Anchor Change with Katie Harbath

Share this post

Tech stories I’m watching post-Election Day

anchorchange.substack.com

Tech stories I’m watching post-Election Day

It’s still too early to fully grasp the tech story around the midterms, but some themes are emerging

Katie Harbath
Nov 9, 2022
2
Share this post

Tech stories I’m watching post-Election Day

anchorchange.substack.com
Share

Election Days are some of my favorite days. I’m usually so hyped up on Election Day that I can’t concentrate on anything so I stream West Wing campaign episodes until results start coming in. Then it’s usually so much fun to watch the returns and start analyzing it all.

While I still was hyped up yesterday and I did watch West Wing the whole night felt very quiet. You could feel that it was a country waiting with bated breath to see if all of our fears would become reality. Would there be violence? Would people not concede? Everyone was really careful about counting the vote which is leading to delays (this is a good thing). I actually think slowing all of this down is good for the long term, but it did make for some boring TV.

Thanks for reading Anchor Change! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

On top of it all was the news that Meta would be laying off employees starting at 6 am this morning. Mark put up a post early this morning saying that 11,000 people would be let go. This is such a hard time for so many people across tech. I don’t know if this is helpful for those of you going through all of this but earlier this year I did write about my own transition story from Facebook (and how it felt when I was abruptly removed from the Election work in late 2019) and how I mapped out my post-Facebook journey. If anyone wants to talk please reach out. 

If you are an integrity or trust and safety worker consider applying to be a member at the Integrity Institute. We have a growing community there that can provide some support if you’ve lost your work community. In fact, some members just launched a podcast - Trust in Tech - and I was honored to be their first guest! The Trust and Safety Professional Association is also pulling together resources.

My two worlds are colliding yet again in some ways we’ve never seen before. I have lots of thoughts about what 2023 will bring for tech but right now I just want to focus on some of my hot takes following the election.

  1. Where did the eyeballs go? - Yesterday, Kyle Tharp with FWIW noticed that right-leaning pages were getting far less reach on Facebook than in the past. It’s likely due to the company increasing the focus on video and deprioritizing political content, but we don’t know for sure. The question is are people still consuming that content just elsewhere? This election saw a slowdown of small-dollar donors which led to questions about email solicitations being less effective. The NRSC lost a TON of money by making a huge gamble online that didn’t pay off. (Expect this to be a part of the post-mortem especially if the Republicans don’t take the Senate). Plus more people are using TikTok, listening to podcasts, or shifting to sharing more content in messaging apps. This plus the increased spending on streaming is something I’m going to be digging into more over the coming days and weeks. 

  2. The online world in 2024 will look very different than the online world today - While we may not know the full story yet from the midterms the fact of the matter is that the online world will be different in two years and we’ll be going through a Presidential campaign while it does. 

  3. State legislatures - Given Congress will likely stay in gridlock (see below) I'm keeping a closer eye on the state legislatures where I expect more of them to draft and potentially pass more content moderation as well as privacy bills when they come into session early next year. Dems will be looking to push the platforms to do more and Republicans will be pushing them to take down less content. 

  4. Gridlock continues at the Federal level - Despite all of the hearings and attention that tech issues will get I don't actually expect any legislation to pass in the next two years. I do think that the most likely scenario is that Congress will be forced to act in 2025 after seeing a lot of conflicting state bills as well as pressure from Europe as they start to implement the DSA and DMA.

  5. GOP Hearing Sort-of Extravaganza - Before polls closed I just had this as an extravaganza. But with the margins looking to be much closer than expected I think the GOP will still do hearings on tech (assuming they take the House), but I don’t know if it’ll be as aggressive as I thought it might be. Still, we’ll see tech executives brought in to talk about issues of free speech, content moderation, the Chinese threat, and the handling of stories like Hunter Biden's laptop. I don't expect this to actually lead to any legislation that will pass.

  6. How will members feel about Musk? - GOP members think that Musk aligns with their feelings on speech and tech censorship, but I'm not so sure. But expect Musk to be invited to come and talk to them about his moves.

  7. TikTok and Apple will be on the hot seat - While all the tech companies will get the attention I expect to see most of the focus on these two apps. TikTok because of the China threat and Apple because of how their moves/decisions are affecting so many other platforms.

  8. Will Trump be let back on? - I’ll be very curious to see what - if any - impact Tuesday’s results have on Trump and if it ends up delaying his teased November 15th announcement. Regardless, I do think the attention will very quickly turn to the question if Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will let the former President back on. I expect this to be a game of chicken where folks like Musk will drag the decision out and then Trump will drag out if he'll actually join or not.

  9. The platforms did get better in some areas - Heading into Election Day there were a lot of concerns that the platforms weren’t ready. Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter shortly before the election didn’t help matters. I’m nervous about what the layoffs at Twitter and Meta will mean for the long-term viability of the election integrity work - especially as we start staring down all the elections in 2024 - but there is no doubt that they have gotten better in some areas - especially around fighting foreign interference.  There’s also a whole new crop of platforms we need to be paying attention to (see post above) because where the eyeballs go the bad actors go too.

  10. Judiciary/Supreme Court - The judges have entered the chat, and if you think politicians don't get how tech works they'll look like experts next to some of these judges who will be hearing cases against the platforms. Decisions from the Supreme Court down to state courts could have a real impact on how platforms handle content both fundamentally changing how they work and putting more pressure on Congress to act.

