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    Ultra-rich media owners are tightening their grip on democracy. It’s time to wrest our power back

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    The richest man on earth owns X.The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic – some might say sinister – reason.If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth. Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats, and discouraging any attempt to – for example – tax away your wealth.You also have Donald Trump to contend with. In his second term of office, Trump has brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post defended the razing of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump his giant ballroom – without disclosing that Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom’s funding. The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s defense department’s decision to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors, but failed to mention Amazon’s stake in X-energy, a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors. And it criticized Washington DC’s refusal to accept self-driving cars without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington DC market.These breaches are inexcusable.It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison, founder of the software firm Oracle and the second-richest person in the world. Ellison is a longtime Trump donor who also, according to court records, participated in a phone call to discuss how his 2020 election defeat could be contested.In June 2025, Ellison and Oracle were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington. At the time, Larry and his son David, founder of Skydance Media, were waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve their $8bn merger with Paramount Global, owner of CBS News.In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship 60 Minutes resigned, citing concerns over the network’s ability to maintain its editorial independence, and revealing pressure by Paramount to tamp down stories critical of Trump. No matter. Too much money was at stake.In July, Paramount paid $16m to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against CBS and canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, much to Trump’s delight. Three weeks after the settlement was announced, Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, chair of the FCC, approved the Ellisons’ deal, making David chief executive of the new media giant Paramount Skydance and giving him control of CBS News.In October, David made the anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss the CBS News editor-in-chief, despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or news. Earlier this month, it was revealed that CBS News heavily edited Trump’s latest 60 Minutes interview, cutting his boast that the network “paid me a lotta money”.I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News – the home of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite – was independent of the rest of CBS, and when the top management of CBS had independent responsibilities to the American public.It is impossible to know the full extent to which criticism of Trump and his administration has been chilled by the media-owning billionaires, or what fawning coverage has been elicited.But what we do know is that billionaire media owners like Musk, Bezos, Ellison and Murdoch are businessmen first and foremost. Their highest goal is not to inform the public but to make money. They know Trump can wreak havoc on their businesses by imposing unfriendly FCC rulings, enforcing labor laws against them or denying them lucrative government contracts.And in an era when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who have bought up key media, with a thin-skinned president who is willing and able to violate laws and norms to punish or reward, there is a growing danger that the public will not be getting the truth it needs to function in this democracy.What to do about this?At the least, media outlets should inform their readers about any and all potential conflicts of interest, and media watchdogs and professional associations should ensure they do.A second suggestion (if and when the US has a saner government) is that anti-monopoly authorities not approve the purchase of a major media outlet by someone with extensive businesses that could pose conflicts of interest.Acquisition of a media company should be treated differently than the acquisition of, say, a company developing self-driving cars or one developing small nuclear reactors, because of the media’s central role in our democracy.A third suggestion is to read and support media such as the Guardian, which is not beholden to a wealthy owner or powerful advertiser and does not compromise its integrity to curry favor with the powerful.To the contrary, the Guardian aims to do what every great source of news and views should be doing, especially in these dark times: illuminate, enlighten and elucidate. This is why I avidly read each day’s edition and why I write a column for it.As the Washington Post’s slogan still says, democracy dies in darkness. Today, darkness is closing in because a demagogue sits in the Oval Office and so much of the US’s wealth and media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few people easily manipulated by that demagogue.We must fight to get our democracy back. Supporting the Guardian is one good place to begin.You can support the Guardian’s year-end appeal here. All gifts are gratefully received, but a recurring contribution – even a small monthly amount – is most impactful, helping sustain our work throughout the year ahead. It takes just 37 seconds to give. Thank you. More

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      Olivia Rodrigo condemns Trump administration’s use of her music for ‘racist, hateful propaganda’

