Ex-Turning Point volunteer charged in Jan. 6 riot highlights the group's toxic influence

My friends, happy Tuesday! Here's your Tech Drop, the top news of the week at the intersection of tech and politics.

On Friday, federal authorities arrested Isabella Deluca, a social media influencer with ties to the pro-Trump organization Turning Point USA, for her alleged role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. My NBC News colleague Ryan Reilly reported Monday that Deluca, who has hundreds of thousands of followers on her social media platforms, also appears to have worked for Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., after participating in the riot (Gosar's office told the Arizona Mirror it had been unaware of Deluca's history). Turning Point also emailed the Mirror that it hadn’t previously heard of the charges and that Deluca was “an unpaid volunteer ambassador, one of 200.” (Deluca did not respond to NBC News' request for comment.) Deluca’s arrest and notoriety in the conservative movement are a reminder of Turning Point's corrosive impact on the Republican Party and of its heavy reliance on social media influencers to spread its far-right messaging. For more on that, read the work of scholar Matthew Boedy, who’s literally writing the book on Turning Point USA and Christian nationalism.

And read more on Deluca’s arrest at NBC News

Politico is out with an article this week on the trend among voter suppression artists who, in their purported quest to defend “election integrity,” are bringing lawsuits to obtain voter records and, in many cases, posting those records online. Understandably, some officials are concerned about this tactic being deployed to intimidate voters from showing up at the polls or from casting votes that could result in their harassment. I expect to see more intimidation tactics like this from the right in the months ahead, considering Donald Trump has already told his party that patrolling the vote is more important in the upcoming election than voting itself. 

Read more in Politico

The League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit last Thursday against a political operative and two Texas-based companies said to be responsible for sending out deceptive robocalls that mimicked President Joe Biden’s voice to New Hampshire voters ahead of the state’s primary in January. The robocalls, which misinformed voters about participating in the primary, caused widespread alarm and underscored the potential threat to democracy that artificial intelligence-enabled tools and other deceptive media could pose in the upcoming elections.

Read more at the Associated Press

Check out my blog from last week about the rich right-wingers who’ve expressed interest in buying TikTok in the event that the Senate passes a bill to force its sale from the China-based company ByteDance. I’ve criticized lawmakers for focusing on TikTok’s national security issues while seemingly ignoring similar issues at American-based social media companies like Instagram and X. But I also think the hair-on-fire panic from avid TikTokers has been similarly ignorant of TikTok’s negative influence on political discourse. That said, take a look at this list of wannabe buyers; I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any of these right-wing rich dudes having access to my data anymore than I'd want China’s government potentially accessing it. 

Read more at the ReidOut Blog

The porn website Pornhub blocked potential users in Texas from accessing its platform after the state passed a law that requires sites that offer “sexual material harmful to minors” to verify that its users are at least 18 years old. Pornhub’s parent company has criticized the law as ineffective in serving its ostensible purpose of protecting children. Mashable has an article that explains why critics say such laws are nearly impossible to enforce and carry their own security risks. Some Texans aren’t taking the decision lying down, though. After Pornhub blocked Texans' access, online searches for VPNs — networks that can be used to evade the block — reportedly spiked in the state.

Read more at The Texas Tribune

Meta is shutting down Crowdtangle in August, ending access to a tool long used by academics and journalists to monitor how disinformation and hate speech spread on social media sites. Meta says a new platform, called the “Meta Content Library,” will take its place, although it’s being made available largely to academics and nonprofit groups; most journalists won’t be able to access it. Understandably, people who specialize in misinformation research are concerned about the timing of this decision and any effect it might have on the 2024 elections. 

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

You should judge the principles of online content moderation by its enemies. All eyes are on the Supreme Court after it heard arguments in a case that could bar the federal government from offering any kind of guidance to social media companies about curbing the spread of disinformation. For years now, right-wingers have framed anti-disinformation efforts as biased against conservatives. Tellingly, one of the organizations participating in the suit to gut the government’s anti-misinformation efforts is Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization founded by conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The organization hosted a rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday. 

Read more in Wired