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My friends, hello! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, with the top latest news from the intersection of technology and politics.
Trump’s Musk meetups
The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump asked Elon Musk last summer about interest in buying Truth Social, the former president’s struggling, screed-filled social media platform. Trump advisers told the Post that the two men, who are arguably the most prominent pushers of right-wing misinformation these days, have had other conversations “about politics and business.” That includes a recent meeting Trump reportedly had with the billionaire entrepreneur while seeking donors to his campaign. The general election, coupled with Trump’s legal troubles, appears to have the four-times-indicted former president seeking a cash infusion. And even though Musk says he won’t be giving the Trump campaign any money, he can easily use his social media platform, X — which is rife with pro-Trump propaganda — to try to indoctrinate potential voters with a right-wing worldview.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Social platform for Christian nationalists
Several far-right candidates for state and federal offices this year are users of a Christian nationalist social media platform known as the Nexus Mountain Network. The platform was created by Seven Mountain Mandate believers, who seek to wield influence over family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.
Read more at the Daily Dot.
Election trickery check-in
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a watchdog that tracks the spread of disinformation online, has found that several artificial intelligence services can be used to create misleading images related to elections. Lawmakers, national security experts and others have voiced concerns about such images being used to manipulate voters ahead of this year’s elections.
Read the center’s report here, and read top AI companies’ responses to the claims here.
TikTok legislation
The House is expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese-owned parent company, Bytedance, agrees to sell the platform. The bill is expected to pass in the House, but its Senate prospects are a bit shakier. TikTok’s Chinese ownership has led many lawmakers to claim that the platform is fundamentally a national security issue. As I’ve written previously, popular apps like X, Facebook and Instagram pose a number of national security concerns themselves, despite their parent companies being American-owned.
Watch an explainer of the proposed TikTok ban on NBCNews Now.
AOC fights deepfake pornography
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is the most prominent proponent of a new law that would fight the use of nonconsensual pornography made with deepfake technology. Such imagery appearing to show Taylor Swift has raised awareness about the issue — especially since the AI technology used to create deepfakes is increasingly easy to access and deploy against non-celebrities.
Read the news release from Ocasio-Cortez about her newly introduced bill here.
AGs urge action from Meta
Dozens of state attorneys general co-signed a letter to Meta urging “immediate action” to prevent users from being hacked and locked out of their accounts, noting that such account takeovers cause emotional and financial distress for users while also creating a drain on the AGs’ resources:
We, the undersigned attorneys general (the “State AGs”), write to request immediate action to address the dramatic increase in user account takeovers and lockouts on Facebook and Instagram. Our offices have experienced a dramatic and persistent spike in complaints in recent years concerning account takeovers that is not only alarming for our constituents but also a substantial drain on our office resources.
Read the letter here.
Big Tech and the 2024 races
If you’ve been digging my tech coverage, you’ll love this newly released conversation from Tech Policy Press. It’s moderated by George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton and touches on several topics I’ve covered for this blog, including disinformation targeting minorities and inequality in Big Tech — and how these things chip away at our democracy.
Listen to the conversation here.