Trump’s new meme coins have MAGA crypto bros up in arms

Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tech Drop, my weekly compilation of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.

Trump meme coins cause a rift in MAGA world

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are not happy about Donald and Melania Trump’s new “meme coins” — essentially, glorified trading cards. The digital tokens seem like a perfect vessel for anyone, including foreign governments, to funnel money to the Trump family. That’s one reason why some experts have said the ventures — launched within days of Trump’s inauguration — are ripe for blatant corruption.

And even some of Trump’s biggest fans are bemoaning the move. The Wall Street Journal published an article that quotes Trump-supporting crypto bros who are worried that this move will delegitimize the industry. On Monday, the Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, the pastor who gave the benediction at Trump’s swearing-in, announced that he also has launched a meme coin. Probably not helping with that whole legitimacy thing.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

TikTok’s legal limbo

Trump’s executive order requiring the postponement of the TikTok ban, which was set to take effect in the U.S. this week, appears to have saved the app for now. At least, that’s what Trump and the app’s owners want us to think.

But Business Insider published an article raising questions about Trump’s authority to single-handedly overrule a law that received overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court.

Read more at Business Insider.

Creepy ‘surveillance pricing’

In one of its last acts during the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission and its then-chair, Lina Khan, revealed the initial findings of the agency’s “surveillance pricing” market study. The report shows how companies can manipulate pricing based on personal data. According to the FTC, “details like a person’s precise location or browser history can be frequently used to target individual consumers with different prices for the same goods and services.”

Read more at the FTC.

Kristi Noem’s concerning misinfo plans

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, whom Trump has nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, says she wants to shut down the department’s efforts at fighting foreign actors’ misinformation campaigns targeting Americans, effectively saying she wants to leave Americans vulnerable to manipulation.

Read more at The ReidOut Blog.

Biden’s FCC chair warns about Trump

On her way out the door, outgoing Federal Communication Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel warned about Trump’s efforts to suppress free speech and press freedoms. In a post last week, I wrote about the statement she released while dismissing multiple complaints from activist groups seeking to punish news outlets for coverage they didn’t like.

Rosenworcel compared Trump’s attacks on the First Amendment to actions taken by Presidents Richard Nixon and John Adams, and she also cited his push to “revoke licenses for broadcast television stations because he disagrees with their content and coverage” — noting that the FCC “has a duty to respect the Constitution.”

Read more at The ReidOut Blog.

Bigwigs snicker at Sewell’s remarks

The aforementioned pastor, Sewell, has garnered criticism — including from MSNBC’s Joy Reid — for his inaugural benediction, which borrowed from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and relied on what seemed like an overdone Black preacher affect. One thing I noted? Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick seemingly found the performance pretty funny as they watched and snickered in the background.

To me, the sight — of MAGA-aligned elites giggling during a King-inspired performance on MLK Day — epitomized some of the disrespect that Black people have come to expect from Trump and his movement.

A far-right influencer speaks … gibberish 

Far-right influencer Curtis Yarvin — who has pushed racist pseudoscience, promoted the idea of dictatorial leadership and been name-checked by JD Vance — gave an interview to The New York Times recently. The interview, in which Yarvin explains his belief that the Civil War didn’t improve anyone’s lives — including enslaved people’s — is a perfect example of how pseudo-intellectual jargon and obfuscation can be used to mask bigotry.

Read more at The New York Times.