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      Olivia Rodrigo has criticized the Trump administration after one of her songs was featured in a government video promoting deportation efforts.A clip posted on the official Department of Homeland Security and White House Instagram accounts encouraged undocumented immigrants to voluntarily leave the US. The video used a segment of Rodrigo’s song all-american bitch as its soundtrack.Rodrigo, who is Filipino American, reportedly condemned the use of her music in a comment on the post, writing: “don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.” The comment was later taken down, but not before screenshots were captured and circulated widely.The video, uploaded Tuesday as Americans voted in several states, opens with the loud intro of the track as ICE agents are shown detaining people, accompanied by the caption: “IF ICE FINDS YOU.” It then transitions to scenes of immigrants seemingly choosing to self-deport, underscored by the song lyrics: “All the time/I’m grateful all the time/I’m sexy and I’m kind/I’m pretty when I cry.”The caption concludes with a warning: “LEAVE NOW and self-deport using the CBP Home app. If you don’t, you will face the consequences.”After Rodrigo’s response went viral on Friday, Instagram removed the soundtrack from the clip. An error message, reading “This song is currently unavailable”, is currently displayed.In a statement shared with the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson said: “America is grateful all the time for our federal law enforcement officers who keep us safe. We suggest Ms. Rodrigo thank them for their service, not belittle their sacrifice.”The department did not confirm whether they had removed the original comment by Rodrigo from the post.Rodrigo joins a growing list of artists who have objected to Trump or his administration using their music without consent, with others including Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones and the singer Jess Glynne.Glynne voiced her anger when one of her songs was similarly used, writing on Instagram: “This post honestly makes me sick. My music is about love, unity, and spreading positivity – never about division or hate.”This isn’t the first time Rodrigo has spoken out against the Trump administration. She publicly condemned ICE raids that took place in Los Angeles earlier in the year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe singer, 22, wrote on Instagram: “I’ve lived in LA my whole life and I’m deeply upset about these violent deportations of my neighbors under the current administration. LA simply wouldn’t exist without immigrants. Treating hardworking community members with such little respect, empathy, and due process is awful.”Rodrigo previously collaborated with the federal government under very different circumstances. In 2021, she visited the White House wearing a vintage pink Chanel suit to meet then-president Joe Biden and Dr Anthony Fauci, recording a video to encourage youth vaccination during the Covid-19 pandemic.From the White House podium, she said: “I am beyond honored and humbled to be here today to help spread the message about the importance of youth vaccination. I’m in awe of the work President Biden and Dr Fauci have done and was happy to help lend my support to this important initiative.” More

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      Arizona Republicans seek to expel lawmaker who reposted Ice raid information

