Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and the all-encompassing world of technology.

Musk’s henchmen

Republicans in Congress are already working hard to accommodate billionaire Elon Musk’s wishes, literally. On Monday, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee announced an investigation into the Federal Communications Commission’s 2022 decision not to award a nearly $900 million bid for Musk’s Starlink to provide broadband internet to rural areas.

The move comes after Musk, a staunch Trump supporter, used his social media platform X to claim that the government’s decision not to grant Starlink the offer was “illegal” and cost lives in North Carolina have. In another tweet, he spread false claims – later amplified by Donald Trump – that the government prevented the deployment of Starlink servers to Hurricane Helene victims.

A Monday letter from the House Oversight Committee to the FCC requests documents examining whether the FCC’s decision “followed established processes and did not abuse the regulatory process for political purposes.”

In 2022, the FCC said the decision was due to Starlink failing to meet its internet speed requirements. And the agency stood by that decision in a statement last December. But Republicans appear eager to defer to Musk at every opportunity. One can only imagine how high loyalty will be if Trump wins the presidency in November.

AI and the First Amendment

California’s efforts to curb the use of election-related deepfakes were halted last week when a federal judge put a hold on a law intended to crack down on the fraudulent videos. The pause followed a conservative influencer’s claim that California’s law, Assembly Bill 2839, violates the First Amendment.

Read more in the Los Angeles Times.

States are suing TikTok

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia are suing TikTok, saying the app was harmful to young people and was intentionally used to hook them with “addictive” features. TikTok responded in a public statement, saying: “We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe are inaccurate and misleading.”

Read more at CNBC.

A storm of anti-Semitism

Jewish officials working on the response to Hurricane Helene have faced anti-Semitic attacks online as right-wingers have spread vile conspiracy theories suggesting nefarious figures played a role in worsening the hurricane’s aftermath.

Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories accusing North Carolina’s Jewish population of orchestrating Hurricane Helene are spreading like wildfire on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Read the report here.

Clinton’s concerns about social media

In a recent interview on CNN, Hillary Clinton advocated for stricter regulation of social media companies that allow harmful content to be published on their platforms. Clinton, who knows from experience how misinformation on social media can influence politics, has been vocal in recent years about the need to combat this misinformation.

CBP One is lying

I recently wrote about Republicans like Trump, Musk and Ohio Senator JD Vance spreading lies about the immigration app CBP One to stoke fear and anger toward immigrants while early voting is underway.

Read more here.