What I'm Reading - 3/2/25

False spring was in full force yesterday, and it was warm enough for me to work outside. I was so happy. Of course, today's high is only 39. I’m ready for spring.

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday!

What I’m Reading

Must-Reads

In case you missed it, John Oliver did a segment about Facebook and content moderation last Sunday night. About halfway through, a clip of my 60-minute interview appears. It’s worth watching, as it’s one of the better portrayals of how challenging content moderation can be.

AI Developments

1. Nieman Journalism Lab: Meet the journalists training AI models for Meta and OpenAI

2. Arizona Secretary of State: Secretary Fontes Releases Final Report on AI and Election Security: Proposes Groundbreaking AI Elections Lab

Stories About Specific Countries

1. POLITICO: The inside story of how 31 days made Merz chancellor — and changed Germany forever

2. Reuters: US judge says Trump Media, Rumble need not follow Brazilian order they deem censorship

3. POLITICO: Romanian police haul in election front-runner Călin Georgescu for questioning

Political & Social Commentary

1. The Verge: Trump’s first 100 days: all the news affecting the tech industry

2. New York Times: Democrats Fume Over a Data Disaster Averted: ‘This Can’t Happen Again’

3. The New York Times: Opinion | What Republicans Can Do to Take Control of DOGE

4. The German Marshall Fund: The State(s) of Foreign Information Operations

5. Zooming In at The Unpopulist: How the Right Uses Social Media to Create a Powerful Propaganda Machine: A Conversation with Renée DiResta

6. TechPolicy.Press: Apple and Google Will Regret Breaking the Law for Trump

7. Foreign Policy: America’s Global Presence Isn’t ‘Soft Power.’ It’s a Superpower.

8. Engadget: The Oversight Board will weigh in on Meta’s new hate speech policies

9. BOOM: How Political Artists Are Evading Bias And Censorship On Instagram

10. The Wall Street Journal: Google Tweak Creates Crisis for Product-Review Sites

11. Semafor: CNN’s Mark Thompson charts a future beyond cable

12. The Information: Instagram May Launch Reels as Separate App, Increasing Pressure on TikTok

13. The Associated Press: Not known for political coverage, Wired takes a leading role in tracking Elon Musk's team

Legal & Regulatory

1. POLITICO: California agrees to drop parts of social media law challenged by Elon Musk’s X

2. House Judiciary Committee Republicans: Chairman Jordan Subpoenas Big Tech for Information on Foreign Censorship of American Speech

Career Advice

1. Moira Whelan on LinkedIn: How Crisis Comms Helped Me Navigate A Furlough

Company Announcements

1. Google Cloud Blog: Signals of Trouble: Multiple Russia-Aligned Threat Actors Actively Targeting Signal Messenger