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      A Democratic lawmaker in Arizona who is facing calls for expulsion for resharing an Instagram post warning of immigration enforcement activity near an elementary school said that state senate Republicans “absolutely are trying to make an example out of me”.Analise Ortiz, a Democratic state senator in Arizona, shared an Instagram post from a community organization that warned, in text only, that immigration enforcement agents were near a local elementary school.“Alert/Alerta: ICE activity near Southwest Elementary,” the post in early August said, adding the cross streets of the school. “ICE is present. La migra esta presente.”That post is at the center of an ethics complaint filed this week against Ortiz and a viral rightwing campaign against her.“The ethics complaint very clearly says that they want to stop other people from sharing this type of information,” she said, calling it “a stunning escalation of intimidation”.The controversy began when Libs of TikTok, the X account known for going after liberals online, posted about Ortiz’s reshare, claiming she was “actively impeding and doxxing ICE by posting their live locations on instagram” and that law enforcement officials should “charge her”.No photos of agents were shared, nor were names or other identifying information about agents.“I was not there,” Ortiz said. “There were no pictures of anybody taken. It was simply a post that said Ice presence is possible outside of an elementary school. And I think that the fact that they are outside of sensitive locations where kids should be able to learn in peace is something that people should know about. They should know how the government is acting on their behalf.”The Libs of TikTok post went viral, leaving Ortiz with an inbox full of harassing and threatening messages. The mischaracterization that she “doxed” agents had led to the vast majority of the threats she had received, she said.Jake Hoffman, a Republican state senator, and a handful of other Republican leaders in the chamber filed a formal ethics complaint that seeks to expel Ortiz from the chamber or, failing a vote to expel, remove her from all committees and take away her office and administrative staff. The ethics committee chair also referred the complaint to the US attorney’s office in Arizona for a potential investigation, saying Ortiz’s actions “may implicate federal law”.After the ethics complaint was filed, Libs of TikTok egged on Arizona senate Republicans. “Make an example out of her! Enough is enough,” the account tweeted.“What surprised me about the ethics complaint was the level of punishment they want to inflict upon me for simply exercising my first amendment right,” Ortiz said.As immigration enforcement agents have ramped up activity across the country, activists have shared locations where they see raids or Ice agents as a way to warn people to avoid the area. In Arizona, a southern border state, fear of deportations – and of detaining people who are in the US legally – is a facet of daily life in the second Trump administration. Ortiz said she had heard from constituents who are terrified to drive without a passport on hand because they fear law enforcement won’t believe they are US citizens if they are pulled over.Ortiz said she would not be intimidated by the ethics inquest or attempts to criminalize her sharing of information.“If the United States of America is going to continue as a free and fair democracy, it demands that people speak out against constitutional violations,” she said. “It demands bravery, so I am going to continue to be brave in this moment.”Hoffman claimed Ortiz’s reshare was “reckless” and “dangerous”, saying that “by publicly posting alerts about federal law enforcement activity, she actively tipped off individuals being pursued by Ice, jeopardizing the safety of officers and law-abiding citizens”. He wanted the committee to investigate her for “behavior unbecoming of an elected official and embarrassing to the entire Arizona legislature on a state and national stage”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHoffman was charged for his role as a fake elector after the 2020 election. Earlier this year, he was pulled over for driving 89mph in a 65mph zone in his Tesla Cybertruck emblazoned with the word “Freedom” on the back, though he was not cited because of a legal provision called legislative immunity.The ethics complaint details how Ortiz did not back away from her reshare after Libs of TikTok posted about it. Instead, she wrote that she would alert her community to stay away when Ice is around and that she was “not fucking scared of you nor Trump’s masked goons”. After Hoffman wrote on X that he would bring an ethics complaint and wanted her expelled, she said: “Bring it on, Jake.”Warren Petersen, the Republican state senate president, previously asked for a federal investigation into Ortiz’s reshare, claiming she may have broken a federal law that prevents “assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees”.The US attorney’s office in Arizona did not respond to a request for comment.Ortiz said Republican lawmakers want to deprive her legislative district of its voice in the senate and silence her and others who want to stand against deportations.“The fact they are trying to escalate it and are blatantly lying about my actions proves that this is really about authoritarianism and wanting to have a system where masked men carry out police operations in secret, and that should really concern anyone who cares about the United States constitution,” Ortiz said.Free speech experts and other elected officials, including the state’s Democratic attorney general, have spoken out against the attacks on Ortiz for her post, which they say is well within her first amendment rights.“Senator Ortiz’s post is clearly protected speech under the first amendment,” Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, said in a statement. “This ethics complaint is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to intimidate and silence a democratically elected legislator. Warren Petersen and Jake Hoffman should be ashamed of themselves for weaponizing the ethics process just because they disagree with Senator Ortiz politically.”The ethics committee has not met yet this year and does not have operating rules in place, but will consider the complaint once those are established, said its chair, Shawnna Bolick, a Republican. An expulsion would require a two-thirds vote of the chamber, an unlikely prospect.Ortiz previously faced an ethics investigation after she and another Democratic lawmaker shouted “shame” and protested on the state house floor against their Republican colleagues over an abortion vote in 2024. She was found to have violated house rules for conduct, but no official action was taken against her. More

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      Trump official defending Doge filmed fashion influencer videos from office

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      The chief spokesperson for the agency overseeing mass firings as Donald Trump and Elon Musk slash the federal workforce used her office to record fashion influencer videos even as thousands of workers were losing their jobs.McLaurine Pinover, communications director at the US office of personnel management (OPM), posted several Instagram videos during business hours in which she posed in different outfits, CNN reported.One video was posted on 13 February, the day OPM reportedly directed several agencies to lay off thousands of employees with probationary status, including about 20 people on Pinover’s own team.Pinover has issued numerous statements backing moves to fire federal workers, including describing a controversial directive for all workers to list five things they achieve each week as “a commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce”.CNN said Pinover did not respond to questions but said she deleted her Instagram account minutes after being approached for comment. Pinover’s LinkedIn page appeared to have been taken down, too.Videos published by CNN showed Pinover in her office, showing herself wearing various clothing outfits with hashtags including “#dcstyle” and “#dcinfluencer” and the song Busy Woman by Sabrina Carpenter.One post was made on Tuesday, the day the Department of Education announced it was cutting half its workforce, CNN said.Pinover may have benefited from affiliate links to buy clothes in her videos, CNN said, though it noted that she only had approximately 800 followers to her account.Former OPM staffers told CNN the videos were filmed in the office of the communications director, across the hall from an annex used by workers for the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Musk’s vehicle for imposing cuts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne unnamed former staffer said: “I saw it, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me, that’s my office.’ She’s the spokesperson for the agency that is advocating for the firing based on performance and efficiency of the rest of the government workforce, and she’s using government property as a backdrop for her videos.”Jack Miller, Pinover’s predecessor as OPM communications director under Joe Biden, said: “Your number one job as a leader is to protect and support your people. So instead of fighting tooth and nail to keep your team, we’re posting fashion videos. It’s absurd.”Donald K Sherman, chief counsel for the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told CNN: “It is highly problematic that while dedicated civil servants who want to work for the government are being fired for all manner of dubious reasons, or are being forced out by this administration, that someone at the agency leading that attack on the civil service is using their government job for private gain.” More

