Happy Tuesday! Here’s the Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.
Ramaswamy’s retreat
Current Ohio gubernatorial candidate (and failed Republican presidential candidate) Vivek Ramaswamy said this week he was going into social media exile, announcing his decision to ditch his personal social accounts on X and Instagram in an op-ed published Monday in The Wall Street Journal. The principle reason he cited for his departure is that “Modern social media is increasingly disconnected from the electorate. The messages you’re most likely to see are the most negative and bombastic.”
Ramaswamy, who built a name for himself by peddling bigoted rhetoric about liberals, has himself been a target for MAGA’s racist invective since December 2024, when he made comments critical of American workers and endorsed H1-B visas. Ramaswamy has spent the past few weeks in particular publicly decrying the anti-Indian racism he’s received from members of his own party.
In his op-ed, he appears to position racism among the evils that he experiences only online. “In 2025 I saw a spate of shocking racial slurs and worse on social media. Yet that same year I visited tens of thousands of voters across all of Ohio’s 88 counties,” he wrote, adding, “and I didn’t hear a single bigoted remark from an Ohio voter the entire year.”
Ramaswamy said his online presence is now being run wholly by his staffers.
You can read Ramaswamy’s op-ed here.
MAGA bloodlust
Elon Musk and online influencer Zack Hoyt were among the MAGA crowd calling last week for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to face potential execution as they peddled bigoted conspiracy theories about fraud committed by Somali people. The violent rhetoric targeting Walz preceded his announcement Monday that he will no longer seek reelection for the governorship.
Read my blog on the incident here.
More on Musk…
Musk’s artificial intelligence company is facing international condemnation from a handful of countries, including France, Malaysia and the European Union, after a new feature allowed users to direct its AI chatbot, Grok, to generate sexualized images of children. Rather than disabling the feature, Musk told his platform that “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
Read my blog on the backlash here.
Can the House win against inside bets?
House Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres is pushing a bill to bar politically connected officials and activists from using official information to place online bets on international affairs. The proposal comes after someone reportedly cashed a $400,000 bet, placed on online betting site Polymarket, related to the Trump administration’s arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Read more on Business Insider here.
ICE tries to up its cool factor
According to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post — which MS NOW has not reviewed — the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning a $100 million campaign to recruit gun show attendees and military enthusiasts with geotargeted ads and online influencers. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the paper that she was “thrilled to see the Washington Post highlight” what she called a “wildly successful ICE recruitment campaign.”
Read more at the Washington Post here.
Fake fans of Trump’s attack
AI-generated deepfakes purportedly depicting Venezuelans cheering on the Trump administration’s arrest of Maduro are proliferating online, with multiple pro-Trump social media accounts aiding the spread.
Read more at CNBC here.
Trump admin aids spyware execs
The Trump administration lifted sanctions on key executives tied to an Israeli-backed spyware technology company whose products have been used by repressive governments.
Read my blog on the administration’s announcement here.
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