Elections

The Cambodian People’s Party created its Cyber War Room about a decade ago. The goal was to support Prime Minister Hun Sen’s regime through social media propagandizing. Led by the prime minister’s son Hun Manet, a troll army used Facebook and other digital platforms to attack his father’s opposition with disinformation and even allegedly wield death threats.Fast forward to the Cambodian election taking place next month. The CPP’s Cyber War Room is back up and running. General Manet, commander of the Cambodian Army and most likely the country’s next prime minister, is reportedly back at the helm, this time defending his father’s legacy and himself.Facebook is extremely popular in Cambodia, with roughly 12 million of the country’s almost 17 million people on the site. Many people in Cambodia use Facebook as a core means of getting information, and social media platforms are critical for the few journalists still producing independent reporting. The populations of many other countries where governments have continually used social media for manipulation, including the Philippines and Turkey, rely heavily on Facebook as well. So why has state-sponsored trolling like this been allowed to endure for 10 years?It will come as no surprise when I say that Big Tech has a lot of problems on its plate, including fury about transnational digital propaganda campaigns, a global outcry about networked disinformation during the pandemic and panic about both real and hypothetic threats of generative A.I.But as one issue pops into the immediate view, the others don’t go anywhere. Instead, the global problems with our online information ecosystem compound. And while society and tech’s most powerful firms jump from one issue to the next, the abusive disinformation practices in places like Cambodia become entrenched. Governments refine their techniques, and opposition groups become less and less present because they are either trolled into submission, arrested, exiled or killed. It all benefits Big Tech, from Meta to Alphabet, which publicly seizes upon the idea du jour while cutting staffs and curbing efforts aimed at combating standing informational issues.What does this mean for the people of Cambodia? For a people who, in living memory, endured the horrors of genocide and totalitarianism?The Cambodian news ecosystem and the lives of Cambodians are controlled by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has led them in some capacity for 38 years. He is quick to justify his long reign by pointing to economic gains before Covid — by which time the country achieved lower-middle-income status through tourism, textile exports and a growing relationship with China. His people have languished in many other ways, however: Environmental degradation is rife, corruption is commonplace, and human rights abuses are worsening.Mr. Sen and his cronies own or control all but the thinnest sliver of the country’s media outlets. They recently banned the main opposition party from running in the coming election because of an alleged clerical error. And curtailing speech on social media has been critical to the consolidation of their power. Facebook, Telegram and other platforms have been central to the CPP’s illicit, strategic and authoritarian control of Cambodia’s information space and, consequently, public opinion.Other despots have made use of highly organized state-sponsored trolling outfits to quash dissent. Some, like Mr. Sen, have also hired their kids to run them. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s Office of Hate, run by his sons, used social media to defame journalists and threaten opposition. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the autocrat recently re-elected as president of Turkey, benefited greatly from organized troll armies operating on Twitter. Back in Southeast Asia, the increasingly tyrannical regimes of Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar have all deployed cyber-troops to do their oppressive bidding.Another factor is central to understanding why social media firms have failed to curb state-sponsored trolling around the globe: language.Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms have overwhelmingly focused their efforts to counter harmful and purposely misleading content in English. One reason is that they are based in the United States. Another is the malignant supremacy of Western concerns. But the larger reason is that social media companies cannot or will not supply the resources necessary to moderating content in other languages — particularly those such as Cambodia’s Khmer, which is complex and spoken by about 18 million people worldwide. That’s a small number when compared with the roughly 1.5 billion who speak English.This issue is a major problem for our own democracy too. During the 2020 and 2022 elections, social media platforms failed spectacularly in quashing hateful and disenfranchising content aimed at the tens of millions of Americans who speak Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and a variety of other languages. This resulted in communities of color and groups already marginalized in our political system bearing the brunt of digital hate and purposely false information about these contests. According to my research and work with community leaders, this structural disinformation causes apathy, anger and civic disenchantment among minority voters, and as a result, many don’t show up to vote.The strength of global democracy is tied to the number of countries around the world that truly practice it. And while the leaders of relatively strong democracies like the United States obsess over information technology problems and political spectacle in Washington, they fail to do their duty to protect the less fortunate, both in their own country and elsewhere. This, in turn, lets social media companies off the hook.I recently returned from a lecture tour in Cambodia, where I spoke to more than 12 groups of professional journalists, citizen reporters, scholars, students and activists about the informational and political challenges they face online and offline. All told me that they still use platforms like Facebook and Telegram to coordinate, organize and share information about breaking news and elections.Facebook is especially popular in the country, in part because of its controversial Free Basics program, which offers free internet in a number of developing countries via a constrained number of websites (including, naturally, Facebook). Critics derided this as less a benevolent bid to connect the world and more a heavy-handed effort to “capture more of the market in the name of connectivity.” The promise of social media — that it can be the conduit for communication in countries with controlled media systems — remains true for the people I spoke to in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. But this potential is quickly dwindling as people lose faith in the safety of online communication. Meanwhile, Facebook remains a potent means for disseminating propaganda.If Meta, Alphabet and other tech firms do not take swift action to curb state-sponsored trolling, and if policymakers and civil society groups in the United States and other democracies don’t put more pressure on authoritarians like Hun Sen, then Cambodians and many others around the world will lose one of their last means of fighting back. We must speak out about the oppression surrounding the Cambodian election, which takes place on July 23 — and speak out about digital injustice.Samuel Woolley is the author of “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity” and a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

The Utah Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether a congressional map drawn to dilute Democratic votes is subject to judicial review, or a political issue beyond its reach.The 550,000 voters in Salt Lake County, Utah’s most populous, handed Joseph R. Biden Jr. an 11-percentage point victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 contest for president. A year later, in November 2021, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature drew a new political map that carved up the county, putting pieces of it in each of the state’s four congressional districts — and ensuring that Republican voters would outnumber Democrats in all of them.On Tuesday, the Utah Supreme Court will consider whether to wade into the increasingly pitched nationwide battle over partisan gerrymanders. The justices will decide whether the state’s courts can hear a lawsuit challenging the House map, or whether partisan maps are a political issue beyond their jurisdiction.The U.S. Supreme Court considered the same question in 2019 and decided that the maps were beyond its purview. But voting rights advocates say Utah’s Constitution offers a stronger case than the federal one for reining in political maps.“There’s a very clear provision in the State Constitution that says all power is inherent in the people, and that they have the right to alter and reform their government,” said Mark Gaber, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based advocacy group representing the plaintiffs. He said other relevant provisions in the State Constitution, but absent from the federal Constitution, include guarantees of free elections and the right to vote.State Senator Scott D. Sandall, Republican co-chair of the State Legislature redistricting committee that drew the House map, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.In court filings, legislators said that the State Constitution gave them exclusive authority to draw political maps, and that the plaintiffs were trying to impose “illusory standards of political equality” on the mapmaking process.Though Utah is a conservative state, no one argues that four Republican-dominated districts are inevitable. “If you just draw a very compact circle around the middle of Salt Lake County, you’re going to get a Democratic district,” Mr. Gaber said.Rather, the central issue in the case is whether Republican legislators had a constitutional right to maintain their party’s monopoly on the four seats through a map that was beyond the purview of judges to review.The Utah case could have national implications — not merely for the political balance in the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives but also for the emerging body of legal precedents that influence how courts rule in other states.With the Supreme Court removing the federal courts from deciding partisan gerrymander cases, state courts are becoming a crucial battleground for opponents of skewed maps. Joshua A. Douglas, an expert on state constitution protections for voting at the University of Kentucky, said the growing body of legal precedents in state gerrymandering cases was important because many state constitutions share similar protections for elections and voters, often derived from one another.Courts in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Alaska, New York and, last week, New Mexico have ruled that partisan gerrymanders can be unconstitutional. So have courts in Ohio and North Carolina. However, the Ohio court proved unable to force the Legislature to comply with its rulings, and the North Carolina decision was overturned in April after elections shifted the court’s partisan balance from Democratic to Republican.The Kentucky Supreme Court will hear a challenge to that state’s congressional and legislative maps in September. And a lawsuit contesting an extreme Republican gerrymander of the Wisconsin Legislature is widely expected after an April election gave progressives a majority on the state’s high court.Perhaps the closest analogy to the Utah gerrymander is in Nashville, where the Republican-run state legislature’s latest congressional map divided the city’s onetime Democratic-majority