Opinion | Rubio reportedly touts Musk’s X as a tool to fight “anti-American propaganda” – MS NOW
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Plus, Kash Patel’s personal email reportedly gets hacked, Epstein victims sue the Trump administration and Google, plus more — all in this week’s Tuesday Tech Drop.
Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.
President Donald Trump’s State Department is officially touting Elon Musk’s disinformation- and extremism-filled X as a useful tool for “countering anti-American propaganda,” according to a cable viewed by The Guardian that was reportedly signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. MS NOW has not independently seen the cable.
The Guardian reported that the cable encourages embassies and consulates to combat campaigns that “undermine American economic interests and political freedoms.” Trump, of course, is doing both of those things presently.
Nonetheless, the cable reportedly encouraged U.S. diplomats to coordinate with the Defense Department team responsible for launching psychological operations, or psyops:
Notably, the cable tells diplomatic offices to coordinate their work with ‘the Department of War’s Psychological Operations’ — the military unit more commonly known as Miso, or Military Information Support Operations, formerly Psyop, which is part of the Pentagon.
As if this news isn’t unsettling enough, the report says these efforts are being coordinated at the behest of State Department Undersecretary Sarah Rogers, who has worked over the past year to strengthen ties between the Trump administration and far-right activists abroad. Rogers also recently pressured British investigators over their probe into X over the platform’s generation of nonconsensual pornography.
A State Department spokesperson told The Guardian that the department would take an “assertive stance” against “anti-American” propaganda by “fully harnessing every tool in our diplomatic toolkit.” The Guardian added that the spokesperson “did not directly address the cable’s endorsement of X or its directive to coordinate with military psychological operations units.”
This report is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration sees X as a vital tool in its own efforts to manipulate the public narrative around a host of issues.
Read more at The Guardian.
Victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are suing the Trump administration and Google over claims of wrongful disclosure of personal information. The lawsuit centers on accusations that after a recent release of Epstein documents by the federal government, Google’s search and artificial intelligence functions surfaced personal information about the victims that allowed people to contact and harass them.
Representatives from Google and the Trump administration did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Read more at CNBC.
A new report in The Atlantic spotlights white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ push to use viral video clips to build his audience.
Read more at The Atlantic.
Pakistan has been designated as a mediator amid Trump’s war with Iran. A new report in Bloomberg shows how the country gained favor from the Trump administration with the help of a 35-year old cryptocurrency investor with ties to the Trump family’s crypto firm.
Read more at Bloomberg.
Must reads from Today's list
Australia’s online safety watchdog is accusing top social media companies of failing to comply with the country’s law banning children younger than 16 from using their platforms.
Read more at The Associated Press.
Musk reportedly joined a call between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which the two world leaders discussed the ongoing war in Iran. As my colleague Steve Benen wrote, this was just the latest in a long list of eyebrow-raising appearances that Trump’s top 2024 campaign donor has made on such calls.
Read more at MaddowBlog.
Writing for The Observer, tech reporter Patricia Clarke spotlighted two recent studies on the danger of AI chatbots, which can help facilitate gender-based violence and sexual abuse.
Read more at The Observer.
The White House has released its own app, which basically is a hub of MAGA propaganda — and, for some tech experts, a significant risk to users’ privacy and security.
Read more at Mashable.
Hackers linked to Iran’s government claimed to have breached FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account.
Watch MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig break down the news below.
Ja'han Jones
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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