What I’m Reading - 3/3/24

Hello from Austin and I’m hiring at Duco!

Hello from Austin, Texas, where I am here for twelve days to see friends, do some business, and attend/speak at SXSW.

Let me know if you’ll be in town and want to get together.

Also, I’m hiring at Duco! We’re looking for a marketing and communications intern to help with this newsletter, the podcast (which is coming back this week!), Duco’s social media, and a lot more. If you are interested, apply here.

Before we get to the links I want to share some quick thoughts on two books I just finished reading - Zoë Schiffer’s Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter and Kara Swisher’s Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. I’ve got Kurt Wagner’s Battle for the Bird up next.

Zoë’s book is an easy and informative read of how Elon Musk ended up with Twitter. Kara’s was one that I expected to just be well-known rants but ended up much more than that. My favorite parts are:

1. Her reminders that we only have so much time on this earth so we should focus on what is important, be honest to one’s self, admit when you are wrong and don’t be afraid to pivot. Her reflections on Steve Jobs and Dave Goldberg were particularly vulnerable and poignant.

2. Her point that people leak because they think leaders aren’t listening to them but will listen to reporters is spot on.

3. The clear love and passion she has for what she does and how she built a unique brand from it.

I highly recommend both.

Finally, a happy early birthday to my mom!

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. 

What I’m Reading

1. The Information: The Ultimate Insiders’ Guide to AI: How Founders, Investors and Executives Really Use the Technology

2. Search Engine Land: Survey: 51% of Gen Z women prefer TikTok, not Google, for search 

3. CSG Midwest: Michigan, Minnesota laws ban 'deep fakes' in election campaigns 

4. Axios: Rounds on what's next for AI policy

5. FWIW: Meta is already failing to enforce its new AI policy

6. TIME: Ethical AI Isn't to Blame for Google's Gemini Debacle 

7. Economic Times: Gemini not always reliable in responding to prompts: Google after chatbot's response on PM Modi 

8. 404 Media: Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools

9. Proof News: Seeking Reliable Election Information? Don’t Trust AI 

10. BBC: An update on the BBC’s plans for Generative AI (Gen AI) and how we plan to use AI tools responsibly 

11. Sky News: Voters braced for Facebook and Instagram messages as political ad spend rises 

12. Reuters: Brazil Justice Moraes warns political candidates not to use AI against opponents 

13. Associated Press: Mexican president slams YouTube for taking down his video that shared a journalist's phone number 

14. USAID: Seizing the Moment. Three ways USAID is capitalizing on the “Year of Elections” to promote and protect electoral integrity. 

15. The Guardian: US leading global alliance to counter foreign government disinformation

16. Meta: How Meta Is Preparing for the EU’s 2024 Parliament Elections 

17. Reuters: Facebook owner Meta angers Australia with plan to stop paying for news content 

18. Meta: An Update on Facebook News

19. Bloomberg: Facebook, YouTube to Face New Canada ‘Harmful’ Content Rules

20. Pew Research Center: Introducing the Pew-Knight Initiative

21. Knight Media Forum: There’s good news about the news

22. New York Times: Instagram’s Uneasy Rise as a News Site 

23. Washington Post: Meet the Amazon 'influencers' making money off everything they own 

24. NBC News: Fake news YouTube creators target Black celebrities with AI-generated misinformation 

25. New York Times: Elon Musk Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman for Violating the Company’s Principles 

26. Wired: Elon Musk's Lawsuit Against a Group That Found Hate Speech on X Isn't Going Well 

27. Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India: A Complex Adaptive System Framework to Regulate Artificial Intelligence 

28. The India Fix: Rising doubts over the fairness of voting in India are a bad sign for its democracy

29. Latika Takes
    : Five photos that show India's transformation 

30. Freedom House: Freedom in the World 2024 - The Mounting Damage of Flawed Elections and Armed Conflict

31. Journal of Online Trust and Safety: The Seventh Issue
    The seventh issue of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety includes a study examining content moderation on federated platforms, research on approaches to analyzing multilingual social media data, research into the sourcing of conspiracy theories, and an experimental study that advances work on when people detect AI-generated content. This issue also includes commentaries on lessons learned for regulators from the Oversight Board, the balance between presuming good faith and mitigating malicious online actors, a normative assessment of exempting public figures from fact-checking on platforms, and an assessment of the current literature on harassment. 

32. The Future of Free Speech: Freedom of Expression in Generative AI: A Snapshot of Content Policies 

33. Hewlett Foundation: A Threat Like None Other - The Development of Cybersecurity Policy and the Role of the Hewlett Foundation

34. Atlantic Council: Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023 

35. Forum on Information and Democracy: New report: more than 200 policy recommendations to ensure democratic control of AI 

36. Integrity Institute: On Risk Assessments and Mitigations for Algorithmic Systems

37. Making meaning from feelings
    : What will Trust and Safety look like for LLMs and what should designers focus on?

38. Morning Consult: Global Political Risk Outlook, H1 2024 

39. Mozilla: In Transparency We Trust? 

40. Mozilla: Election Manipulation in Brazil's 2022 General Elections

41. International Republican Institute: China’s Approach to Influencing Elections and Political Processes to its Strategic Advantage

42. UK 2040 Options: The Radical How - UK 2040 Options and Public Digital on how to build a mission-oriented government that delivers better outcomes, reduces risk, saves money, and rebuilds trust

43. The Atlantic: Overwhelmed? Just Say ‘No.’

44. Nic Antoinette
    : When the time comes, you will know - by Nic Antoinette 

45. MKHammer Time
    : Three Simple Ways To Help A Friend In Crisis 

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.