House district among three heavily Republican districts. Democrats have not challenged the map in state courts, presumably because they see little prospect of winning in a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees.In Utah’s case, however, the State Supreme Court’s five justices do not have reputations for bending easily to political winds. They are chosen through a merit-based selection process.The Utah plaintiffs — the state chapter of the League of Women Voters; the advocacy group Mormon Women for Ethical Government and a handful of Utah voters — accuse the State Legislature not just of illegally gerrymandering the state’s congressional map but of ignoring voters’ explicit instructions not to do so.The State Constitution allows voters to enact new laws, and to repeal ones that the Legislature enacted, through ballot initiatives. In 2018, voters narrowly approved a law outlawing maps that were unduly skewed to favor a candidate or party, and allowing voters to enforce that mandate through lawsuits. The Legislature later repealed that law and then drew the congressional map that quartered Salt Lake County. Plaintiffs in the suit argue that the repeal violated a provision in the State Constitution stating that citizens “have the right to alter or reform their government as the public welfare may require.” And they say that the gerrymandered map ignores a host of state constitutional provisions, including guarantees of free speech, free association and equal protection — provisions that they say should be read to prohibit partisan maps.For their part, Republican legislators contend that they had the right to repeal the redistricting law, just as they can any other state law. And they say the plaintiffs’ aim is no different than their own: to tilt the playing field in their favor.Katie Wright, the executive director of Better Boundaries — the grass-roots group that led the successful effort to pass the 2018 redistricting law and is backing the lawsuit — said there is a difference between the two. She noted that the Legislature’s disclosure of its new maps in 2021 sparked an unusually large public outcry that continues even today.“The reason we have these maps is to keep the people who are in power in power,” she said. “Utahns have not given up.” More

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. está delirando. Sus posturas son una mezcla de fantasías de derecha con remanentes del progresista que fue alguna vez: veneración al bitcoin, teorías de conspiración antivacunas, afirmaciones de que el Prozac ocasiona tiroteos masivos, oposición al apoyo estadounidense a Ucrania, pero además habla bien del seguro médico de pagador único. Si no fuera por su apellido, nadie le prestaría atención y, a pesar de ese apellido, tiene cero posibilidades de ganar la nominación presidencial demócrata.Sin embargo, ahora que la campaña de Ron DeSantis (con su lema: “Concienciados, inmigrantes, concienciados, ‘woke’”) parece estar derrapándose, de repente Kennedy está recibiendo el apoyo de algunos de los nombres más importantes de Silicon Valley. Jack Dorsey, fundador de Twitter, le dio su apoyo, mientras que otras figuras destacadas de la tecnología han organizado actos de recaudación de fondos en su nombre. Elon Musk, quien está en proceso de destruir lo que Dorsey construyó, fue su anfitrión en un evento en un Espacio de Twitter.Pero ¿qué nos dice todo esto sobre el papel de los multimillonarios de la industria tecnológica en la vida política moderna de Estados Unidos? Hace poco escribí sobre una serie de tech bros, algo así como hombres alfa de la tecnología, que se han convertido en truthers, quienes creen conocer la verdad, sobre la recesión y la inflación, y han insistido en que las noticias sobre la mejora de la economía son falsas (olvidé mencionar la declaración de Dorsey en 2021 de que la hiperinflación estaba “sucediendo”, ¿cómo va eso?). Lo que el pequeño auge de Kennedy en Silicon Valley muestra es que esto es en realidad parte de un fenómeno más amplio.Lo que parece atraer a algunos de los magnates de la tecnología a RFK Jr. es su gusto por llevar la contra, su contrarianismo: su desprecio por la sabiduría convencional y la opinión de los expertos. Así que antes de adentrarme en los aspectos específicos de los hombres de la tecnología de este momento político tan extraño, permítanme decir algunas cosas sobre llevar la contra.Un hecho triste pero cierto de la vida es que la mayoría de las veces, la sabiduría convencional y la opinión de los expertos están en lo correcto; sin embargo, puede que encontrar los puntos en los que se equivocan tenga grandes beneficios personales y sociales. El truco para conseguirlo consiste en mantener el equilibrio entre un escepticismo excesivo y una credulidad excesiva.Es muy fácil caer en el filo de la navaja en cualquier dirección. Cuando era un académico joven y ambicioso, solía reírme de los economistas mayores y aburridos cuya reacción ante cualquier idea nueva era: “Es banal, está mal y lo dije en 1962”. Estos días, a veces me preocupa haberme convertido en ese tipo.Por otra parte, como lo dice el economista Adam Ozimek, el contrarianismo reflexivo es una “droga que pudre el cerebro”. Quienes sucumben a esa droga “pierden la capacidad de juzgar a otros que consideran contrarios, se vuelven incapaces de distinguir las buenas pruebas de las malas, lo cual provoca un desapego total de la creencia que los lleva a aferrarse a modas contrarias de baja calidad”.Los hombres de la tecnología parecen ser en particular susceptibles a la podredumbre cerebral del contrarianismo. Su éxito financiero suele convencerlos de que son excepcionalmente brillantes, capaces de dominar al instante cualquier tema, sin necesidad de consultar a personas que realmente han trabajado duro para entender los problemas. Y en muchos casos, se hicieron ricos desafiando la sabiduría convencional, lo que los predispone a creer que ese desafío