If you want to hear more of my thoughts I’ll be doing three virtual events in the coming days:

  • Wednesday, November 9 @ 5:30 pm Eastern - Atlantic Council DFR Lab Twitter Spaces

  • Thursday, November 10 @ 2:30 pm Eastern - Bipartisan Policy Center Tech Policy on the Horizon: Plans for the 118th Congress

  • Monday, November 14 @ 12:00 pm Eastern - Alliance of Democracies U.S. Midterm's 22 - The battle for the "true" integrity of the election

What I’m Reading

  • WSJ: TikTok’s Stratospheric Rise: An Oral History

  • New York Times: Russia Reactivates Its Trolls and Bots Ahead of Tuesday’s Midterms

  • BBC News: Scale of abuse of politicians on Twitter revealed 

  • Wired: Inside Meta’s Oversight Board: 2 Years of Pushing Limits

  • The Verge: The midterms turned politicians into content creators

  • Nature: A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy 

  • The Markup: How Political Campaigns Use Your Phone’s Location to Target You

  • Fast Company: Gen Z voters could tip the midterms. Here's what brands are doing to engage them 

  • Fast Company: Why campaigns have a love-hate relationship with their signs 

  • Washington Post: Trump once reconsidered sticking with Truth Social. Now he's stuck. 

  • Economist: Spending in America’s midterms is breaking records 

  • The Atlantic: What Happens When Everything Becomes TikTok 

  • Persuasion: Why Bolsonaro Is Going Quietly

  • Bloomberg: Facebook and Twitter Have Curbed Election Misinformation. Really. 

  • Nate Persily: Nate has put up videos for his entire Law of Democracy course this semester at Stanford

Jobs

  • US Digital Response: Chief Executive Officer

  • Lawfare: Intern with Lawfare! 

Calendar

  • Topics to keep an eye on that have a general timeframe of the first half of the year:

    • Facebook 2020 election research

    • Oversight Board opinion on cross-check

    • Senate & House hearings, markups, and potential votes

    • Second Summit of Democracy

  • November 12, 2022 - Bahrain 

  • November 17: Obama Foundation Democracy Forum

  • November 19, 2022 - Malaysia Election

  • November 20, 2022 - Equatorial Guinea Election

  • November 20, 2022 - Kazakhstan Election

  • November 20, 2022 - Nepal Election

  • November 28-30 - Knight Foundation: INFORMED: Conversations on Democracy in the Digital Age (Only virtual seats available)

  • November 2022 - Fiji Election

  • December 6, 2022 - BPC 2022 Election Summit

  • December 17, 2022 - Tunisia Election

  • 2022 TBD - Libya Election

  • January 2023 - Czech Republic Election

  • January 7: Meta/Trump Decision

  • February 5, 2023 - Cyprus Election

  • February 16, 2023 - Platforms have to announce EU numbers to comply with DSA

  • February 23, 2023 - Nigeria Election

  • February 2023 - Djibouti Election

  • February 2023 - Monaco Election

  • March 5, 2023 - Estonia Election

  • March 10 - 19: SXSW

  • March 20 - 24, 2023: Mozilla Fest

  • March 2023 - Antigua and Barbuda Election

  • March 2023 - Federated States of Micronesia Election

  • March 2023 - Guinea Bissau Election

  • March 2023 - Sierra Leone Election

  • April 30, 2023 - Benin Election

  • April 30, 2023 - Paraguay Election

  • April 2023 - Andorra Election

  • April 2023 - Finland Election

  • April 2023 - Montenegro Election

  • May 7, 2023 - Thailand Election

  • May 15-16: Copenhagen Democracy Summit

  • June 5-9: RightsCon

  • June 25, 2023 - Guatemala Election

  • June 25, 2023 -Turkey Election

  • July 2023 - Cambodia Election

  • July 2023 - Timor-Leste Election

  • July 2023 - Zimbabwe Election

  • August 6, 2023 - Greece Election

  • August 2023 - Eswatini Election

  • September 2023 - Mauritania Election

  • October 10, 2023 - Liberia Election

  • October 12, 2023 - Pakistan Election

  • October 22, 2023 - Switzerland Election

  • October 2023 - Argentina Election

  • October 2023 - Luxembourg Election

  • October 2023 - Oman Election

  • November 12, 2023 - Poland Election

  • November 20, 2023 - Marshall Islands Election

  • November 29, 2023 - Ukraine Election

  • November 2023 - Bhutan Election

  • November 2023 - Gabon Election

  • November 2023 - Rwanda Election

  • December 10, 2023 - Spain Election

  • December 2023 - Bangladesh Election

  • December 2023 - Democratic Republic of the Congo Election

  • December 2023 - Togo Election

  • TBD - Belarus Election

  • TBD - Cuba Election

  • TBD - Equatorial Guinea Election

  • TBD - Gabon Election

  • TBD - Guinea Election

  • TBD - Madagascar Election

  • TBD - Maldives Election

  • TBD - Myanmar Election

  • TBD - Singapore Election

  • TBD - South Sudan Election - (Unlikely to happen)

  • TBD - Turkmenistan Election

  • TBD - Tuvalu 

  • TBD - Haiti 

Thanks for reading Anchor Change! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

2
Share this post

Tech stories I’m watching post-Election Day

anchorchange.substack.com
Share
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Katie Harbath
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing