What I’m Reading - 9/10/23
A hot start to Fall previews the craziness yet to come
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Good Sunday morning. I’m back on the Eastern Shore, where I’m really ready for the hot summer weather to go away so I can break out the sweaters and Fall boots.
Happy first weekend of American football to all that celebrate. As a Green Bay native and team owner, I am anxious and excited to see what our post-Aaron Rodgers world will look like with Jordan Love. We play Chicago this afternoon, and I’ve made a bet with my friend, who is a Bears fan. Whoever’s team loses has to cook the other dinner based on foods from the winning team’s city. This must include food you have shipped in from said city. The winner gets to pick the exact menu.
Oh, and all of this will be documented on social media.
While there’s nothing I love more than a Wisconsin fish fry, I think that would be quite hard to pull off well. I tried to do that this summer by bringing back some frozen walleye and perch. It was fine but quite a pain. So, I think mine will be beer-boiled brats, fried cheese curds, pasta salad, and Spotted Cow. But I am open to suggestions from my fellow cheeseheads. 🧀
This week was insane with news - right until the very end when on Friday night, the 5th Circuit ruled that while the White House and CDC likely violated the First Amendment in their pressuring of social media companies to take down content - the injunction imposed by the judge in Louisiana was too broad. This is just a ruling on the injunction - not the entire case. That still has to work its way through the courts.
On top of all that, Elon stayed on his suing streak by filing against the state of California, saying a new law they have requiring social media companies to provide more transparency into their content moderation rules and procedures violates their First Amendment rights.
Walter Isaacson’s book on Musk comes out on Tuesday, and the excerpts already promise that it’s going to be quite the doozy of a book. Musk is scheduled to be on the hill the day after the book drops for Schumer’s meeting on AI.
We also have another Senate hearing that will be happening on Tuesday. This one is with the Judiciary Committee and includes testimony from Microsoft’s Brad Smith.
Sorry for all the links, but there’s much to dig into! Have a great day.
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. I’m just short of 200 paid subscribers, and your support can help me reach that milestone!
What I’m Reading
Before we get into all the links, I have to share an amazing fiction book I devoured this week by
called Main Character Energy. It certainly added to this urge I’ve had recently to go to France and do a writer’s residence, as those are two key components of the book. It’s a fast read with some fun plot twists. I encourage you to check it out.Substack: In the 2024 U.S. Elections, Vote For…
Facebook Newsroom: An Update on Facebook News in Europe
Bloomberg: Google to Require Prominent Disclosures for AI-Generated Election Ads
Marketplace Tech Podcast: X/Twitter's political ad policy could affect elections around the world
Politico: Ron DeSantis’ Super PAC Thinks It Has Cracked the Code on Delivering His Message
Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci: From Community Governance to Customer Service and Back Again: Re-Examining Pre-Web Models of Online Governance to Address Platforms’ Crisis of Legitimacy
Emily Baker-White: Book Announcement - Time Bomb: How TikTok Captured the West's Culture, Commerce and Attention
The Wall Street Journal: Inside Musk’s Twitter Transformation: Impulsive Decisions, Favors for Friends
ResearchGate: Truth be Told: How True and False Labels Influence User Engagement with Fact-Checks
Rand Corporation: The Rise of Generative AI and the Coming Era of Social Media Manipulation 3.0
Wired: What OpenAI Really Wants
Forbes: The Real Cost of Engagement as a Metric on Social Media
The Guardian: Revealed: how US immigration uses fake social media profiles across investigations
Office of the Governor of California: Governor Newsom Signs Executive Order to Prepare California for the Progress of Artificial Intelligence
UK Parliament: The governance of artificial intelligence: interim report
Politico.eu - Meet the Facebook lobbyist-turned-lord fighting Britain’s encryption crackdown
Financial Times: UK pulls back from clash with Big Tech over private messaging
Tech Policy Press: UK Online Safety Bill Enters Final Stages
Reuters: Britain Sets Priorities for November Global AI Safety Summit
Politico EU: Assessment of VLOP and VLOSE Signatory Reports for the Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation
Politico EU: G7 Countries Commit to AI Code of Conduct
Thierry Breton: Tech and Geopolitics: Building European Resilience in the Digital Age
Euractiv: Slovak Elections: How Platforms Counter Political Misinformation Under DSA
Globe and Mail: Meta says Ottawa’s C-18 regulations aren’t enough to stop it blocking access to news
Rest of World: The politics of Africa’s TikTok bans
Dark Reading: Russia Undertakes Disinformation Campaign Across Africa Following Coups
Barron's: Fake Experts Drive Disinformation Before Bangladesh Polls
The Guardian: TikTok Removes 284 Accounts Linked to Chinese Disinformation Group
The Wall Street Journal: Chinese Propagandists Set Up Shop on Fringe Social-Media Site, Researchers Say
IPIE (International Public Information Environment): Trends in the Global Information Environment: 2023 Expert Survey Results
Reuters: India Ponders Simultaneous Federal and State Polls to Save Time
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. I’m just short of 200 paid subscribers, and your support can help me reach that milestone!