está justificado por dondequiera que se le mire.A esto hay que añadir el hecho de que una gran riqueza hace que sea demasiado fácil rodearse de personas que te dicen lo que quieres oír y validan tu creencia en tu propia brillantez, una suerte de versión intelectual del traje nuevo del emperador.Y si los hombres de la tecnología que llevan la contra hablan, es entre ellos. El empresario tecnológico y escritor Anil Dash nos dice que “es imposible exagerar el grado en que muchos directores ejecutivos de grandes empresas tecnológicas y capitalistas de riesgo se están radicalizando al vivir dentro de su propia burbuja cultural y social”. Llama a este fenómeno del capitalismo de riesgo, venture capitalism en inglés, “VC QAnon”, un concepto que me parece que ayuda a explicar muchas de las extrañas posturas adoptadas últimamente por los multimillonarios tecnológicos.Permítanme añadir una especulación personal. Pudiera parecer extraño ver a hombres de una inmensa riqueza e influencia creyéndose teorías de la conspiración sobre élites que dirigen el mundo. ¿No son ellos las élites? Pero sospecho que los hombres famosos y ricos pueden sentirse especialmente frustrados por su incapacidad para controlar los acontecimientos o incluso para evitar que la gente los ridiculice en internet. Así que en lugar de aceptar que el mundo es un lugar complicado que nadie puede controlar, son susceptibles a la idea de que hay conspiraciones secretas que los tienen en la mira.Aquí hay un precedente histórico. Viendo el descenso de Elon Musk, sé que no soy el único que piensa en Henry Ford, quien sigue siendo en muchos sentidos el ejemplo definitivo de empresario famoso e influyente y que también se convirtió en un teórico de la conspiración furibundo y antisemita. Incluso pagó la reimpresión de Los protocolos de los sabios de Sión, una falsificación que probablemente fue promovida por la policía secreta rusa (el tiempo es un círculo plano).En todo caso, lo que estamos viendo ahora es algo extraordinario. Podría decirse que la facción más alocada de la política estadounidense en este momento no son los obreros de gorra roja en los comedores; son los multimillonarios de la tecnología que viven en enormes mansiones y vuelan en jets privados. De cierto modo, es bastante divertido. Pero, por desgracia, esta gente tiene dinero suficiente para hacer mucho daño.Paul Krugman ha sido columnista de Opinión desde 2000 y también es profesor distinguido en el Centro de Graduados de la Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York. Ganó el Premio Nobel de Ciencias Económicas en 2008 por sus trabajos sobre comercio internacional y geografía económica. @PaulKrugman More

The candidate, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the first primary debate.How much is a dollar worth?To Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, quite a lot.Mr. Burgum is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the party’s first primary debate on Aug. 23 — the requirement that only candidates with at least 40,000 individual donors to their campaigns will be allowed on the stage.A long-shot contender at the bottom of recent polls, Mr. Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. And one lucky donor, as his campaign advertised on Facebook, will have the chance to win a Yeti Tundra 45 cooler that typically costs more than $300 — just for donating at least $1. The unusual offer was earlier reported by FWIW, a newsletter that tracks digital politics.Mr. Burgum’s push to prioritize donors over actual dollars is a sign of some candidates’ desperation to make the debate stage and to seize some of the national spotlight from the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and his top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, another Republican candidate, recently ended a campaign ad with a direct plea that flashed on the screen to “Donate today, get Chris Christie on the debate stage.”Mr. Burgum’s campaign acknowledged that its requests were directly tied to the debate and spun the gift-card giveaways into attacks on President Biden.“Doug knows people are hurting because of Bidenflation, and giving Biden Economic Relief Gift Cards is a way to help 50,000 people until Doug is elected President to fix this crazy economy for everyone,” said Lance Trover, a spokesman for the Burgum campaign.Mr. Trover added that the efforts allowed the campaign to “secure a spot on the debate stage while avoiding paying more advertising fees to social media platforms who have owners that are hostile to conservatives.”Kyle Tharp, the author of the FWIW newsletter that reported on the solicitations, said that as part of his reporting process, he had donated $1 to the Burgum campaign. He did not receive any follow-up information about how he would receive the gift card, he said. The campaign later clarified on Twitter that 50,000 donors would receive a Visa or Mastercard gift card to their mailing address.The campaign did not respond to a request for comment about how many donors had contributed so far.The campaign’s donations-for-cash strategy could raise potential legal concerns, said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer. Voters who make donations in exchange for gift cards, he said, might be considered straw donors because part or all of their donations are being reimbursed by the campaign.“Federal law says ‘no person shall make a contribution in the name of another person,’” Mr. Ryan said. “Here, the candidate is making a contribution to himself in the name of all these individual donors.” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law, said that typically, campaigns ask the Federal Election Commission when engaging in new forms of donations.The Burgum campaign’s maneuver, he said, “certainly seems novel” and “raises concerns about whether it violates the prohibition on straw donations.”But some of the legal uncertainty, Mr. Hasen added, stems from the fact that “functionally, campaigns spend a lot of money to get small donations, especially in cases like this where they’re trying to reach a debate threshold.”Mr. Burgum isn’t alone in using his immense wealth — he’s a billionaire former software executive — to bolster his campaign.Perry Johnson, a businessman who also announced a hopeful bid for the Republican presidential nomination and who ran for Michigan governor last year, has spent $80,000 to $90,000 on ads promoting $1 hats that read, “I identify as ‘Non-Bidenary,’” Facebook records show. His campaign said in a recent ad that it had reached 10,000 donors.To qualify for the first presidential debate, candidates must have a minimum of 200 unique donors per state or territory in 20 states and territories, according to the Republican National Committee, which set the rules. They must also garner at least 1 percent in multiple national or early-voting state polls recognized by the committee.Shane Goldmacher More

The amount showed Ms. Haley’s strength with small donors, but fell well below numbers broadcast by her leading Republican presidential rivals, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, a modest sum that still showcased her robust appeal to small donors.The total included $5.3 million reported by her campaign, as well as money from two allied committees, according to reports provided by her campaign to The New York Times in advance of a filing deadline with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday.Separately, a super PAC supporting her candidacy said on Monday that it had raised $18.7 million since its inception this year, and that it had $17 million in cash on hand at the end of June. Reports for super PACs are not due with the F.E.C. until the end of the month.Her campaign’s fund-raising numbers fell below those of the two men leading the polls for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former President Donald J. Trump. Last week, the DeSantis campaign said it had raised $20 million, while a super PAC supporting him had raised $130 million since March.Mr. Trump’s joint fund-raising committee, his primary fund-raising vehicle, said it had raised $35 million in the second quarter; it is not clear how much went to his campaign committee.Neither the Trump campaign nor the DeSantis campaign provided the reports. When they are filed this weekend, they will provide greater clarity on how each candidate’s money has been raised and spent.By her campaign’s account, Ms. Haley is above the minimum threshold of 40,000 individual donors that candidates must reach to take part in the first Republican debate on Aug. 23. Her campaign said it had received 160,000 donations from all 50 states since she entered the race in February, the vast majority of which were under $200.Ms. Haley raised money through three committees: her presidential campaign, a joint fund-raising committee called Team Stand for America, and a multicandidate PAC. The joint fund-raising committee also transfers money to the other two committees — the $5.3 million received by her campaign in the second quarter, for example, includes a $1 million transfer from Team Stand for America.In April, Ms. Haley came under criticism after her campaign broadcast that $11 million had been raised in its opening six weeks. In fact, the committees had together taken in about $8.3 million, including $2.7 million in transferred money that was counted twice.Together, the three committees had $9.3 million in cash on hand at the end of June, according to the latest filings; her campaign accounts for $6.8 million of that. More

A split over the stewardship of the union’s high-profile president, Christian Smalls, has led a rival faction to file a lawsuit seeking an election.A dissident group within the Amazon Labor Union, the only certified union in the country representing Amazon employees, filed a complaint in federal court Monday seeking to force the union to hold a leadership election.The union won an election at a Staten Island warehouse with more than 8,000 employees in April 2022, but Amazon has challenged the result and has yet to begin bargaining on a contract.The rise of the dissident group, which calls itself the A.L.U. Democratic Reform Caucus and includes a co-founder and former treasurer of the union, reflects a growing split within the union that appears to have undermined its ability to pressure Amazon. The split has also threatened to sap the broader labor movement of the momentum generated by last year’s high-profile victory.In its complaint, the reform caucus argues that the union and its president, Christian Smalls, illegally “refuse to hold officer elections which should have been scheduled no later than March 2023.”The complaint asks a federal judge to schedule an election of the union’s top officers for no later than Aug. 30 and to appoint a neutral monitor to oversee the election.Mr. Smalls said in a text message Monday that the complaint was “a ridiculous claim with zero facts or merit,” and a law firm representing the union said it would seek legal sanctions against the reform group’s lawyer if the complaint was filed.The complaint states that under an earlier version of the union’s constitution, a leadership election was required within 60 days of the National Labor Relations Board’s certification of its victory.But in December, the month before the labor board certification, the union’s leadership presented a new constitution to the membership that scheduled elections after the union ratifies a contract with Amazon — an accomplishment that could take years, if it happens at all.On Friday, the reform caucus sent the union’s leadership a letter laying out its proposal to hold prompt elections, saying it would go to court Monday if the leadership didn’t embrace the proposal.The reform group is made of up more than 40 active organizers who are also plaintiffs in the legal complaint, including Connor