. But unwinding supply chains built over decades is inherently disruptive: it forces capital and production to relocate, may raise costs in the near term (which may ironically cause a period of slower growth or recession that ultimately pressures prices back down).
The core disagreement is about pace. One view is that the disruption is necessary “pain” to restore resilience and self-sufficiency faster. The other is that the transition should be gradual to limit shocks. The constraint, of course, is political time. Democratic leaders rarely have decades to execute long-run industrial strategy, while authoritarian systems often do.
🇮🇷 IRAN
Blood on Trump's Hands
US President Trump
Iranian protesters say President Trump betrayed them by publicly urging them to keep marching, then going quiet as the Islamic regime responded with deadly force.
They also blame exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called on Iranians to rise up from abroad.
Spark. Speaking from Van in eastern Turkey on January 29, 2026, some Iranians leaving the country say that Trump told them to "keep protesting" and promised "help is on its way" during unrest that began in late December.
Blame. Protesters described joining only after hearing assurances from Trump and from Pahlavi, and then watching neighbors and strangers shot in front of them.
One protester summed it up bluntly, saying Trump and Pahlavi have "blood on their hands" for encouraging people who had no weapons and no protection.
Thoughts
Iranian protesters on the streets of Tehran earlier this month
Risk. When we first began reporting this story, this was the outcome we were most worried about: that US inaction (or action that comes too late), after publicly urging protesters to keep fighting, could end up radicalizing part of the Iranian population.
Alternatives. That said, viewed more dispassionately, it’s also understandable why Trump might choose to threaten Iran’s Islamic Republic—though he likely could have done so without exhorting protesters to press on. Here's one way to frame it:
Even if US military assets were not yet sufficiently positioned to act in the region, Trump may have issued threats to deter the Islamic regime from escalating violence against protesters.
If that was the intent, his threats could be seen as a necessary step to slow or complicate a potential crackdown.
The more problematic element is the encouragement directed at protesters. The key question is whether that call to action was necessary, or whether it increased risk and contributed to greater loss of life than would otherwise have occurred.
bodies laid outside the Kahrizak forensic center in Tehran
Plan. This is speculative, but the working assumption may have been that protesters could force the regime to flee or fracture, while US threats would make leaders hesitant to employ lethal force. This would have been the most desired outcome for the US. However, in practice, it did not unfold that way.
Premature. To be fair, Trump didn’t say the US would attack immediately.
However, what likely turned many people against him was that he declared victory too soon, claiming his rhetoric had stopped the regime’s planned hangings.
Even if that were true, many probably felt that it meant the US would not attack the regime anymore.
The thing is though, stopping public hangings doesn’t mean anything when they can just kill people in the streets instead.
