Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.

Social media MAGA-fication

Meta’s monthslong MAGA rebrand continued this week as the social media platform hired Dina Powell McCormick, a former adviser to Donald Trump, as its new president. McCormick worked on Trump’s National Security Council in his first term and was seen as a close ally to the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. McCormick is married to Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., whom Trump endorsed in his 2024 Senate race.

In recent years, prominent politicians have falsely accused Meta’s platforms of viewpoint censorship, and ahead of the 2024 election, Trump publicly threatened to throw CEO Mark Zuckerberg in jail. More recently, the company and its leaders have made efforts to ingratiate themselves with MAGA world. One might see McCormick’s hiring as another way for Meta to curry favor with the administration as it faces allegations that its platforms are harmful to children and society writ large — allegations the company disputes. Indeed, Trump celebrated the news, posting in part on his social media platform that McCormick is “A great choice by Mark Z!!! She is a fantastic, and very talented, person.”

McCormick represents yet another data point in the MAGA-fication of American social media. Meta, already cozying up to MAGA, is handing executive power to a former Trump administration official, joining TikTok (to be sold into the control of Trump donor Larry Ellison) and X (owned by Trump donor Elon Musk).

Read more on CNBC here. 

Grok sparks global outrage

There’s a growing global push to ban Musk’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok, after a new feature allowed users to create nonconsensual pornography, including child porn. Over the weekend, Malaysia and Indonesia became the first countries to ban Grok. And a trio of Democratic senators are pressing Google and Apple to ban Grok and social platform X from their app stores as well. 

Read my blog on the matter for MS NOW, here. 

DOGE employee’s new gig

The Pentagon has hired Owen West, a former stock trader and ex-employee of the wildly unsuccessful, Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, to lead its Defense Innovation Unit. The Wall Street Journal describes the unit as being responsible for “bringing startup technology into the U.S. military.” One wonders what guardrails are in place to ensure that West avoids conflicts of interest and doesn’t reward his former Wall Street associates. 

Read more at The Wall Street Journal here. 

Health data dangers

Last week at CES, the consumer electronics trade show, the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to relax regulations on some health-related gadgets and tools, and several experts are expressing concerns about the prospect of AI health gadgets that could potentially put users’ data at risk.

Read more at The Independent here. 

Will Musk’s racist posts give him the stink?

My colleague Steve Benen wrote about the unabashed white supremacy Musk has been promoting on his X account and raised the question of whether the deluge of brazen racism from one of the GOP’s biggest donors will cause any members of the party to question their alignment with him. 

Read more at the Maddowblog here. 

Rage against the machines

Trump told The New York Times that he regretted not having federal officials seize states’ voting machines after the 2020 election, when he and fellow Republicans spread lies about fraudulent voters. The remark raises obvious concerns about the kinds of illiberal fantasies that may be motivating the president as we move toward this year’s midterms. 

Read more at The New York Times here. 

Google and its subsidiary settle lawsuits

Google and its subsidiary Character.AI settled several lawsuits last week filed by families who accused Character.AI’s chatbots of encouraging children to harm themselves, including one case in which a teenager who interacted with a chatbot later died by suicide. The terms of the settlement were not public, and the parties to the suit did not comment to The Guardian.

Read more at The Guardian here. 

Big Tech tries to thwart billionaire tax

Big Tech oligarchs — among them, far-right conspiracy theorist and JD Vance ally Peter Thiel — are dipping into their massive fortunes to support an effort to thwart a new tax on billionaires in California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that he is opposed to the tax.

Read more about the lobbying effort at The New York Times here. 

Conservatives raise funds for ICE agent

Conservatives have launched multiple online fundraisers (including one that “described Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as an ‘anti-American’ traitor ‘who is Jewish’”) to raise money for the ICE agent who shot a woman to death in Minneapolis last week. 

Read more at The New Republic here. 

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