Spence, a union co-founder and former treasurer; Brett Daniels, the union’s former organizing director; and Brima Sylla, a prominent organizer at the Staten Island warehouse.The group said in its letter that enacting the proposal could “mean the difference between an A.L.U. which is strong, effective, and a beacon of democracy in the labor movement” and “an A.L.U. which, in the end, became exactly what Amazon warned workers it would become: a business that takes away the workers’ voices.”Mr. Smalls said in his text that the union leadership had worked closely with its law firm to ensure that its actions were legal, as well as with the U.S. Labor Department.Jeanne Mirer, a lawyer for the union, wrote to a lawyer for the reform caucus that the lawsuit was frivolous and based on falsehoods. She said that Mr. Spence had “improperly and unilaterally” replaced the union’s founding constitution with a revised version in June 2022, and that the revision, which called for elections after certification, had never been formally adopted by the union’s board.Retu Singla, another lawyer for the union, said in an interview that the constitution was never made final because there were disagreements about it within the union’s leadership.Mr. Spence said he and other members of the union’s board had revised the constitution while consulting extensively with the union’s lawyers. A second union official involved in the discussions corroborated his account.The split within the union dates from last fall, when several longtime Amazon Labor Union organizers became frustrated with Mr. Smalls after a lopsided loss in a union election at an Amazon warehouse near Albany, N.Y.In a meeting shortly after the election, organizers argued that control of the union rested in too few hands and that the leadership should be elected, giving rank-and-file workers more input.The skeptics also complained that Mr. Smalls was committing the union to elections without a plan for how to win them, and that the union needed a better process for determining which organizing efforts to support. Many organizers worried that Mr. Smalls spent too much time traveling the country to make public appearances rather than focus on the contract fight on Staten Island.Mr. Smalls later said in an interview that his travel was necessary to help raise money for the union and that the critics’ preferred approach — building up worker support for a potential strike that could bring Amazon to the bargaining table — was counterproductive because it could alarm workers who feared losing their livelihoods.He said a worker-led movement shouldn’t turn its back on workers at other warehouses if they sought to unionize. A top union official hired by Mr. Smalls also argued that holding an election before the union had a more systematic way of reaching out to workers would be undemocratic because only the most committed activists would vote.When Mr. Smalls unveiled the new union constitution in December, scheduling elections after a contract was ratified, many of the skeptics walked out. The two factions have operated independently this year, with both sides holding regular meetings with members.In April, the reform caucus began circulating a petition among workers at the Staten Island warehouse calling on the leadership to amend the constitution and hold prompt elections. The petition has been signed by hundreds of workers at the facility.The petition soon became a point of tension with Mr. Smalls. In an exchange with a member of the reform caucus on WhatsApp in early May, copies of which are included in Monday’s legal complaint, Mr. Smalls said the union would “take legal action against you” if the caucus did not abandon the petition.The tensions appeared to ease later that month after the union leadership under Mr. Smalls proposed that the two sides enter mediation. The reform caucus accepted the invitation and suspended the petition campaign.But according to a memo that the mediator, Bill Fletcher Jr., sent both sides on June 29 and that was viewed by The New York Times, the union leadership backed out of the mediation process on June 18 without explanation.“I am concerned that the apparent turmoil within the ALU E. Board means that little is being done to organize the workers and prepare for the battle with Amazon,” Mr. Fletcher wrote in the memo, referring to the union’s executive board. “This situation seriously weakens support among the workers.”Colin Moynihan More

Experts say conservative network Fox News could face a “a fairly strong” lawsuit from a man who Tucker Carlson repeatedly accused of working as a government agent and carrying out the January 6 insurrection.Carlson, who was fired from the network in April, repeatedly alleged that Ray Epps was a secret government agent who coordinated the January 6 riots, the New York Times reported.Epps, a Trump supporter and former marine, has been at the center of a far-right conspiracy theory after an article by a rightwing website argued that he was spared from criminal charges because of his covert role.Carlson and other rightwing figures, including members of Congress, have latched onto the false theory that Epps was a government agent involved in whipping up the January 6 attack.In almost 20 episodes of his talkshow, Carlson reiterated the conspiracy theory that Epps was an undercover operative who “helped stage-manage the insurrection”.Carlson repeatedly argued that Epps was recorded on camera urging others to enter the Capitol, but never entered the building himself.In one 10-minute video posted to YouTube, Carlson claimed that it was “highly strange” that Epps hadn’t been arrested and alluded that the Times’ coverage on Epps was attempting to “cover something up”.Epps has been questioned by the January 6 committee, and could still face charges as the investigation continues, the Times reported. He and his wife have received death threats and fled from their home in Arizona, fearing for their safety, according to the Associated Press.Michael Teter, a lawyer representing Epps, sent Fox News network a cease-and-desist letter, demanding an on-air apology and a retraction of the conspiracy theory, the Times reported.Teter told the Times that Fox did not respond to their suit, and a lawsuit is being prepared against the network.Experts have said that Epps’ potential case against Fox News could have standing and become a real issue for the conservative news network.David D Lin, an attorney at Lewis and Lin LLC Internet Law Counsel, told the Guardian that Epps’ lawsuit against Fox could be viable and present a potential issue for the network.