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Happy Tuesday! Here's your Tuesday Tech Drop, the top stories from the intersection of tech and politics from the past week.
Trump donor's deep pockets
Billionaire Trump backer and major TikTok investor Jeff Yass has been exposed as the key financier behind a right-wing group known for investigating and intimidating liberals. CNBC reports Yass is a significant investor in the group “Accuracy in Media,” an organization that’s been behind recent efforts to dox and disrupt pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses. In a press release responding to the news, the watchdog group Accountable.US expounded on the work Accuracy in Media does, noting it specializes in “sting operations and propaganda campaigns” and comparing the group to the beleaguered right-wing organization Project Veritas. I’ve grown quite suspicious of Yass’ aspirations when it comes to media. His opposition to a TikTok ban (paired with an interesting uptick of pro-Trump content on the app) and his involvement in dubious organizations like Accuracy in Media suggest he’s deeply interested in tools that can be used to manipulate and misinform the public.
Read the CNBC report here.
DOJ is alarmed about AI
DOJ officials held a press conference Monday on threats against election workers. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco specifically sounded the alarm on threats made by people who deploy artificial intelligence to “mask their identities and communicate their threats.”
Read more at Axios.
TikTok's contraception deception
A new report from Agence France-Presse points to an uptick in U.S.-based wellness influencers on TikTok spreading misinformation meant to discourage the use of birth control pills. It’s yet another in a growing list of misinformation and manipulative content allowed on TikTok, an that app many, particularly as of late, falsely portray as a bastion of accurate and informative content.
Read more at Agence France-Presse.
Signs of the times
A few weeks back, I checked out an excellent exhibit about the importance of symbols at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. It came to mind as I read a recent study by the Center for Campaign Design, about which kinds of campaign logo features (shapes, color schemes, etc.) resonate most with voters. One of my favorite designers is Ashleigh Axios, a creative director who formerly managed design for the Obama White House. Exploring her work taught me the value of memorable and understandable logos in politics. The study on campaign logos similarly enlightened me.
Read it here.
Neuralink? No thanks.
Elon Musk’s brain technology startup, Neuralink, said its first human brain chip implant malfunctioned weeks after being inserted into its first human test subject. An already creepy project has gotten even eerier.
Read more at NBC News.
Trump has a friend in Facebook
A collaborative study by researchers from Stanford University and Meta, Facebook's parent company, concluded that using Facebook may have made people more likely to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Though the researchers say their findings fell "just short" of being statistically significant, they ought to raise eyebrows and, perhaps, concern about an app that's been controversially used to Trump's benefit in the past.
Read more on the study at Bloomberg Law.