Elections and Media

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed wary on March 18 of a bid by two Republican-led states to limit the Biden Administration’s interactions with social media companies, with several justices questioning the states’ legal theories and factual assertions. Most of the justices appeared convinced that government officials should be able to try to persuade private companies, whether news organizations or tech platforms, not to publish information so long as the requests are not backed by coercive threats.

Even though there are enough Republicans in Congress to pass an extension of the soon-expiring Affordable Connectivity Program, industry observers are pessimistic about its passage. Because House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is not supportive, said Blair Levin, the measure is unlikely to get a vote before the House of Representatives. Paul Gallant, a technology policy analyst for investment bank TD Cowen, agreed. “Congress is probably going to do nothing,” said Levin. "If it were to hit the floor, it would pass, and I don’t think Speaker Johnson is going to let it go to the floor.

The slow crash of newspapers and magazines would be of limited interest save for one thing: Traditional media had at its core the exalted and difficult mission of communicating information about the world. From investigative reports on government to coverage of local politicians, the news served to make all the institutions and individuals covered a bit more transparent and, possibly, more honest. The advice columns, movie reviews, recipes, stock data, weather report and just about everything else in newspapers moved easily online — except the news itself.

At the Munich Security Conference, leading technology companies pledged to help prevent deceptive AI content from interfering with the 2024 global elections in which more than four billion people in over 40 countries will vote. The “Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections” is a set of commitments to deploy technology countering harmful AI-generated content meant to deceive voters.

Meta will not "proactively recommend political content from accounts you don't follow" on Threads. The policies, which are the same it

A company best known for its posts on Instagram announced that it will try to capitalize on young people’s growing use of social media for news by teaming with a well known TikTok creator for political coverage this year. The company, Betches, said it will partner with the creator Vitus “V” Spehar a.k.a.

One of the nice things about covering the frontier of technology — large language models, quantum, virtual worlds — is that they’re decidedly less partisan than most policy issues. That might be changing.

Three of the most important technology trends in the election space that you should stay on top of. 

After the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, tech companies finally seemed to accept that their failure to moderate content was undermining public safety and democracy. In the aftermath, most social-media companies removed users who spread anti-democratic conspiracies or used their online platforms to incite violence. Leading up to the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, tech companies promised users, civil-society groups and governments that they would safeguard election integrity and free expression on their platforms.

The US federal government has stopped warning some social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, reversing a years-long approach to preventing Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics less than a year before the US presidential elections. Meta no longer receives notifications of global influence campaigns from the Biden administration, halting a prolonged partnership between the federal government and the world’s largest social media company.