Opinion | House GOP investigates why the feds didn’t give Elon Musk’s company more money
Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and the all-inclusive world of technology.
Musk’s Minions
Republicans in Congress are already hard at work doing billionaire Elon Musk’s bidding, in just about the most literal way possible. On Monday, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee announced an investigation into the Federal Communications Commission’s 2022 decision not to award a nearly $900 million bid for Musk’s Starlink to provide broadband internet to rural areas.
The move comes after Musk, a staunch Trump supporter, used his social media platform X to claim that the government’s decision not to grant Starlink the bid was “illegal” and cost lives in North Carolina. In another tweet, he promoted false claims — later amplified by Donald Trump — that the government was preventing Starlink servers from being delivered to victims of Hurricane Helene.
A Monday letter from the House Oversight Committee to the FCC demands documents for a probe on whether the FCC’s decision “followed established processes and is not improperly using the regulatory process for political purposes.”
In 2022, the FCC said the decision was because Starlink didn’t meet its internet speed requirements. And the agency stood by that decision in a statement last December. But Republicans seem eager to bow to Musk every opportunity possible. One can only imagine the level of fealty he’ll likely be paid if Trump wins the presidency in November.
AI and the First Amendment
California’s effort to curtail the use of election-related deepfakes was halted last week when a federal judge paused a law meant to crack down on the deceptive videos. The pause followed a conservative influencer’s claim that California’s law, Assembly Bill 2839, violated the First Amendment.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.
States sue TikTok
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia are suing TikTok, alleging the app is harmful to young people and has been used deliberately to hook them with “addictive” features. TikTok responded in a public statement, saying, “We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading.”
Read more at CNBC.
A storm of antisemitism
Jewish officials working on the response to Hurricane Helene have faced antisemitic attacks online as right-wingers have spread vile conspiracy theories suggesting that nefarious figures are playing some kind of role in worsening the hurricane’s fallout.
Antisemitic conspiracy theories accusing Jewish people in North Carolina of orchestrating Hurricane Helene are spreading like wildfire on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Read the report here.
Clinton’s social media concerns
In a recent interview on CNN, Hillary Clinton came out in support of stricter regulation of social media companies that allow harmful content to be posted on their platform. Clinton, who knows from experience how social media misinformation can influence politics, has been outspoken about the need to combat this misinformation in recent years.
CBP One lies
I recently wrote about Republicans like Trump, Musk and Ohio Sen. JD Vance spreading lies about the immigration app CBP One to stoke fear and anger toward immigrants as early voting is underway.
Read more here.
