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Below: Meta removes more posts about “Zionists.” First:
The 2024 Republican platform aims to promote cryptocurrency, AI and Elon Musk.
Republican leaders, including former President Donald Trump, have frequently denounced big tech companies, but the party’s new platform is light on tech regulation and what it does contain suggests a laissez-faire, if not entirely friendly, approach to the emerging sector that is under the Biden administration’s scrutiny.
The 16-page platform proposed by President Trump and adopted by Republican delegates on Monday ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention calls for promoting cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, not restricting them. “The Republican Party will pave the way for future economic greatness by leading the world in emerging industries,” the platform promises.
Critics counter that platform policies empower the worst actors in emerging industries at the expense of real innovation, potentially harming consumers.
According to the document, the Republican Party’s top tech priority appears to be promoting cryptocurrency.
“Republicans will end the Democrats’ illegal and un-American crackdown on cryptocurrency and oppose the creation of a central bank digital currency,” the platform said. “We will defend the right to mine Bitcoin and ensure that every American has the right to self-custody their digital assets and trade them free from government oversight or control.”
Trump presenting himself as a pro-cryptocurrency candidate could be a smart move, argued Chris McKenzie, senior director of communications for the Congressional Progressive, a center-left trade group funded by tech companies. In an open letter on Tuesday, the group noted that 18 million Americans hold or trade cryptocurrencies and called on President Biden to support a bipartisan cryptocurrency bill that is widely seen as favorable to the industry.
“We see this as an opportunity to take the title of crypto-positive candidate away from Trump, who has made serious efforts to make cryptocurrency part of his campaign,” McKenzie said.
That’s a misconception, some consumer advocates say.
Robert Weissman, president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said it was an odd policy push from a major political party for cryptocurrencies, given the relatively small role they play in the overall economy. He said the prominent position of cryptocurrencies in the Republican policy platform likely reflects the intense lobbying by the crypto industry, which “clearly influences politicians in both parties.”
“The currently applied enforcement standards that Republicans are proposing to repeal or repeal are designed to protect Americans from the scams, rip-offs and abuses that are rampant in the cryptocurrency industry,” Weissman said. “In effect, they should be interpreted as, ‘We’re looking to facilitate further fraud against ordinary Americans.'”
The Republican platform also calls for reversing President Biden’s executive orders on AI.
“We will revoke Joe Biden’s dangerous executive orders that stifle AI innovation and impose a radical left ideology on the development of this technology,” the platform reads. “Instead, Republicans will support AI development that is rooted in free speech and human flourishing.”
The sweeping executive order, signed by President Biden in October 2023, imposed new safety obligations on AI developers and called on federal agencies to promote responsible development while mitigating the technology’s risks. My colleagues Elizabeth Dwoskin, Drew Harwell, and Cat Zakrzewski reported in May that influential tech lobbying groups were laying the groundwork for a future Trump administration to repeal these rules and instead funnel money into AI grants and contracts.
But it’s unclear how many AI companies actually want the order lifted.
“For American companies to continue to grow and lead innovation at home and abroad, we need U.S. policymakers to help set global standards for AI,” Julia Massimino, executive vice president of government relations at the Information Technology Industry Council, a global tech trade group, said in an emailed statement. The group is urging policymakers to prioritize policies that “build trust in the technology” while supporting beneficial uses of AI, she said.
Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a professor of computer science at Brown University who helped shape the Biden administration’s thinking on AI, told Tech Brief that a hands-off approach to AI development “may have made sense” in the technology’s formative years. But, he said, “we’re well past that point now.”
“There is a mounting evidence base about why and how we need to govern AI systems that affect people’s rights, opportunities and access to essential services,” Venkatasubramanian said.
The Republican platform includes another technology-related priority: strengthening commercial space exploration.
“Under Republican leadership, America will create a robust manufacturing industry in near-Earth orbit, send American astronauts back to the Moon and then to Mars, and strengthen partnerships with a rapidly expanding commercial space sector to revolutionize our access to space, our life in space, and our ability to develop space assets,” the document states.
The biggest beneficiary of government investment in commercial space exploration would be Elon Musk, the billionaire who runs SpaceX, Tesla and X. In recent years, Musk has become increasingly vocal about his conservative views, and in 2022 he urged his vast following at X to vote Republican in the midterm elections. He has not endorsed a presidential candidate, but said after a surprise meeting with Trump in March that he was “moving away from Biden.”
The policy platform did not mention Section 230, the tech liability law that Trump sought to repeal as president, or antitrust enforcement against big tech companies, which was strengthened under the Trump administration before the Biden administration adopted a tougher line.
Meta to remove more ‘Zionist’ posts to combat anti-Semitism
Meta has been more aggressively removing social media posts that include the word “Zionist,” which is seen as a proxy for Jewish, in an effort to counter a wave of online anti-Semitism following the start of the Israel-Gaza war, our colleague Naomi Nix reports for Tech Brief.
Meta announced on Tuesday that it would expand its existing hate speech policy to remove more content attacking “Zionists” that doesn’t criticize a political movement but instead spreads anti-Semitic stereotypes or calls for harm against Jews or Israelis “under the guise of attacking Zionists,” the company said in a blog post.
The social media giant now bans all attacks based on race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation, including posts that spread “harmful stereotypes” or dehumanize people. Under this policy, Meta in limited circumstances treats the word Zionist as a proxy for Jews or Israelis, known anti-Semitic tropes such as comparing them to rats.
Going forward, Meta will begin removing more content that includes the word Zionist, such as posts claiming that Zionists run the world or control the news media, or posts that liken Zionists to pigs, filth, or vermin.
Meta has been consulting with civil society groups for months about this potential policy change, which has already won the company support from some Jewish groups but is likely to draw criticism from some digital rights activists and pro-Palestinian groups, who argue that the new approach will stifle legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and Zionism in the midst of a devastating war.
US and allies take down Russian AI-powered ‘bot farms’ (Joseph Meng)
Federal regulators first to ban messaging apps from hosting minors (Cristiano Lima)
US plans to fund up to $1.6 billion in computer chip packaging (New York Times)
Microsoft raises price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, launches new “Standard” tier (The Verge)
Google No Longer Claims to be Carbon Neutral (Bloomberg)
Amazon says it met its climate goals seven years early (New York Times)
Microsoft and Apple strip OpenAI of its seat amid antitrust investigation (Financial Times)
Google Maps speedometer finally comes to iOS and CarPlay (Engadget)
Kamala D. Harris’ awkward remarks are turning into internet memes (Taylor Lorenz)
Your partner wants your online passwords. Say no. (Tatum Hunter)
Tesla’s Secret: Elon Musk’s Cars Get VIP Treatment with Self-Driving AI (Business Insider)
Victor Peng, president of Advanced Micro Devices, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor company, has been selected to serve on the steering committee of the National Consortium of Semiconductor Technology Centers, where he will volunteer to represent the private sector.
The Federalist Society will host a fireside chat with FTC’s Melissa Holyoak at noon Wednesday. The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing titled “Americans’ Privacy Need and Drivers of AI” at 10 a.m. Thursday. The Congressional Internet Caucus Academy will host an event at noon Friday titled “Tech Platforms and the First Amendment: The Impact of the Supreme Court’s Ruling.”
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