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      Farmer styles need an illustrative update | Brief letters

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      The illustration published with John Harris’s column (1 December) showed a “typical” farmer hoping for a break in the (economic) clouds. Did he have to be from 1960s central casting? Flat cap, neckerchief, green wellies and chewing on straw? Leaning on a spade in an obviously ploughed field? Surely the Guardian doesn’t share the government’s archaic view of farmers.Ian StewartBrackley, Northamptonshire Simon Jenkins lauds that “thing of wonder”, the US constitution, which has “held the union together … for two and a half centuries” (Biden pardons his son, Trump will absolve his criminal allies. America shouldn’t stand for this, 2 December). Has the small matter of the civil war – southern secession, four years of armed conflict, over 600,000 dead and a divisive legacy – slipped his mind?Alan KnightEmeritus professor of history, Oxford University In his confession (‘Phantom gnome snatcher’ of Formby admits prank almost 50 years on, 26 November), the perpetrator said “I hope the statutes of limitations have passed on this one”. Did he mean statues?Joanna RimmerNewcastle upon Tyne Surely we need a “Middle-class woman of a certain age” mug from the Guardian, to sit proudly alongside a “Tofu-eating wokerati” one (As a middle-class woman of a certain age, all I can say is: ‘Thank you, Gregg Wallace’, 2 December)?Gabe CrispShoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex Was Gregg Wallace not “in a good headspace” when making his Instagram comments (Report, 2 December) because he couldn’t find one large enough to accommodate his ego?Paul McGilchrist Cromer, Norfolk More

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      Mark Zuckerberg dines with Trump at Mar-a-Lago despite former feud

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      Mark Zuckerberg has become the latest former Donald Trump critic to make his way Mar-a-Lago to break bread with the incoming US president.The tech mogul had banned Trump from the social media sites Instagram and Facebook, which he owns, following the January 6 riot that the president-elect egged on in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.On Wednesday, however, the incoming White House deputy chief of policy, Stephen Miller, told Fox News that Zuckerberg, 40, had dined with Trump at his Florida compound.“Mark, obviously, he has his own interests, and he has his own company, and he has his own agenda,” Miller said. “But he’s made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under President Trump’s leadership.”Zuckerberg, whose personal fortune is estimated at $200bn, has previously indicated a thawing of relations between himself and the president-elect.After Trump survived an assassination attempt in July and pumped his fist saying “fight, fight, fight”, Zuckerberg called it “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life”.A month later, in a book called Save America, Trump still accused Zuckerberg of “plotting” against him during the 2020 election by “steering” Facebook against his campaign. He threatened Zuckerberg that if it happened again he would “spend the rest of his life in prison”.In the book Trump also noted that Zuckerberg would visit him at the White House “with his very nice wife, be as nice as anyone”, but then claimed the CEO turned Facebook against his 2020 campaign – possibly referring to a $420m donation Zuckerberg’s charity made to fund election infrastructure in 2020.“He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me,” Trump wrote in the book. “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison – as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, told the BBC: “Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration.“It’s an important time for the future of American Innovation,” the statement added.Meta is among several of the tech giants to hold contracts with the federal government. Earlier this month, the company announced it had approved a collaboration to integrate its Llama AI division into government operations. More

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      First came the bots, then came the bosses – we’re entering Musk and Zuck’s new era of disinformation | Joan Donovan

