Browsed by
Category: Politics

How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation

How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation

MIT Technology Review reports: In 2015, six of the 10 websites in Myanmar getting the most engagement on Facebook were from legitimate media, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-run tool. A year later, Facebook (which recently rebranded to Meta) offered global access to Instant Articles, a program publishers could use to monetize their content. One year after that rollout, legitimate publishers accounted for only two of the top 10 publishers on Facebook in Myanmar. By 2018, they accounted for…

Read More Read More

An international power struggle over cobalt rattles the clean energy revolution

An international power struggle over cobalt rattles the clean energy revolution

The New York Times reports from Kisanfu, Democratic Republic of Congo: Just up a red dirt road, across an expanse of tall, dew-soaked weeds, bulldozers are hollowing out a yawning new canyon that is central to the world’s urgent race against global warming. For more than a decade, the vast expanse of untouched land was controlled by an American company. Now a Chinese mining conglomerate has bought it, and is racing to retrieve its buried treasure: millions of tons of…

Read More Read More

There’s nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man

There’s nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man

John Blake writes: The Brute. The Buck. And, of course, the Thug. Those are just some of the names for a racial stereotype that has haunted the collective imagination of White America since the nation’s inception. The specter of the angry Black man has been evoked in politics and popular culture to convince White folks that a big, bad Black man is coming to get them and their daughters. I’ve seen viral videos of innocent Black men losing their lives…

Read More Read More

Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense was strong. It’s also a threat to the rule of law

Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense was strong. It’s also a threat to the rule of law

Eric Levitz writes: In August 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse brought an AR-15 to downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the name of law and order. As protests and riots raged in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, the 17-year-old Blue Lives Matter enthusiast felt called to serve as an amateur armed guard for a Kenosha car dealership. He ended up shooting two unarmed protesters dead and blowing off another’s right bicep — without committing a crime. Or so a Wisconsin…

Read More Read More

The Steele Dossier and Donald Trump’s betrayal of America

The Steele Dossier and Donald Trump’s betrayal of America

David Corn writes: Vladimir Putin must be delighted. With the recent indictment of Igor Danchenko, the primary source for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s 2016 dossier that alleged ties between Donald Trump and Moscow, the Trump-Russia denialists have had a field day. They have blasted the media for its reporting on Steele’s memos and claimed that this further undermining of his reports demonstrates the Russia scandal was a hoax. That last point is disinformation. Certainly, the credibility of Steele’s…

Read More Read More

U.S. warns allies of possible Russian invasion as troops amass near Ukraine

U.S. warns allies of possible Russian invasion as troops amass near Ukraine

The New York Times reports: American intelligence officials are warning allies that there is a short window of time to prevent Russia from taking military action in Ukraine, pushing European countries to work with the United States to develop a package of economic and military measures to deter Moscow, according to American and European officials. Russia has not yet decided what it intends to do with the troops it has amassed near Ukraine, American officials said, but the buildup is…

Read More Read More

Federal judge faults Trump for January 6 attack

Federal judge faults Trump for January 6 attack

Politico reports: A federal judge on Friday squarely placed the blame for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Donald Trump, suggesting that the former president’s role in seeding lies about the 2020 election — and the effect it had on his followers — has been an underappreciated part of the entire episode. Judge Amit Mehta issued his commentary as he delivered a 14-day jail sentence to Jan. 6 rioter John Lolos — a sentence Mehta said he shortened in part…

Read More Read More

Amazon wages secret war on Americans’ privacy, documents show

Amazon wages secret war on Americans’ privacy, documents show

Reuters reports: In recent years, Amazon.com Inc has killed or undermined privacy protections in more than three dozen bills across 25 states, as the e-commerce giant amassed a lucrative trove of personal data on millions of American consumers. Amazon executives and staffers detail these lobbying victories in confidential documents reviewed by Reuters. In Virginia, the company boosted political donations tenfold over four years before persuading lawmakers this year to pass an industry-friendly privacy bill that Amazon itself drafted. In California,…

