Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and technology.
Big Tech’s role in tariff talks
If the Trump administration has its way, Americans could be paying higher prices on products that rely on steel unless the European Union agrees to weaken regulations on some of the president’s Big Tech allies. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is in Brussels on a visit, said the U.S. will not lift tariffs on EU countries until the union weakens rules, such as those designed to curb child abuse and hate speech online, which have become a thorn in the side of tech moguls including Elon Musk.
Read more in Bloomberg.
Bad reception
Trump Mobile, the mobile phone venture launched by the president’s adult sons, is “nowhere to be found after months of delay,” according to a recent NBC News investigation, continuing a trend of Trump-branded products that fail to live up to the hype.
Read the report at NBC News.
Meta machinations
A new legal filing alleges that executives at Meta quashed internal research showing that people who stopped using the app became less anxious and depressed. The filing — related to litigation against some of the top social media companies in the world over alleged harms to minors — follows previous whistleblower testimony that claimed Meta executives ignored their platforms’ harmful effects on users as the company has pursued dominance in the social media space.
A Meta spokesperson responded to the allegations in the legal filing, claiming, “We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture.”
Read more at CNBC.
Privacy group sues for info on app removals
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy advocacy group, is suing the federal government for its communications with Big Tech companies related to banning or removing apps that track U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.
Read more at CyberScoop.
Dems fear an AI bubble
Democrats in Congress are increasingly concerned that the artificial intelligence industry is a bubble on the verge of bursting, and that the federal government is primed to bail out the industry. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are two of the most prominent lawmakers in Congress who are warning about the possibility that Trump administration will use taxpayer funds to save artificial intelligence developers – many of whom have allied with the president.
Read more at Common Dreams.
AI-generated gospel ‘artist’ sparks backlash
MAGA rapper Christopher Townsend is facing backlash after using AI to create a Christian gospel persona and generating a song that has climbed to the top of the gospel charts. The controversy adds to the ongoing debate around the ethics of AI-generated art and the push to compensate human artists whose works are used to train AI bots.
Read more at Baptist News Global.
Child advocacy group discourages AI toys
Fairplay, a children’s advocacy group known for taking on Big Tech, recently issued a warning against purchasing AI-enabled children’s toys this holiday season.
“AI toys use the very same AI systems that have produced unsafe, confusing, or harmful experiences for older kids and teens, including urging them to self harm or take their own lives,” the organization wrote. “Yet, they are being marketed to the youngest children, who have the least ability to recognize or protect themselves from these dangers.”
Read the group’s advisory here.
That’s what the money’s for
The president and chief operating officer of cryptocurrency platform Coinbase admitted that her organization’s donation to a fund ostensibly for the construction of a golden ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be was meant to maintain good relations with the Trump administration.
Watch Emilie Choi’s comments to Axios below:
X exposes MAGA world’s worst-kept secret
A new “transparency” feature on Elon Musk-owned social media platform X exposed location data for several popular pro-Trump accounts that appear to be operated by users overseas, raising fresh questions about the true scale of the president’s American support (at least online).
Read my blog on the feature here.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.