By
Happy Tuesday! Here's your Tuesday Tech Drop, the week's top stories from the intersection of tech and politics.
Trump transforms into a crypto bro … for selfish reasons
Donald Trump was showered with boos during his speech at the Libertarian Party’s national convention over the weekend. But he won some applause when he vowed that on Day One, he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, who is serving multiple life sentences for running “Silk Road,” a website that operated as a black market for drugs and other illicit items.
Ulbricht, a major promoter of cryptocurrencies, has become a cause célèbre among Libertarian crypto bros.
Trump, who as president was "not a fan" of cryptocurrencies, has more recently tried to ingratiate himself with the crypto-friendly crowd by falsely portraying the Biden administration as anti-crypto. The former president's support for Ulbricht reeks of hypocrisy, given that Trump has said drug dealers deserve the death penalty and has made the purported trafficking of illegal drugs by immigrants a major talking point on the campaign trail.
Trump's embrace of crypto could be motivated by self-interest, too, as he announced last week that his campaign will accept donations in cryptocurrency.
Fontes' deepfake
During Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes showed off the deepfake below as a frightening example of what artificial intelligence can do to manipulate and misinform voters this election cycle.
Swab probs
The Los Angeles Times published a report on the spike in DNA samples collected from immigrants to the United States over the last four years. The rapid increase raises questions about whether immigrants’ privacy rights are being violated and for what purpose.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.
Diversity matters
Ohio Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown and Michigan Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens recently introduced a bill designed to increase access to cybersecurity jobs for people in disadvantaged communities, including racial minorities, women and people with disabilities. In an era when cyberattacks target U.S. infrastructure and foreign governments are waging disinformation campaigns meant to sow division, people from such groups have vital knowledge that can keep all Americans safe and free of manipulation.
Read more at Cyberscoop.
Uvalde liability lawsuit
Families of victims killed in the 2022 Uvalde school shooting are suing the video game company Activision, Meta (Instagram’s parent company) and rifle maker Daniel Defense, alleging the three companies played a role in “grooming” the gunman behind the massacre. It’s the most recent of several attempts to hold media platforms responsible for their alleged role in fueling extremist violence.
Read more at The New York Times.
TikTok’s most dangerous influencers
TikTok released its first report on efforts to remove “covert influence operations” from its platform that sought to sway political opinions in nations around the world, and it copped to finding 15 of them. One of the campaigns was designed to nudge Americans toward a favorable view of the Chinese government, while another tried to sway Americans toward a favorable view of Iran’s government.
Read more at NBC News.
Why the Media Matters layoffs matter
Facing a lawsuit from Elon Musk, the media watchdog Media Matters announced last week that it had laid off several staff members to remain “sustainable” amid a “legal assault on multiple fronts.” The move shouldn’t be taken lightly. There’s a right-wing war on people who specialize in researching disinformation and hate speech. If conservatives are successful, there will be fewer voices left willing or able to push back on efforts to manipulate the public.
Read more at The Freedom of the Press Foundation.
A.I. incompetence
It looks like Google’s A.I. search tool could use some serious work. Former Obama administration staffer-turned-podcaster Tommy Vietor shared a screenshot showing the platform returned an answer identifying former President Barack Obama as the United States’ first (and only) Muslim president.
NBC News also reported on the phenomenon, only to be told by a Google spokesperson that “the examples we’ve seen are generally very uncommon queries, and aren’t representative of most people’s experience using Search.” Also that Google “conducted extensive testing before launching this new experience to ensure AI overviews meet our high bar for quality.”
However much testing it did, it’s easy to see how abject racism can, with the help of algorithms, make its way into artificial intelligence tools.
Russia’s 2016 redux
A new article from The Washington Post details Russia’s campaign to spread election-related disinformation in Europe to sway elections on the Continent this year. And the Post warns that the Kremlin’s tactics, including social media propaganda meant to sow discord in the United States, are set to target the U.S. even more in the months ahead. Stay woke — the Kremlin is angling for a repeat of 2016.
Read more at The Washington Post.