Read More Read More

The terrifying future of the Republican Party

The terrifying future of the Republican Party

David Brooks writes: Rachel Bovard is one of the thousands of smart young Americans who flock to Washington each year to make a difference. She’s worked in the House and Senate for Republicans Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, and Mike Lee, was listed among the “Most Influential Women in Washington Under 35” by National Journal, did a stint at the Heritage Foundation, and is now policy director of the Conservative Partnership Institute, whose mission is to train, equip, and unify the…

Read More Read More

Say goodbye to swing districts. Lawmakers are drawing easy wins in dozens of states

Say goodbye to swing districts. Lawmakers are drawing easy wins in dozens of states

Politico reports: When most voters go to the polls to elect members of Congress next year, the general election will essentially be meaningless. That’s because winners are being determined right now, by a small number of party officials who are surgically ensuring preordained victories in the majority of the nation’s congressional districts. The current redistricting cycle is garnering more interest and scrutiny than ever because the power of the process has become so clear: When politicians control redistricting, they have…

Read More Read More

GOP can’t escape ‘self-inflicted injuries’ as they fight to reclaim House

GOP can’t escape ‘self-inflicted injuries’ as they fight to reclaim House

Politico reports: House Republicans should be riding high: The majority is in their grasp and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers are tanking. Instead, they’re getting in their own way, again. Ahead of a vote on Democrats’ biggest agenda item, the GOP conference is embroiled in messy internal spats that have spilled into public view, including the censure Wednesday of a far-right House member, the first such vote in more than a decade. At the same time, some rank-and-file Republicans are…

Read More Read More

First known Covid case was vendor at Wuhan market, scientist claims

First known Covid case was vendor at Wuhan market, scientist claims

The New York Times reports: A scientist who has pored over public accounts of early Covid-19 cases in China reported on Thursday that an influential World Health Organization inquiry had most likely gotten the early chronology of the pandemic wrong. The new analysis suggests that the first known patient sickened with the coronavirus was a vendor in a large Wuhan animal market, not an accountant who lived many miles from it. The report, published on Thursday in the prestigious journal…

Read More Read More

You can’t beat climate change without tackling disinformation

You can’t beat climate change without tackling disinformation

Amy Westervelt writes: In the past month or so, climate disinformation has been making its way into the news more than usual. There was the House Oversight Committee’s climate disinformation hearing in October, and then, just days later, leaked documents from Facebook revealed its role in spreading climate denial. The Oversight Committee’s investigation continues, as does the work to fully understand social media’s role in disinformation, about climate and otherwise. But for all we know about disinformation and how dangerously…

Read More Read More

Democrats shouldn’t panic. They should go into shock

Democrats shouldn’t panic. They should go into shock

Thomas B. Edsall writes: The rise of inflation, supply chain shortages, a surge in illegal border crossings, the persistence of Covid, mayhem in Afghanistan and the uproar over “critical race theory” — all of these developments, individually and collectively, have taken their toll on President Biden and Democratic candidates, so much so that Democrats are now the underdogs going into 2022 and possibly 2024. Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News, put it this way in an essay published…

Read More Read More

Poll: Voters’ doubts rising about Biden’s health, mental fitness

Poll: Voters’ doubts rising about Biden’s health, mental fitness

Politico reports: Voters have increasing doubts about the health and mental fitness of President Joe Biden, the oldest man ever sworn into the White House, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. Only 40 percent of voters surveyed agreed with the statement that Biden “is in good health,” while 50 percent disagreed. That 10-percentage-point gap — outside the poll’s margin of error — represents a massive 29-point shift since October 2020, when Morning Consult last surveyed the question and found…

Read More Read More

Sinema speaks up — and shakes off her critics

Sinema speaks up — and shakes off her critics

Politico reports: Watch the Senate floor enough and you’ll notice Sen. Kyrsten Sinema regularly chatting with Mitch McConnell and his top deputy John Thune. Republicans have even tried to recruit her to their conference, and throw the Senate to the GOP. Don’t worry though, Democrats: Sinema’s not becoming a Republican. “No. Why would I do that?” the moderate Arizonan says in her trademark deadpan. Thune, the GOP whip, wishes it were otherwise, confirming in an interview he’s pressed Sinema to…

Read More Read More