“I think there is a lot of potential risk here to Fox and they need to take the claims very seriously,” said Lin to the Guardian, adding that Carlson could be personally liable depending on if the lawsuit includes him.Siddartha Rao, a lawyer at Romano Law PLLC, called the potential suit “a fairly strong claim”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Based on the facts that have been reported, I think it’s gonna look like Tucker Carlson at least recklessly disregarded the truth when he made his statements about Mr Epps,” said Rao, adding that Epps will have to demonstrate how his reputation has been damaged by the theories.Rao noted that given that Epps did attend the January 6 riots, the focus of his legal team may be on Carlson’s conspiracy theory of Epps’ being a federal agent.Unlike Dominion, which is a business, Epps is a private individual who will have to meet a lower standard for defamation suits compared to a public figure or government official, said Lin.“In a sense, it could be much easier for him to pursue a defamation claim against Fox News,” said Lin, adding that Epps needs to prove the statements made on Fox are false and caused damage to his reputation and financial damage.Lin added that if a lawsuit moves forward, Fox News could argue that statements made about Epps were an opinion or that the claims would be regarded as obviously false to listeners.Rao noted that while the lawsuit will likely be against Fox, Carlson could face consequences as an individual, depending on his arrangement with Fox.“There might be claims from Fox to come out against Carlson,” said Rao, given that the alleged defamation happened during his show.Fox News and Tucker Carlson could not be reached by the Guardian for an immediate comment. More

Gail Collins: Bret, about Ron DeSantis. Last week, I criticized him for weenie stuff like big book advances and questionable road repair materials. At the time, I definitely felt like I was carping.Then his people shared an ad on L.G.B.T.Q. issues that … wow.Bret Stephens: “Wow” just about covers it.Gail: It began with a clip of Donald Trump defending gay rights in days of yore, which was very clearly supposed to make viewers … hate Trump. Followed by praise for Florida laws DeSantis signed that “literally threaten trans existence.” Followed by a super-duper weird montage showing men flexing muscles, Brad Pitt in Trojan-warrior garb and Governor Ron with lightning flashes coming out of his eyes.Pete Buttigieg, who is President Biden’s secretary of transportation and one of the best-known gay figures in politics, rightly pointed out “the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders.”Any thoughts?Bret: I guess my main takeaway is that DeSantis isn’t going to be the next president. He makes Trump seem tolerant, Ted Cruz seem likable, Mitch McConnell seem moderate, Lauren Boebert seem mature and Rick Santorum seem cool. Not what I would have expected out of the Florida governor six months ago, but here’s where I confess: You were right about him, and I was wrong.Gail: My other takeaway is that Republicans are focusing more on L.G.B.T.Q. issues now that they’ve come to understand that attacking abortion isn’t a national winner — or even a state winner in most places.In the long run, stomping on gay rights isn’t going to do it either, because such a huge number of people — even conservative Republicans — have friends, family, colleagues who are gay. May take a while to come to grips with that, but once you realize someone you care about is gay, the idea of persecuting them presumably seems way less attractive.Just recalling how my conservative Catholic mother wound up, in old age, riding on a float in Cincinnati’s Gay Pride parade.Bret: As you mentioned last year in that wonderful column you wrote about Allen Ginsberg.Gay bashing is morally intolerable as well as politically inept. But a lot of people — including many Democrats and independents — have honest and serious concerns about some aspects of the trans issue, especially as it concerns the integrity of women’s sports, the morality of drastic medical interventions in teenagers and the anti-scientific denial of basic biology when it comes to questions of sex. I also detest terms like “bodies with vaginas” as a substitute for “women.” It isn’t a sensitive or inclusive use of language; it’s misogynistic and Orwellian.DeSantis could have addressed these issues in a sober and nuanced way. Instead, he went full Trojan, and I suspect his campaign will meet a similar fate to Troy’s.Gail: Full Trojan? Just like Brad Pitt in that ad!Bret: Switching topics, Gail, can we talk about homelessness? The problem just keeps getting worse, particularly out west, and it’s doing real damage to urban life. Your thoughts on what does and does not work?Gail: What works is pretty simple: more housing and outreach for the mentally ill. Both are difficult, of course, ranging from pretty darned to stupendously.Bret: What also works are ordinances forbidding “camping” on public lands so that homeless people are required to use shelter beds, which some liberal judges have blocked cities from doing. One of the problems of our public discussion of the issue is that we treat homelessness as a problem of the homeless only. It’s