Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, a spin through some of the week’s top stories from the intersection of tech and politics.
Grok for kids
Over the weekend, billionaire Elon Musk announced that his social platform X would release a “kid-friendly” AI-chatbot he’s calling “Baby Grok.” This comes on the heels of a recent controversy in which (regular) Grok, his AI chatbot, was found spewing racist and antisemitic hate speech (referring to itself at one point as “MechaHitler”) and detailing how it would rape a user. The announcement also comes in the wake of reports that other AI chatbots created by X’s parent company, xAI, have tried to pressure users into sexual conversations. Given this past behavior, it can’t inspire much confidence in parents who might consider trusting their children with these chatbots.
Read more in Bloomberg here.
Election-related insecurity
After an online portal was hacked and political candidates’ photos were changed to those of a former supreme leader of Iran, Arizona election officials teed off on the Trump administration’s decision to weaken the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal agency that helps to prevent cyberattacks on U.S. election infrastructure.
Read more at CyberScoop here.
MAGA bot army mishap
An NBC News report exposed an expansive network of artificial intelligence-driven bots on social media that have been trained to reply automatically with positive messages about people in the Trump administration. The report detailed how the accounts’ messaging has gone awry and become contradictory, apparently in response to the administration’s handling of files related to deceased pedophile and Trump associate Jeffrey Epstein.
Read more at NBC News here.
Environmental rejection agency
The Trump administration continued its war on scientific expertise as the Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday it is eliminating its Office of Research and Development, the division that The Associated Press called the “EPA’s main science arm” and that produces research to support agency policies. Various lawmakers, along with many scientists and federal employees, have denounced the move for its potential to put Americans and the environment at risk.
Read more at The Associated Press here.
Crypto rules everything around me
Bloomberg investigative reporter Jason Leopold chronicled his ongoing difficulty in getting the federal government to reveal the buyer (or buyers) of a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album from the feds for $2,238,482.30. The government had seized the album from its previous owner, Martin Shkreli, after his fraud conviction required him to forfeit $7.4 million in assets.
Read Leopold’s reporting in Bloomberg here.
Army hacker charged
A former U.S. Army soldier pleaded guilty last week in a hacking and extortion scheme that involved stealing data from 10 telecommunications companies and threatening to release that information unless ransoms were paid.
Read more at The Sacramento Bee here.
Meta’s IDF ads
A consumer watchdog discovered paid ads on the Meta-owned platforms Instagram, Facebook and Threads that were crowdfunding the purchase of drones for the Israel Defense Forces as Israel continues its attacks on Gaza in spite of international ire. Meta reportedly told the consumer watchdog Ekō that the ads have been removed for violating company policy.
Read more at The Guardian.
FBI's King files
As Donald Trump and his administration face backlash for their handling of the Epstein files, the government on Monday released documents related to FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. against the wishes of King’s family.
King’s daughter Bernice posted a photo of her father on X with a message that suggested she sees the move as a distraction from the Epstein controversy.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the MSNBC host, who’s been in contact with members of the King family, agreed with that assessment during an appearance on “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, calling the release a “smear” and a “clear distraction” from Trump’s Epstein issues.
Watch his appearance below:
Banned spyware chief seeks relief
Scott Zuckerman, the founder of a spyware company that’s been involved in multiple data breaches, is asking the Federal Trade Commission to overturn a ban that requires his businesses to maintain certain cybersecurity practices and undergo frequent audits. The public can comment here on Zuckerman’s petition until Aug. 19.
Read more at TechCrunch here.
States give Trump admin gang databases
A new article at The Intercept reports that state law enforcement officials are opening their often-flawed and racially biased gang databases to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist with Trump’s mass incarceration and deportation agenda. The administration has been known to lob allegations of immigrants’ involvement with gangs without providing evidence.
Read more at The Intercept here.
YouTube propaganda channels
Google removed thousands of YouTube channels it says were tied to state-linked propaganda campaigns being operated out of various countries, including China and Russia.
Read more at CNBC here.