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Happy Tuesday! Here's your Tuesday Tech Drop, a roundup of the top stories at the intersection of tech and politics from the past week.
She's back!
Remember Nina Jankowicz? She’s the disinformation expert who came under attack from right-wingers in 2022, when the Biden administration sought to have her lead a board focused on combating the spread of disinformation online. She’s back on the scene, having recently co-founded an independent organization focused on combating the spread of harmful info. Announced last week, it’s called the American Sunlight Project. And one of the group's first acts is a demand that House Republicans — like committee chairs Jim Jordan and James Comer — release transcripts of their committees’ interviews with disinformation researchers. Jordan, in particular, has rabidly attacked government efforts to curb the spread of harmful information online, and he's sought to frame their work as censoring conservatives. As a result, researchers who specialize in identifying disinformation have said the attacks have had a chilling effect on their work.
Jankowicz has thrown down the gauntlet on their behalf.
Read the organization’s letter here.
Truth Social honcho cries "RICO!"
Devin Nunes, the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, is whining to Congress over the company’s stock price, which has bounced around considerably since it's initial public offering. Nunes claims that top investment firms are facilitating “unlawful manipulation” of the stock and says racketeering laws may have been broken by investors who are betting against the stock. Nunes’ kvetching is of a piece with Jordan’s crusading against private businesses that don’t invest in his preferred companies and cultish figures: Both see a conspiracy behind the market when things don’t go their way.
Read more at Politico.
Trump’s big tech lifeline
NBC News reports Donald Trump is collaborating with a “secretive conservative donor group” full of right-wing techies who want to spend millions of dollars to mobilize Trump voters this election season. The Rockbridge Network, as the group is called, is a Trump-aligned organization co-founded by tech bro-turned-Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and conservative media investor Chris Buskirk. Others associated with the group include far-right tech investor Peter Thiel, conservative megadonor Rebekah Mercer, and more.
Read more at NBC News.
AI insults
A Maryland teacher was arrested last Thursday after he allegedly used artificial intelligence tools to mimic the school principal’s voice and give the impression the principal had used racist and antisemitic slurs. It’s another reminder that the sophistication of generative AI tools — and their increasing availability — exponentially increases the potential for manipulation and deception.
Read more at The Associated Press.
All the news that's fit to mimic
Journalists continue to bristle at their works being used to hasten the robot revolution. Eight news organizations have jointly filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company OpenAI that alleges the company has illegally used the outlets’ articles to train its AI tools, including ChatGPT. The lawsuit is similar to a suit filed by The New York Times. OpenAI has claimed that it's fair use to use the online content in this way, and a spokesperson for the company told The Washington Post that “we take great care in our products and design process to support news organizations.”
Read more at The Washington Post.
Meta met a probe
Social media giant Meta is under investigation by the European Union over allegations the company hasn’t instituted effective safeguards to prevent the spread of misinformation and other deceptive content across its platforms. Meta responded to the probe on Tuesday, saying it has “a well established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms” and that the company “looks forward” to informing the E.U. of this.
Read more at the New York Times.
Your own personal crypto
An early bitcoin investor known as "Bitcoin Jesus" is facing criminal charges for evading nearly $50 million in taxes, according to a DOJ news release. Not a great look for Bitcoin enthusiasts who are trying to cleanse the currency of its shady reputation.
Read more at Cointelegraph.
CORRECTION (May 2, 2024, 12:54 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misspelled the disinformation expert’s surname. She is Nina Jankowicz, not Jancowicz.