40 Pivotal Moments: How Three Months Redefined Our World

A Summer recap of the whirlwind of events that will shape a historic Fall

By the time this lands in your inbox, I will be roaming the streets of Paris. I decided to take this trip when I was jealous of the European vacations I saw on my social media feeds and thought, why be envious when I can buy a ticket? I used points to buy the ticket, and a friend let me stay with her. I’m very excited to see where this adventure takes me.

As we head into the year's final four months, I thought it would be worth taking stock of just how much we’ve gone through since June and look at some of the predictions about what the Summer had in store for us. Tomorrow, I will send a part two with some predictions for the Fall. First, let’s look at all the events these last three months packed in:

1. June 13 - Stanford Internet Observatory shut down

2. June 26 - Supreme Court rules on Murthy v Missouri

3. June 27 - The Trump/Biden debate 

4. July 1 - Supreme Court rules on NetChoice social media content moderation cases

5. July 1 - Steven Bannon reports to prison

6. July 2 - Trump sentencing delayed after Supreme Court ruling

7. July 4 - UK election

8. July 7 - French snap election

9. July 13 - Trump assassination attempt

10. July 13 - Elon Musk endorses Trump, starting a stream of stories about Silicon Valley executives taking sides in the election

11. July 15 - Trump picks JD Vance as Vice Presidential running mate

12. July 15-19 - Republican National Convention

13. July 16 - U.S. intelligence releases information about Iranian plots to assassinate Trump

14. July 19 - Crowdstrike outage affects businesses worldwide

15. July 21 - Biden drops out of the race

16. July 22 - Democrats align behind Harris

17. July 26 - France railway arson attacks

18. July 26 - Olympics opening ceremony

19. July 28 - Venezuela election

20. July 29 - Stabbing attack in the UK leads to riots

21. July 30 - NY Post cover about Meta and Google AI results about attempted Trump assassination

22. July 30 - U.S. Senate passes the Kids Online Safety and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Acts

23. August 1 - The EU AI Act comes into force

24. August 5 - Google loses antitrust case

25. August 6 - Musk sues Global Alliance for Responsible Media - a group of advertisers - for their boycott of X. 

26. August 7 - Harris picks Walz as Vice Presidential running mate

27. August 7 - Taylor Swift cancels Vienna concerts due to terrorist threat

28. August 8 - Global Alliance for Responsible Media shuts down in face of Musk lawsuit

29. August 10 - Trump campaign hacked by Iran

30. August 12 - European Union commissioner Thierry Breton sent Musk an open letter reminding him of EU laws against amplifying harmful content

31. August 12 - Trump/Musk X town hall

32. August 14 - Crowdtangle shut down

33. August 19 - 22 - Democratic National Convention

34. August 25 - Telegram CEO arrested in France

35. August 26 - Zuckerberg's letter to Rep. Jim Jordan

36. August 27 - Trump indicted again in election subversion case

37. August 28 - Judge rules TikTok can be held liable over girl’s death

38. August 30 - Brazil judge bans X from country

39. September 1 - Six hostages killed in Gaza

40. September 1 - Germany’s far-right AfD party wins first state elections since WWII

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Let’s take a look at some of my predictions and where things stand:

1. Prediction: The Supreme Court decision in Murthy v Missouri and the NetChoice cases could radically change expectations for online platforms in the U.S. elections.
   
   What Happened: 🟡 The decisions were a mixed bag. In Murthy, the court found that the plaintiffs had no legal right to bring the case. In NetChoice, they found that the lower courts had looked too narrowly at the issue and needed to do a broader analysis of how it might impact sites beyond social media platforms. So, the rulings brought no significant changes to how platforms operate but punted answers to the hard questions down the road.
   

2. Prediction: The SCOTUS decision will impact Rep. Jim Jordan’s investigations into alleged censorship.
   
   What Happened: 🔴 While the decisions dealt a bit of a blow, it hasn’t stopped Jordan. It will take some more court losses, Republicans losing the House majority, and Trump losing to slow those investigations down.
   

3. Prediction: The outcomes of the UK and French elections could indicate what might happen in the United States.
   
   What Happened: 🟡 The Labour Party in the UK won an overwhelming victory, and in France, the far right was held back in a second-round vote. It was a small indicator that people wanted more centrist governments—or perhaps it was more of an indicator that people were hungry for change. It’s hard to say what this would mean in the US context now that Biden is out. While Harris is Biden’s VP, she’s trying to run on being her own woman.
   

4. Prediction: The Biden/Trump debate will give an indicator of where things stand and set the tone for conventions.
   
   What Happened: 🟢 This 100 percent happened. Biden’s dismal performance was a key reason Republicans were so jubilant at their own convention, as they thought they had the election in the bag. However, Biden’s dropping out completely reinvigorated Democrats, leading to a celebratory convention.
   

5. Prediction: There will be drama at the conventions.
   
   What Happened: 🔴 I was most worried about violent protests at the conventions, but that did not happen. Overall, the conventions went off without a hitch.
   

6. Prediction: We may emerge from the conventions without either Trump or Biden as the nominee.
   
   What Happened: 🟢 I thought this had a minimal chance of happening, and instead, there were events that almost saw us lose both.
   

7. Prediction: Keep an eye on the influencers throughout the election, especially at the conventions.
   
   What Happened: 🟢 Influencers were a huge component at both conventions, but especially at the DNC, where 200 of them were credentialed to cover the event. Harris's becoming the nominee saw a vibe shift on the internet, and people were very excited to talk about her and Tim Walz. This will be an ongoing story throughout the election.
   

8. Prediction: AI platforms will be under harsher scrutiny for their handling of political content.
   
   What Happened: 🟢 Meta, Google, and other AI platforms were scrutinized for how they displayed results about the attempted Trump assassination versus prompts about Harris. The NY Post used this as its cover, and Jordan sent a letter to the companies demanding answers.

   1. One thing I realized while putting this together is that I had forgotten about Jordan sending Meta and Google letters about the AI responses to Trump’s attempted assassination. That’s another part of that puzzle worth keeping in mind.
      

9. Prediction: Companies trying to run from politics find they can’t hide.
   
   What Happened: 🟡 Best example is Zuck’s letter to Jordan, but the jury is still out on how much companies can avoid being dragged into politics. It does not look likely, as Edelman warns companies, that brands and politics have become melded in the public’s mind.
   

10. Prediction: The woefully under-reported story about how the Internet's governance could change.
    
    What Happened: 🟢 This story is still not being covered very much, and it could still have long-reaching implications for the future of the internet.

As one of my friends said, “Brat summer? More like batshit summer.” Stay tuned for part two tomorrow about predictions on what the Fall has in store for us.

Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.