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      I’m a researcher of media manipulation, and watching the 2024 US election returns was like seeing the Titanic sink.Every day leading up to 5 November, there were more and more outrageous claims being made in an attempt across social media to undermine election integrity: conspiracy theories focused on a tidal wave of immigrants plotting to undermine the right wing, allegations that there were millions of excess ballots circulating in California, and rumors that the voting machines were already corrupted by malicious algorithms.All of the disinformation about corrupt vote counts turned out not to be necessary, as Donald Trump won the election decisively. But the election proved that disinformation is no longer the provenance of anonymous accounts amplified by bots to mimic human engagement, like it was in 2016. In 2024, lies travel further and faster across social media, which is now a battleground for narrative dominance. And now, the owners of the platforms circulating the most incendiary lies have direct access to the Oval Office.We talk a lot about social media “platforms”. The word “platform” is interesting as it means both a stated political position and a technological communication system. Over the past decade, we have watched social media platforms warp public opinion by deciding what is seen and when users see it, as algorithms double as newsfeed and timeline editors. When tech CEOs encode their political beliefs into the design of platforms, it’s a form of technofascism, where technology is used for political suppression of speech and to repress the organization of resistance to the state or capitalism.Content moderation at these platforms now reflects the principles of the CEO and what that person believes is in the public’s interest. The political opinions of tech’s overlords, like Musk and Zuckerberg, are now directly embedded in their algorithms.For example, Meta has limited the circulation of critical discussions about political power, reportedly even downranking posts that use the word “vote” on Instagram. Meta’s Twitter clone, Threads, suspended journalists for reporting on Trump’s former chief of staff describing Trump’s admiration of Hitler. Threads built in a politics filter that is turned on by default.View image in fullscreenImplementing these filtering mechanisms illustrates a sharp difference from Meta’s embrace of politicians who got personalized white-glove service in 2016 as Facebook embedded employees directly in political campaigns, who advised on branding and reaching new audiences. It’s also a striking reversal of Zuckerberg’s free speech position in 2019. Zuckerberg gave a presentation at Georgetown University claiming that he was inspired to create Facebook because he wanted to give students a voice during the Iraq war. This historical revisionism was quickly skewered in the media. (Facebook’s predecessor allowed users to rate the appearance of Harvard female freshmen. Misogyny was the core of its design.) Nevertheless, his false origin story encapsulated a vision of how Zuckerberg once believed society and politics should be organized, where political discussion was his guiding reason to bring people into community.However, he now appears to have abandoned this position in favor of disincentivizing political discussion altogether. Recently, Zuckerberg wrote to the Republican Jim Jordan saying he regretted his content moderation decisions during the pandemic because he acted under pressure from the Biden administration. The letter itself was an obvious attempt to curry favor as Trump rose as the Republican presidential candidate. Zuckerberg has reason to fear Trump, who has mentioned wanting to arrest Zuckerberg for deplatforming him on Meta products after the January 6 Capitol riot.X seems to have embraced the disinformation chaos and fully fused Trump’s campaign into the design of X’s content strategies. Outrageous assertions circle the drain on X, including false claims such as that immigrants are eating pets in Ohio, Kamala Harris’s Jamaican grandmother was white, and that immigrants are siphoning aid meant for Fema. It’s also worth noting that Musk is the biggest purveyor of anti-immigrant conspiracy theories on X. The hiss and crackle of disinformation is as ambient as it is unsettling.There are no clearer signs of Musk’s willingness to use platform power than his relentless amplification of his own account as well as Trump’s Twitter account on X’s “For You” algorithm. Moreover, Musk bemoaned the link suppression by Twitter in 2020 over Hunter Biden’s laptop while then hypocritically working with the Trump campaign in 2024 to ban accounts and links to leaked documents emanating from the Trump campaign that painted JD Vance in a negative light.Musk understands that he will personally benefit from being close to power. He supported Trump with a controversial political action committee that gave away cash to those who signed his online petition. Musk also paid millions for canvassers and spent many evenings in Pennsylvania stumping for Trump. With Trump’s win, he will need to make good on his promise of placing Musk in a position on the not-yet-created “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge – which is also the name of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency). While it sure seems like a joke taken too far, Musk has said he plans to cut $2tn from the national budget, which will wreak havoc on the economy and could be devastating when coupled with the mass deportation of 10 million people.In short, what we learn from the content strategies of X and Meta is simple: the design of platforms is now inextricable from the politics of the owner.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis wasn’t inevitable. In 2016, there was a public reckoning that social media had been weaponized by foreign adversaries and domestic actors to spread disinformation on a number of wedge issues to millions of unsuspecting users. Hundreds of studies were conducted in the intervening years, by internal corporate researchers and independent academics, showing that platforms amplify and expose audiences to conspiracy theories and fake news, which can lead to networked incitement and political violence.By 2020, disinformation had become its own industry and the need for anonymity lessened as rightwing media makers directly impugned election results, culminating in January 6. That led to an unprecedented decision by social media companies to ban Trump, who was still the sitting president, and a number of other high-profile rightwing pundits, thus illustrating just how powerful social media platforms had become as political actors.In reaction to this unprecedented move to curb disinformation, the richest man in the world, Musk, bought Twitter, laid off much of the staff, and sent internal company communications to journalists and politicians in 2022. Major investigations of university researchers and government agencies ensued, naming and shaming those who engaged with Twitter’s former leadership and made appeals for the companies to enforce its own terms of service during the 2020 election.Since then, these CEOs have ossified their political beliefs in the design of algorithms and by extension dictated political discourse for the rest of us.Whether it’s Musk’s strategy of overloading users with posts from himself and Trump, or Zuckerberg’s silencing of political discussion, it’s citizens who suffer from such chilling of speech. Of course, there is no way to know decisively how disinformation affected individual voters, but a recent Ipsos poll shows Trump voters believed disinformation on a number of wedge issues, claiming that immigration, crime, and the economy are all worse than data indicates. For now, let this knowledge be the canary warning of technofascism, where the US is not only ruled by elected politicians, but also by technological authoritarians who control speech on a global scale.If we are to disarm disinformers, we need a whole of society approach that values real Talk (Timely, Accurate Local Knowledge) and community safety. This might look like states passing legislation to fund local journalism in the public interest, because local news can bridge divides between neighbors and bring some accountability to the government. It will require our institutions, such as medicine, journalism, and academia, to fight for truth and justice, even in the face of anticipated retaliation. But most of all, it’s going to require that you and I do something quickly to protect those already in the crosshairs of Trump’s new world order, by donating to or joining community organizations tackling issues such as women’s rights and immigration. Even subscribing to a local news outlet is a profound political act these days. Let that sink in.Joan Donovan is the founder of the Critical Internet Studies Institute and assistant professor of journalism at Boston University More

