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Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, my weekly roundup of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and technology.
Musk’s expanding Starlink footprint
The New York Times reports that Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service has been implemented at the White House complex as Starlink’s footprint expands across the federal government. Seems pretty dangerous considering that Musk appears to have the ability to turn the terminals off at will, a prospect that gained attention when he openly pondered how Ukraine would fare in defending itself from Russia’s invasion if the Starlink terminals it’s using were turned off.
Musk later added that Starlink would never shut off those terminals, but he already has prevented Ukraine from using the network for a drone attack, which raises justifiable questions about his parameters for U.S. government use. Sharing the Times’ report on Bluesky, technologist Waldo Jaquith wrote: “This is extremely bad.” Given how antidemocratic and self-absorbed Musk has been acting lately, it’s hard to disagree.
Read more at The New York Times.
‘Careless People’ rises up the charts
Last week, Meta succeeded in getting an arbitrator to temporarily prevent Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former director of global public policy for Facebook, from promoting “Careless People,” her tell-all memoir about the social media giant. But that hasn’t stopped the book — which includes unflattering allegations about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives — from flying off shelves.
I just wrote about how the book is rocketing up bestseller charts, despite Meta’s efforts. Read my report here.
The power of MAGA podcasters
A new study by liberal watchdog Media Matters for America shows how a constellation of right-wing influencers “dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces.” The report speaks to a trend I’ve been following closely: the rise of podcasters as key spokespeople for Donald Trump’s illiberal movement.
Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, shared the graphic below, highlighting the outsize influence that right-wing content creators have online — aided in part by social platforms led by MAGA-friendly executives such as Zuckerberg.
Read more at Media Matters.
Pentagon press secretary’s extremism on display
Speaking of podcasters, Politico resurfaced largely unnoticed comments made last year by Pentagon deputy press secretary Kingsley Wilson, who has a history of spreading racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. On a podcast last year, Wilson praised a white rancher accused of killing an unarmed immigrant who he said trespassed on his property. I previously wrote about the rancher, George Alan Kelly, and how he became a cause célèbre among conservatives after his case ended in a mistrial.
In the clip below, Wilson is quoted as saying Kelly should receive the Medal of Honor, which is the U.S. military’s highest decoration.
Read more at Politico.
Trump admin deletes page on gun violence
Trump’s White House has deleted a government webpage identifying gun violence — a leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States — as a public health issue. The page, maintained during the Biden administration, included details about the devastatingly broad impact of gun violence on children and American families.
Read more at The Guardian.
Gabbard’s ties to far-right influencers in focus
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reportedly tried — and failed — to install a pro-Kremlin podcaster as one of her deputies to lead the country’s top intelligence agencies.
Read my post on the disturbing report here.
OpenAI tries to weaken copyright regulations
OpenAI, the company led by Trump-friendly CEO Sam Altman, is pressuring the White House to alter government regulations in a way that would make it easier for U.S. companies to use copyrighted material to train their artificial intelligence models. The idea is fundamentally opposed by many media outlets and artists, who accuse AI companies of essentially stealing their work.
Read more at NBC News.
FBI reportedly sought freezes on accounts
Citibank says the FBI recommended that it temporarily freeze the bank accounts of various climate grant recipients after being told that the Environmental Protection Agency fund that issued the grants was under a criminal investigation. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said last week that the agency had terminated $20 billion in grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, stoking fear about the Trump administration’s ability to weaponize the government against its political opponents.
Read my report here.