Attention to the Unseen

CNN reports: Luna, a self-described 32-year-old “MAGA Trump supporter” from the battleground state of Wisconsin, has gained a huge following since she joined X, formerly Twitter, in March. Her timeline has become a digital bullhorn for the “Make America Great Again” movement, praising former President Donald Trump’s re-election bid, promoting conspiracy theories about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and touting Republican talking points to nearly 30,000 followers, who she addresses as “patriots.” “Would You Support Trump Being The President…

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Mike Masnick writes: Two bits of news came out of the letter Mark Zuckerberg sent to Rep. Jim Jordan this week (and how people responded to it), neither of which are what you’re likely to have heard about. First, Donald Trump seems to be accusing himself of rigging the 2020 election against himself. And, second, Mark Zuckerberg has absolutely no spine when it comes to Republican pressure on Meta’s moderation practices. He falsely plays into their fundamentally misleading framing, all…

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Adam Clark Estes writes: This week Mark Zuckerberg sent Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) a letter outlining how the Biden administration pressured his company to “censor” free speech on Facebook — specifically misinformation about Covid-19. The letter also made reference to Hunter Biden’s laptop and Zuckerberg’s lack of plans to spend money on the election. This sounds bad. But none of this information is new. It’s interesting that Zuckerberg decided to dive into the free speech snake pit this week. It’s…

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The Washington Post reports: Some of the internet’s most influential far-right figures are turning against former president Donald Trump’s campaign, threatening a digital “war” against the Republican candidate’s aides and allies that could complicate the party’s calls for unity in the final weeks of the presidential race. Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and podcaster who dined with Trump at his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago in 2022, said on X that Trump’s campaign was “blowing it” by not positioning itself more…

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Judd Legum and Noel Sims write: Laura Loomer is a far-right internet personality and former Republican congressional candidate. She has said the United States should be a “white Judeo-Christian ethnostate,” called for the creation of a ride-sharing app like Uber that bans “Islamic immigrant driver[s],” collaborated with Alex Jones to suggest mass shootings were staged by the government, celebrated the deaths of 2,000 refugees in the Mediterranean, and claimed January 6 should be a national holiday to “celebrate the bravery of American patriots who protested…

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Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims write: In 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, one of the world’s largest social networks, for $44 billion. From a financial perspective, it has not worked out well. Over the last two years, the value of Twitter — which Musk renamed X — has plunged. Internal documents reveal that company executives believed it was worth less than half of what Musk paid for it by October 2023. In 2024, Fidelity valued the company at…

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Jonathan Freedland writes: One man is missing. Of course, it’s good that so many of those responsible for a week of terrifying far-right violence are facing an especially swift and severe form of justice – but there’s one extremely rich and powerful suspect who should join them in the dock. If the UK authorities truly want to hold accountable all those who unleashed riots and pogroms in Britain, they need to go after Elon Musk. To be sure, direct guilt…

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The Washington Post reports: Prominent X accounts advocating for Vice President Kamala Harris have been labeled as spam or restricted in recent weeks, triggering alarm among some Democrats that Elon Musk’s social media platform is tilted in favor of his chosen candidate, former president Donald Trump. Only a handful of pro-Harris accounts, including one called “White Dudes for Harris,” appear to have been affected. But the recurring issues are raising questions about whether Musk’s platform is intentionally censoring the pages,…

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