Ja’han Jones is an MSNBC opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”
Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics. ICE’s social media surveillance plans Republicans love to peddle debunked conspiracy theories about spooky government targeting of conservatives online.
Now, the same right-wing movement that brought you the “Twitter Files” conspiracy theory is standing idly by as the government reportedly assembles a social media surveillance apparatus to aid President Donald Trump’s bigoted mass incarceration and deportation agenda. Wired magazine was the first to report on publicly available contracting records showing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking contractors to potentially run an around-the-clock social media surveillance program out of two offices, located in Vermont and California. Per the report: The proposal is still at an early stage and has not been finalized. But along with Trump’s open threats against the left — such as his concrete steps urging the Department of Homeland Security to target liberals and the military to vanquish the “enemy within” — this proposal raises the possibility of a tool that could be used to spy on the administration’s supposed enemies or suppress free speech. Read more at Wired. Trump demands gratitude for TikTok Trump claimed in a social media post that young people “owe me big” for having “saved TikTok.” And by “saved TikTok,” he means his administration defied a bipartisan law ordering the app to be sold earlier this year — and greenlit a deal to hand the app’s U.S. operation to an ownership group including Larry Ellison, the uber-rich Trump ally who has openly promoted his vision of mass surveillance. AI-assisted group attacks Wes Moore A new report shines light on a mysterious group that has targeted Maryland’s first Black governor, Wes Moore, with artificial intelligence-generated videos on social media that have been denounced as racist by Democratic leaders. The dark money group calls itself No Moore. Read more at The Baltimore Banner. Big Tech blocks ICE-tracking apps Apple and Google have both capitulated to the Trump administration and banned apps that allow users to track ICE activity. Read more at The Associated Press. Covenant Eyes co-founder’s stepson arrested Thomas Wideman — whose stepfather co-founded anti-pornography software known as Covenant Eyes, which allows people to monitor someone’s internet activity and has been popularized by conservatives such as House Speaker Mike Johnson — was recently arrested in Michigan and charged with seeking to engage in sexual activity with an underage girl. Read more at The Roys Report. Streamer charged in New Jersey In New Jersey, a teenager has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after police say he fatally struck two 17-year-old girls with his vehicle before discussing the incident on a YouTube livestream the next day. Read more at WNBC. Kirk conspiracy theories fuel MAGA infighting Michelle Goldberg, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, wrote an excellent breakdown on the fissures forming in MAGA world as some conservatives use Charlie Kirk’s killing to spread conspiracy theories about Israel. Read more at The New York Times.
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