MIT Technology Review previews young innovators and online censorship fight

MIT Technology Review will reveal its 2026 Innovators Under 35 list on September 8, recognizing 35 young scientists and engineers working on scientific advances and technical fixes. The selection process began with 550 nominations and is intended to identify rising talent and signal which technology fields may produce major advances in the years ahead.

A separate investigation tracks how the phrase “censorship-industrial complex” moved from right-wing online circles into the Trump administration. The reporting began after a State Department office focused on monitoring and countering foreign disinformation from Russia, Iran, and China faced imminent shutdown on April 15, 2025, following accusations that it was part of a network suppressing conservative and populist speech online.

Montana has created a new path for biotech companies to sell experimental drugs to consumers after preliminary testing, sometimes in as few as 10 healthy people. Unlike similar right-to-try laws elsewhere, Montana’s system is theoretically open to anyone who gives informed consent and can pay, including people seeking rare disease treatments, longevity products, or preventive therapies.

Other technology developments include China-linked hackers using open-source agents in an “unprecedented” AI attack on Taiwan, Spotify’s plan to label AI artists and stop recommending fake performers, Anthropic adding watermarks to Claude-generated text and images, and warnings that autonomous AI agents could misinterpret goals, leak sensitive information, or exploit vulnerabilities at scale.