also a public safety issue and a quality-of-life issue. People ought to have a right to walk down urban sidewalks that haven’t been turned into tent cities and open-air toilets.Gail: New York is still dealing with a flood of new migrants, mainly from Latin America, who have been coming in huge numbers for more than a year. Most of them are ambitious and hopeful, and they could be a great shot to our local economy — if they had permanent places to stay.Bret: Completely agree. I also think the migrant problem is qualitatively different from the kind of homelessness issues that cities like San Francisco or Portland, Ore., are experiencing. Migrants are struggling with poverty but not, generally, mental health or drug-dependency issues. What migrants typically need is a room and a job.Gail: Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has talked about finding some of them homes in the suburbs, where there’s obviously more room and housing prices are sometimes a lot lower. Said suburbs rose up in rage to stop an incursion of needy people. It’s so irritating, although I have to admit that my liberal Manhattan neighborhood — which has plenty of programs for the homeless — consistently rebels against talk of any big new housing projects for any income group.Your turn.Bret: I’m skeptical of the theory that we could solve the crisis just by building a lot more housing. First, because we can’t build quickly and cheaply enough to keep up with the growing number of homeless people. Second, because even when the homeless are housed, they often fall back into the kinds of behaviors that ultimately lead them to return to the streets.My own view is that people living on the street should be required to go into shelters, which can be built much more quickly and cheaply than regular housing, be required to get mental health screenings and be required to be treated if they have drug or alcohol dependencies.Gail: Well, if the mental health treatments were great, that might be an argument. But they often aren’t — just because there’s a terrific shortage of personnel.And the shelters are no picnic either. A lot of the people you see on the street have been, at one time or another, threatened by a mentally troubled co-resident, gotten into a fight as a result of shared emotional problems or in some other way come to feel that living on the street is safer.Bret: The other big story from last week, Gail, is the ruling by a federal judge that forbade the Biden administration to work with social media companies to remove content it didn’t like, mainly connected to alleged Covid misinformation. What the administration was doing seems to me like a serious infringement on people’s freedom of speech, but I’d like to know your view.Gail: Gee, I was under the impression one of the jobs of the executive branch was to make sure people were getting the right information about health issues. And it’s not as if the Biden folks marched in and removed a bunch of posts themselves. Conferring with the social media companies seems like something they ought to do.Bret: One good way of thinking about the issue is putting the shoe on the other foot. For instance, we now know that the Steele dossier was malicious partisan misinformation, secretly and illicitly paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and that some of its most salacious allegations, like the pee-tape stuff, were false. How would you react if you had learned that the Trump administration had been putting heavy pressure on executives at MSNBC to forbid Rachel Maddow from ever mentioning it back when she had her show?Gail: Hey, it’s hot and humid outside. No fair trying to take me down the Hillary Clinton road. Look — the whole world changed with the advent of social media. If you’ve got influencers with millions of followers warning that, say, giving milk to babies is dangerous, you’ve got to do something more than issue a press release.Bret: I’m pretty sure we could get the word out that milk is generally fine for babies or vaccines are generally safe without setting a precedent that the federal government can work with Big Tech to censor individual speech.Gail: Of course I agree with you about freedom of expression. But in the process of protecting it, it’s natural to argue about specific cases with particular details. We will pursue this again soon. Well, forever probably.But let me be boring for a second and ask you about Congress. Just got through that deficit crisis, and another one will be coming around the bend this summer. What’s your long-term advice? Spend less? Tax more? Ignore the whole thing and figure it’ll work out somehow like it always does?Bret: My advice: Talk less, smile more. Seriously, what we need from Congress and the president is to get through the next 18 months without another manufactured domestic crisis. Between the war in Ukraine, Iran’s creeping nuclearization and China’s saber-rattling over Taiwan, we have more than enough to worry about abroad.Gail: Hmm. One writer’s manufactured domestic crisis is maybe another’s reasonable disagreement. And while Congress isn’t always fascinating, it’s at the top of the critical-if-possibly-boring ladder.Bret: Before we go, Gail, I have to put in a word for Penelope Green’s funny, fabulous obituary in The Times of Sue Johanson, a Canadian sex educator who died last month at 92. It has the single most memorable paragraph to appear in the paper for at least a month, if not a year. I have to quote it in full:Is it weird to put body glitter on your boyfriend’s testicles? Is it safe to have sex in a hot tub? Could a Ziploc baggie serve as a condom? If condoms are left in a car and they freeze, are they still good? Answers: No. No (chlorinated water is too harsh for genitals, particularly women’s). Definitely not. And yes, once they’ve been defrosted.I mean, after that, what else is there to say?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More