What I'm Reading - 11/12/23
Plus some history of Senator Bob Dole's impact on the tech world today
Greetings from Lawrence, Kansas, where I’m writing this on Thursday to try to wrap things up before going hunting. I was here with the Bipartisan Policy Center as a visiting fellow at the Dole Institute to do my talk about what to expect next year at the intersection of technology and politics.
As part of the visit, they gave us a tour of the museum they have of Senator Dole’s life, and I learned a few things about Senator Dole’s impact on the tech industry. I already knew that his and Bill Clinton’s campaigns in 1996 were the first to have a website. Still, I forgot that Dole was Senate Majority Leader when C-SPAN began televising live proceedings of the U.S. Senate to 6.7 million households. I learned that when our tour guide showed us the drawers of pins they have.
Having Congressional activity televised was a precursor to the social media age we entered into 20 years later.
The most consequential thing he did, though vis a vis tech, was the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. According to Wikipedia, “A key change made by Bayh–Dole was in the procedures by which federal contractors that acquired ownership of inventions made with federal funding could retain that ownership.” It turns out that we potentially wouldn’t have had companies like Google without it. 🌈 The More You Know 🌈
When you read this, I will be sitting on a ridge looking for elk and celebrating my 43rd birthday. The last time we went to this area, there was minimal cell service and no internet at camp. My dad just messaged my brother and me that there is now internet - so I maybe didn’t have to rush to finish all this work before I left. I’ll share pics if I can!
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. From now until November 15th I’m offering a birthday special of 20 percent off an annual subscription!
What I’m Reading
Wired: Big Tech Ditched Trust and Safety. Now Startups Are Selling It Back As a Service
Morning Consult: Survey: Growing AI Concerns Among U.S. Adults
The Verge: Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet
Sen. Schumer: Statements From The Fifth Bipartisan Senate Forum On Artificial Intelligence
Guardian: 85% of people worry about online disinformation, global survey finds
Johns Hopkins University's SNF Agora Institute and the R Street Institute: Introducing new conservative principles for building trust in elections
Includes information on a new Gallup poll that shows wide partisan gaps in electoral confidence
The Exformation Newsletter: Unpacking the Executive Order on AI
Washington Post: OpenAI unveils ambitions to compete more directly with Big Tech
- : Is the web actually evaporating?
Dole Institute: Whirlwind: What to Expect for Digital Democracy in 2024 (This is my talk this week in Kansas)
Washington Post: Opinion | Musk did one thing right in his first year at X
Politico: Opinion | Twitter Gave Us an Indispensable Real-Time News Platform. X Took It Away.
New York Times: Mark Zuckerberg Taps the Strengths of WhatsApp
Nieman Journalism Lab: How 13 news publishers are using WhatsApp Channels
Harvard Business Review: How Should Meta Be Governed for the Good of Society?
Reuters Institute: In Canada’s battle with Big Tech, smaller publishers are caught in the crossfire
Politico: Tech giant battle means doom for small news outlets, Trudeau was warned
Straits Times: Fake news on Indonesia election spreading as govt asks Facebook to take down over 450 ‘hoaxes’
Reuters: Google, Meta win court fight against Austrian online content rule
Euractiv: Governance of foundation models in EU’s AI law starts to take shape
European Commission: Commission welcomes political agreement on transparency of political advertising regulation
Washington Post: How India tamed Twitter and set a global standard for online censorship
Times of India: Deep fake controversy: Government instructs social media companies to take them down within 24 hours of complaint
AP: Turkish high court upholds disputed disinformation law. The opposition wanted it annulled
Ask Me Anything with Paula Bennett Podcast: How to adapt to the digital age with Sean Topham
Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations: Foreign Electoral Interference Affecting EU Democratic Processes
The Guardian: Dutch elections 2023: everything you need to know
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. From now until November 15th I’m offering a birthday special of 20 percent off an annual subscription!