Megan Shahi is the director of Technology Policy at American Progress. She has extensive experience across the U.S. public and private sectors and has spent the majority of her career promoting transparency and accountability inside some of the world’s most influential social media companies. She is deeply passionate about enacting smart and future-proof technology regulation in the United States and positively influencing the intersection of technology and public policy.
Prior to joining American Progress, Shahi worked at Meta, Instagram, and X, formerly known as Twitter, where she advocated for users and policymakers, wrote substantial platform policies, and shaped product strategies to safeguard social media users from both real-world and online harm. She was a crisis manager in Meta’s first-ever U.S. election “war room” in 2018, which worked to combat misinformation and inauthentic behavior. Shahi also architected Instagram’s product and content policies for the launch of its short-form video product—Reels—and guided Twitter’s (now X) strategy to comply with the European Union’s Digital Services Act. She helped each organization balance policy, safety, and regulatory interests with profit, growth, and engagement incentives to promote safe expression for global user bases.
Before her time working in the technology industry, Shahi served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Office of International Affairs and the Office of Domestic Finance, where she specialized in Western Hemisphere economic policy and domestic financial inclusion, respectively. She began her career in public service at the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Shahi hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, and graduated from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.