“Startup Caucus, which is billing itself as a Republican venture capital effort, will announce on Tuesday that it will give $25,000 in seed funding to six early-stage tech companies. It also plans to provide the startups with a 12-week training and support program,” Politico reports.

“The fund is intended to provide Republicans with an answer to Higher Ground Labs, a Democratic tech incubator that has helped to bankroll a wave of liberal startups. Higher Ground Labs, whose financial backers include LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, supplied more than $5 million in seed funding during the 2018 midterms and recently announced plans to invest over $10 million during the 2020 campaign.”

President Trump on Tuesday stepped up his accusations against Google, claiming without offering evidence that the technology company worked to subvert his 2016 presidential campaign and warning he was watching it “very closely,” Reuters reports.

“President Trump assailed Facebook, Google and Twitter on Thursday for exhibiting ‘terrible bias’ and silencing his supporters at a White House ‘social media summit’ that critics chastised for giving a prominent stage to some of the internet’s most controversial, incendiary voices,” the Washington Post reports.

“For Trump, the conference represented his highest profile broadside yet against Silicon Valley after months of accusations that tech giants censor conservative users and websites.”

Wall Street Journal: “The Trump administration hasn’t allowed members of Congress to read a classified directive President Trump issued almost a year ago outlining new rules for the military’s use of cyber weapons, despite repeated requests, according to lawmakers and others familiar with the matter.”

“A circuit court judge in Missouri ruled Monday that Republican former governor Eric Greitens did not violate the state’s Sunshine Law — which guarantees ‘openness in government’ — when he and staff members used a ‘self-destruct’ app that automatically deleted their text messages,” the Washington Post reports.

Kansas City Star: “Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem said because the text messages were automatically deleted, it meant they were never officially retained—and therefore were not covered by the Sunshine Law.”

“Twitter has long said it is unlikely to take down politicians’ most vitriolic tweets — including President Trump’s — but it now plans to label them if they break its rules,” the Washington Post reports.

“The new label applies to all verified political candidates and government officials with more than 100,000 followers… Before users can view the language in newly flagged tweets, they will need to click on a screen that says, ‘The Twitter Rules about abusive behavior apply to this Tweet. However, Twitter has determined it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain available.'”

“A Pakistani politician suffered a major catastrophe when his press conference was live-streamed on social media last week,” CNN reports.

“A briefing by Shaukat Yousafzai was broadcast on his Tehreek-e-Insaf party’s official Facebook page Friday, in an attempt to keep constituents in the loop about local issues. But the video attracted attention for an entirely different reason — unbeknown to Yousafzai, a staffer had left on a cat filter, meaning he appeared with feline ears and whiskers throughout the broadcast.”

Washington Post: “The probe announced Monday is expected to be far-reaching and could result in hearings, document requests and other demands that would put Silicon Valley’s business practices on public display at a time when Republicans and Democrats are in rare agreement that the tech giants have been unregulated for too long.”

The Guardian: “Facebook says it will continue to host a video of Nancy Pelosi that has been edited to give the impression that the Democratic House Speaker is drunk or unwell, in the latest incident highlighting its struggle to deal with disinformation.”

“Despite the apparently malicious intent of the video’s creator, Facebook has said it will only downgrade its visibility in users’ newsfeeds and attach a link to a third-party fact checking site pointing out that the clip is misleading. As a result, although it is less likely to be seen by accident, the doctored video will continue to rack up views. Facebook only took the action following inquiries from the Washington Post, which first reported the story.”

Related for members: It’s Going to Get Really Bad

“Distorted videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), altered to make her sound as if she’s drunkenly slurring her words, are spreading rapidly across social media, highlighting how political disinformation that clouds public understanding can now spread at the speed of the Web,” the Washington Post reports.

“The video of Pelosi’s onstage speech Wednesday at a Center for American Progress event, in which she said President Trump’s refusal to cooperate with congressional investigations was tantamount to a “coverup,” was subtly edited to make her voice sound garbled and warped. It was then circulated widely across Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.”

CBS News: “Facebook said it saw a ‘steep increase’ in the creation of abusive, fake accounts in the past six months. The company took down more than 3 billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as it did in the previous six months.”