Media Mentions

Elon Musk is influencing politics one tweet at a time.

Musk's tweets brought a sudden halt to a bipartisan budget proposal by threatening Republicans with primary challenges if they voted to pass the budget.

"In this social media saturated world that we live in, influencers have a lot of power.... Musk has more than 200M followers on X and many of them really believe in him and will follow what he tells them to do."

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, quoted by NBC Bay Area.

San José Spotlight examined the most recent Form 990 public tax filings for the region’s biggest direct service nonprofits.

Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics said the range between Silicon Valley’s top 15 nonprofit executives outlined by the Spotlight's analysis is typical for larger nonprofits.

“You want to make sure that you’re paying people fairly and in a way that allows them a decent wage … but you don’t want to overdo it, because you have donors and the public who are saying and have certain expectations around where resources are being directed,” Skeet told San José Spotlight.

Skeet said an organization’s size and complexity factors into deciding compensation.

Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, quoted by San Jose Spotlight.

Incoming President Donald Trump appoints Bay Area venture capitalist David Sacks as his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency “czar” and head science and technology adviser.

But the Sacks appointment carries a conflict of interest flag. His San Francisco VC firm Craft Ventures holds investments in the technologies he'd be overseeing – AI and cryptocurrency.

John Pelissero, director, government ethics says, "Conflicts of interest could arise with regard to Sacks’ own companies and investments, potentially affecting the public interest and also competitors of firms in Sacks’ portfolio."

John Pelissero, director, government ethics, quoted by The Mercury News.

Experts from Santa Clara University, Indeed, and Workday participated in a Fortune's Brainstorm AI conference in 2024 around the topic of moral reasoning.

“Moral reasoning is developmental, just like learning how to read and write,” Skeet said.... We need to be aware that AI can't do that – it doesn't have the capacity for moral reasoning.”

Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, quoted by Fortune (paywall).

Across social media, users appear to rally behind Luigi Mangione, the suspect accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but is that online reaction the same as support for the accused in real life?

There’s a disparity in real-life reactions vs. those online, due to the very nature of social media, said Irina Raicu, Internet Ethics program director at Santa Clara University. “The difference is not the anonymity, but the way in which the screen distances us from the other humans we’re communicating with,” Raicu told What A Day.

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, quoted in the What A Day newsletter by Crooked Media.

San Diego resident Yvonne Elkin gave $100 to former San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher when he announced his run for state Senate. Fletcher later dropped out of the race amid allegations of sexual assault. Elkin, along with many donors, asked for their campaign contributions to be returned.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) launched an investigation into Fletcher’s use of campaign funds for his legal defense.

John Pelissero, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said politicians should be more proactive when it comes to meeting contributors’ expectations.

"Political candidates have an ethical duty to meet their donors’ expectations," he said. "If you keep the funds just for legal purposes, for your own personal behavior, that's inappropriate and really unethical."

John Pelissero, director, government ethics, quoted by KPBS News, San Diego.

To stay in America, an appellate court has upheld the ruling that TikTok has to sell the app to a company without close ties to the Chinese government by January 19, 2025.

ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, has been scrutinized for privacy and and propaganda issues and is appealing the ban decisions on First Amendment grounds.

Irina Raicu, director of the internet ethics program, commented on the context of the decision: "The First Amendment does not say you have a right to have a TikTok account or that you have the right to say anything on any platform that you want."

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, quoted by NBC Bay Area News.

The environmental costs of using artificial intelligence tools is an area of growing concern for government technology officials.

Government’s use of AI tools — and its green-lighting of data center development — can quickly eat away at sustainability goals, Raicu said.

“If you’re talking about local government, and people who care about sustainability and environmental impacts … every time you use generative AI, you have to know that you are pushing in the opposite direction,” she said. “It might be worth it, in certain cases. But you need to understand that you are making a tradeoff every time you use it. And as long as people don’t understand that, they can’t make ethical decisions about when to use it, and when not.”

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, quoted by Government Technology.