#tech-and-politics

#tech-and-politics

At an inauguration-related event for President Donald Trump, Elon Musk throws a straight-armed gesture largely interpreted as a Nazi salute. In follow-up comments, Musk failed to put the controversy to rest by deriding critics and neglecting to issue an apology, leaving his intent ambiguous. Silicon Valley ❤️ MAGA Facebook decides to dispense with third-party fact checkers. Instead, it will rely completely on "Community Notes" to identify and contextualize misinformation.

For decades, Mark Lemley's life as an intellectual property lawyer was orderly enough. He's a professor at Stanford University and has consulted for Amazon, Google, and Meta. "I always enjoyed that the area I practice in has largely been apolitical," Lemley tells me. What's more, his democratic values neatly aligned with those of the companies that hired him. But in January, Lemley made a radical move. "I have struggled with how to respond to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness," he posted on LinkedIn. "I have fired Meta as a client."