Happy Tuesday, all! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories at the intersection of tech and politics.
Another brick in the Wohl
Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, two far-right activists supportive of Donald Trump, could pay up to $1.25 million in damages after settling a lawsuit related to a fraudulent, voter suppression scheme that used robocalls to spread disinformation to deter Black people from voting in the 2020 election. New York Attorney General Letitia James reached an agreement with the men that lets them pay around half of $1 million if they keep up with their payments, but they’ll be on the hook for the full amount plus another $250,000 if they fail to make a payment on time.
Read more at NBC News.
TikTok’s team of friendly faces
Over at The New York Times, Sapna Maheshwari has an article on TikTok’s multimillion-dollar advertising effort, which uses nuns, farmers and others to serve as friendly spokespeople for the company — and to curry favor among Americans — as the Senate contemplates a bill that could potentially result in a ban of the app in the United States.
Read more at the New York Times.
Artists against A.I.
Some 200 of the world’s top musical performers — including Billie Eilish, Bruno Mars, J Balvin and Jadakiss — have cosigned a letter pushing tech companies not to use artificial intelligence “to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.” The group argues that, left “unchecked, AI will set in motion a race to the bottom that will degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it.” The letter comes as platforms like YouTube have debuted A.I. tools that allow users to create songs in the style of famous artists.
Read more at NBC News.
High-tech election attacks
Over at Wired, writer David Gilbert takes a look at some of the high-tech tools that far-right conspiracy theorists, like former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, have unveiled to push baseless claims about voter fraud ahead of this year’s presidential election. Gilbert highlights in particular the A.I.-enabled tool conservatives are calling IV3, which an investigation by Wired found was using unreliable data as a basis to challenge voters’ eligibility.
Read more at Wired.
Elon irks Brazil
Brazil’s Supreme Court has opened an investigation into Elon Musk after Musk reactivated several far-right accounts on X, his social media platform, despite an order by a Supreme Court justice to remove them. Musk has framed his refusal to remove the accounts, which were targeted for their prolific spreading of disinformation, as a matter of free speech. Musk has, however, put up much less of a fight when asked to censor people at the behest of foreign governments in the past.
Read more at The Guardian.
More meddling out of Moscow
The Washington Post has obtained documents that it says expose the Russian government’s propaganda operation in the United States to undermine American support for Ukraine aid. Some of the rhetoric the documents would encourage is mirrored in rhetoric we’ve heard from U.S. lawmakers, including calls to prioritize domestic border security funding and fear-mongering about the number of migrants crossing the U.S. border. The documents also encourage framing white people as the main losers in any approval of foreign aid. The report showcases how Russia is attempting to wield its influence on yet another American election, and comes as some Republican lawmakers are accusing fellow Republicans in Congress of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Pharrell’s ‘secret’ album has a message about Big Tech
Relatedly, Pharrell dropped a “secret” album last week called “Black Yacht Rock.” Think Michael McDonald or Crosby, Stills and Nash — but with snare drums. It’s a dope, experimental album that’s not currently available on streaming platforms. And I had to hype it up here after one of the lyrics from his song “Just For Fun” struck me as uniquely aware of the role Big Tech is playing in American politics. Here’s a line that reminded me of Russia’s attempts to meddle in U.S. politics:
4,000 characters on your socials (Yeah) Pictures and letters have turned you postal Hit send and if the message don’t connect, hit again Right then (Ooh, ooh) You ever question the voice talking to you? (Ooh, ooh) Foreign agents, algorithmic voodoo, you’ve been had For years, our country has been under attack And that’s a fact
Listen to “Black Yacht Rock” in full here.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.