Happy Tuesday. Here's your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week's top stories from the intersection of politics and the seemingly all-inclusive world of technology.
Musk's 'war' on free enterprise
Elon Musk is propelling House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s war on private enterprise. On Tuesday, Musk announced a lawsuit and, in a post on X, declared "war" against a coalition of advertisers known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which uses its collective power to prioritize investing in companies that align with what they feel are issues of import. Jordan previously used his role as Judiciary chairman to accuse companies in GARM of illegally colluding against conservatives over their choice not to advertise on some controversial conservative platforms. Musk’s lawsuit cites Jordan’s investigations, and in posts online he claimed companies could be guilty of racketeering for choosing not to advertise on X after he took over, which was a period in which advertisers fled from X due to the platform being rife with hate speech.
Read more at Wired.
JD Vance's media investment
Donald Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance is a profiteer of the budding right-wing media ecosystem, and of the hate and disinformation that fuels it. Talking Points Memo has a new report informing — or perhaps, in some cases, reminding — readers about Vance’s investment in Rumble, a video streaming platform known to platform far-right celebrities, extremists and conspiracy theorists.
Read more at Talking Points Memo.
Vance goes viral again
Newsweek spoke to the creators behind a viral TikTok song made out of JD Vance’s previous remarks about being a “Never Trump guy.” The song, remixed to fit Petey Pablo’s 2003 song “Freek-a-Leek,” has garnered millions of listens across several TikTok videos over the last couple weeks.
Read more at Newsweek.
Social media fuels violence and misinfo in the U.K.
The Independent published a post outlining how the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X — and many of the right-wing influencers who use it — helped fuel racist and xenophobic misinformation and violent attacks in the U.K. last week following a series of stabbings.
Read more at The Independent.
Teen takes Meta to court
A teenage girl in New York filed a lawsuit against Meta, which is Instagram and Facebook’s parent company, accusing executives at Meta of approving the use of features that they knew would make children addicted to their apps, and did so while knowingly exposing children to harmful material online.
An Instagram spokesperson said:
“These are complex issues but we will continue working with experts and listening to parents to develop new tools, features and policies that are effective and meet the needs of teens and their families.”
Read more at The Washington Post.
Trump and Musk's fake news
Elon Musk and Donald Trump have both used their social media platforms to spread manipulated video of Kamala Harris over the last couple weeks, demonstrating why tech experts and Democratic lawmakers were right to raise awareness about how easily the spread of misinformation and the misuse of artificial intelligence tools could be used to manipulate voters in the upcoming election.
Read more at Mother Jones.
Tech troubles with Georgia's voter cancellation site
ProPublica published an article highlighting security issues discovered within a new website Georgia Republicans created to cancel one’s voter registration. Multiple outlets had already discovered various security issues with the platform that exposed voters’ private information, and the ProPublica discovery found a flaw that made it easier for users of the platform to cancel other people’s voter registrations. Georgia Republicans have expanded opportunities for people to purge purportedly ineligible voters from the voter rolls, and in their rush to do so, they’ve clearly overlooked flaws in the process that could leave eligible voters disenfranchised.
Read more at ProPublica.