Who will control AI? Allum Bokhari on tech oligarchs and AI monopolies
Plus, the Rebel billboard truck was given $1,230 in fines by the Toronto Police for displaying pro-women-only sports messages.
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Article by Rebel News staff
Tonight, on The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra is joined by Allum Bokhari, managing director at the Foundation for Freedom Online, to discuss data centres, artificial intelligence, and what Ezra calls a new "age of unease." Plus, just yesterday, the Rebel billboard truck was given $1,230 in fines by the Toronto Police.
Toronto police swarmed the Rebel News billboard truck last night, handing driver Mark two tickets worth $615 each — $1,230 in total — for playing a video that dared to say men shouldn't be competing in women's sports. The truck was parked downtown at a WNBA game at the Scotiabank Arena when half a dozen officers moved in.
Officers told Mark the truck needed a special permit to display the message and threatened more tickets if the screen wasn't switched off. But Ezra already checked the law: there is no such permit requirement, and never has been, in all the years Rebel News has driven that truck around the city. It took Ezra about 40 minutes to reach the scene, and in the meantime, he spoke by phone with one of the officers, who simply repeated the made-up rule.
BREAKING: Toronto Police just fined our billboard truck driver outside WNBA game for displaying a pro-women message
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) August 19, 2026
Toronto police have just hit our billboard truck with two fines totalling $1,230 for playing a video defending women’s sports.
Our driver Mark was parked right… pic.twitter.com/H9JBVMxU12
This is the second time police have gone after the truck over a transgender-related message. The first time, the truck wasn't even moving — an officer opened a hate crime investigation simply because it was parked displaying a message on trans issues. Ezra says he no longer believes in coincidences, and that Rebel News is now in "a dangerous place" when it comes to police and the truck.
Rebel News will fight both tickets in court, and Mark will not pay a dollar of the fines himself. The organization has retained one of the city's top criminal lawyers to handle the case, though Ezra notes she still has to be paid. Anyone who wants to help cover the legal costs can visit SaveTheTruck.com.
But first, Ezra turned to a wide-ranging conversation with an old friend: Allum Bokhari, managing director of the Foundation for Freedom Online and author of #DELETED: Big Tech's Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Subvert Democracy.
Ezra recalled attending an anti-data-centre protest in the small town of Morinville, Alberta, where objections ranged from a claim the facility was killing bees to fears it causes cancer — even though the site uses less water than a farmer's canola field. In his view, much of the backlash is driven by mystery about what these buildings actually do, mixed with older fears about robots and Skynet-style science fiction, and by genuine unease over job losses.
Is Anthropic as concerned with AI safety as it claims to be?
— Allum Bokhari (@AllumBokhari) August 17, 2026
Or is it all just a ploy to hamstring its competitors with regulation?
I answer this question in @amconmag https://t.co/VTN2UCZgx4
The conversation turned to Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, who has predicted his company will eventually be the only AI firm left standing. Bokhari called that "quite a scary statement," saying it validates fears some dismiss as conspiracy theories about who will end up controlling the technology. He said Anthropic is now the outlier, the "black sheep," in the industry for lobbying against open-weight AI models, comparing the fight to the 1990s push for open-source software, and warned that restricting the practice known as distillation would only hold back American companies without slowing China down at all.
He also cautioned against letting "AI safety" become a vehicle for what he called machine learning fairness, the blending of critical race theory with computer science that he says already underpins state bills banning so-called algorithmic discrimination. A Trump-style AI policy, he said, should keep safety narrowly focused on cybersecurity and national security rather than civil rights.
GUEST: Allum Bokhari, managing director at the Foundation for Freedom Online.
