California · GitHub · GitHub Blog
More broadly, open source and open source AI will remain a major policy focus
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As policymakers grapple with growing concerns about AI, from cybersecurity and safety to global competition, GitHub want to make sure developers and the open source community are part of the conversation.
Key facts
- SB 1000 was enrolled on August 30, 2026 and is now awaiting California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature by September 30, 2026
- One notable change in their H1 2026 Transparency Center data is a sharp increase in government takedown requests received, from 98 requests in all of 2025 to 708 requests in the first half of 2026 alone
- Governor Newsom’s signing message last year encouraged follow-up legislation in 2026 on technical feasibility, and they took a support-if-amended position on AB 2713 asking that these definitions
- In Illinois, the Children’s Social Media Safety Act ( HB 5511) was signed into law with important issues remaining
Summary
Policy decisions increasingly shape how developers build, collaborate, and participate in open source. With that in mind, they're sharing their latest Transparency Center data, looking back at an unusually active 2026 state legislative session, and highlighting a few policy conversations they'll be following in the months ahead. One notable change in their H1 2026 Transparency Center data is a sharp increase in government takedown requests received, from 98 requests in all of 2025 to 708 requests in the first half of 2026 alone. This year, GitHub has been more active than ever on state policy, including sharing developer-focused updates about policy proposals for age assurance, or approaches to verifying a user’s age online to provide them with age-appropriate experiences, and content provenance, which provides transparency about whether content was generated or altered by AI. The team publish these updates in part to help developers understand legislation that could affect the tools they use and the open source projects they contribute to.