Hello and happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories at the intersection of politics and technology.
TikTok takes off the gloves
TikTok has filed a lawsuit seeking to stave off a potential ban in the U.S. if the social media platform isn’t sold from its China-based parent company. The suit against the U.S. government, which is largely staked in First Amendment claims regarding free speech, is certain to prolong what was already going to be a protracted legal fight over the bipartisan TikTok-related legislation, signed by President Joe Biden last month. I’ve been a staunch critic of lawmakers focusing exclusively on TikTok in their quest to crack down on social media networks, but I have also criticized the ridiculous cries about an imminent ban from TikTok’s fiercest defenders, whose arguments seem to ignore the app’s legitimately bad impacts on society.
Read more about the lawsuit at NBC News.
Trump’s AI ‘evangelist’
Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and digital guru, has become an “evangelist” for using artificial intelligence tools in politics, The Associated Press reports. Some of his AI plans are fairly anodyne, while others are more suspect.
Read more at The Associated Press.
Russian meddling
The Brookings Institution has published a study highlighting the Russian government’s increased use of TikTok, an approach seemingly crafted to spread Kremlin — and thus MAGA — talking points to young people and Spanish-language speakers.
Read more from the Brookings Institution.
NYPD peddles slick propaganda
The New York Police Department has been refining its propaganda tactics. A highly produced sizzle reel released by the department, which shows officers bearing down on pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University, highlights concerns that activists have raised about the NYPD’s deployment of dogged social media attacks against its perceived adversaries and critics.
Read more at Slate.
Israel axes Al Jazeera
The Israeli government has shut down the operations of news outlet Al Jazeera within the country. The move fueled criticism of Tel Aviv’s lack of transparency and disrespect for press freedoms during the Israel-Hamas war.
Read more at Variety.
AI and cultural bias
TechCrunch tested Meta’s new AI chatbot and found evidence of ethnic bias. Auto-generated images of Indian men routinely showed them donning turbans, suggesting that the attire is far more common than it actually is.
Read more at TechCrunch.
Meta and the ‘big lie’
Democratic secretaries of state in several states have sent a letter asking Meta to stop allowing ads on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, that falsely claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The company has defended its efforts to protect elections.
Read more at The Associated Press.
Hochul backpedals
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was forced to backtrack over remarks she delivered at an event where she was promoting equal access to technology for disadvantaged groups. The Democrat — who said there are Black kids in the Bronx who “don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is” — may have been trying to highlight the urgency of the issue. But the resulting backlash made clear that she should have workshopped her phrasing beforehand.
Read more at HuffPost.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she “misspoke” when she said “we have young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t know even know what the word ‘computer’ is”https://t.co/ZaxLtYPDh0 pic.twitter.com/ziOpeB0yfd
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 7, 2024
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.