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Bad Bunny releases new Instagram video in response to racist Trump rally

Happy Tuesday! When I first launched the Tuesday Tech Drop, I did so out of concern about how technology, in the wrong hands, can be used to exacerbate inequality, manipulate the masses, and sow division.

Since then, at almost every turn, Republicans have confirmed the reason for my concern. There's a reason I wrote in the spring of 2022 that Vice President Kamala Harris' poorly covered speech in Sunset, Louisiana, was arguably more consequential than the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that took place on the same day. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate Jackson's importance; rather, it is because I Do Consider the theme of Harris' speech – about the urgent need to expand access to technology to more than just the rich and well-connected – as the most pressing issue of our time.

This election will determine how the United States handles technology—and who controls it—in the coming years: whether it is used to divide and demonize or to unify and uplift. The next time I write one of these, the answer will most likely be clear.

So without further ado, here is your final tech drop before the election, the weekly roundup of the week's top stories at the intersection of technology and politics.

Bad Bunny responds to racist Trump rallies again

Puerto Rican pop star Bad Bunny posted an eight-minute video celebrating his hometown and captioned it “Trash,” a pretty clear reference to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's racist speech at Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend.

Bad Bunny – who endorsed Kamala Harris for president shortly after Hinchcliffe's statement that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage” went viral – has a history of using documentary social media posts to promote his social causes. In 2022, he gained widespread attention with the release of a new music video and an 18-minute documentary about corruption in Puerto Rico.

Watch the Instagram video here:

Trump spreads falsehoods in Rogan interview

CNN has compiled a list of 32 falsehoods that Trump told during his recent conversation with podcaster Joe Rogan. It's not exhaustive, but it helps show how shameless Trump is when it comes to distorting the truth.

Read CNN's report Here.

And watch a clip of Trump getting caught lying about his 2020 election win here:

Vance and Trump's propaganda plan

Between Truth Social and Rumble, Donald Trump and JD Vance are investing millions in an attempt to create a distorted right-wing information ecosystem. The Washington Post published an article about Trump's relationship with Chris Pavlovski, the right-wing Canadian businessman who founded the video platform Rumble (which Vance helped finance), which has provided a home for conservatives and conspiracy theorists. The story shows how the men solicited money and other resources from each other to turn their platforms into megaphones for far-right rhetoric and pro-Russian propaganda.

Read more at Washington Post.

Trump leads Truth Social supporters down rabbit holes

The New York Times took a deeper look at the content Trump posts on Truth Social to show how the site has become a tool for the Republican candidate to spread conspiracy theories.

Check out the detailed breakdown Here.

Extremist streamer prepares for election night

Prepare for right-wing propaganda when ballots are cast and counted next week. Pro-insurrectionist podcaster Stephen Crowder announced a plan to partner with True The Vote, a group that spread false claims of voter fraud following the 2020 election, to stream videos (on the aforementioned Rumble) of everyone at polling places on Election Day want to record.

A screenshot of Crowder's announcement on X can be seen here.

Calls for an investigation into Musk's alleged chats with Putin

The head of NASA and several Democratic lawmakers are calling for a federal investigation into reports that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk had multiple phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2022. Musk's company SpaceX called the Wall Street Journal's initial report “misleading” in a statement. Notably, he did not dispute the claim that Musk and Putin had been in contact (a Kremlin spokesman told ABC News the two spoke only once to discuss “space and current and future technologies”). With both Musk and the Russian government promoting pro-Trump conspiracy theories and disinformation, the content of private conversations between the two should be a pressing question.

Read more at Business Insider.

Vance covers the Kremlin

Senator JD Vance downplayed the significance of Russian interference in the US election and even questioned whether Russia was interfering at all, essentially dismissing reports from federal authorities and other experts that shed light on the Kremlin-linked effort ignored.

Instagram can lead health enthusiasts to extremism

I reported this week on a new study that shows how Instagram's algorithms can steer users from supposedly wellness-focused accounts to accounts known for promoting right-wing extremism, including election denial. Beware of your scroll.

Read more Here.

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