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      Sundresses and rugged self-sufficiency: ‘tradwives’ tout a conservative American past … that didn’t exist

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      View image in fullscreen“Hey guys, and welcome back to my channel! Today, I’m going to be giving some tips for the ladies on how to attract a masculine man – a provider man,” the perky blonde woman tells the camera. Beaming and dressed in a pink dress complete with matching sweater, her swoop of blonde hair pinned back with a pearly headband, the woman rattles off her tips.“You want to look feminine, you want to be fit and take care of yourself and you want to be friendly,” the twentysomething woman continues. “I feel like the most feminine women I’ve come into encounter with are very peaceful. So have a sense of peace about you. Be content in your life without a man and pray for the right one to come your way.”She added: “You should be smiling a lot.”Meet Estee Williams. With more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, another 200,000 on TikTok and a history of appearances on shows like Dr Phil and Piers Morgan, Williams is one of the most prominent faces of an internet phenomenon-slash-controversy: the traditional wife, or “tradwife”.Tradwives first began trending online in 2020, when people were looking to wring excitement and comfort out of the smallest household tasks. Although there’s no single definition of “tradwife” – and many female influencers who’ve been decorated with the label don’t use it or even reject it – you know the tradwife when you see her. She is probably baking sourdough in an immaculate outfit, has a gaggle of kids (or wants them), and suggests – either silently or very loudly, like Williams – that life is better when women adhere to “traditional” gender roles and perfect at-home domesticity and nurturing.With the selection of JD Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, the values that undergird the tradwife lifestyle are taking center stage at the highest levels of politics. Vance has fashioned himself as a champion of the so-called nuclear family, disparaging “the sexual revolution” and divorce. Days after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Vance tweeted: “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had.”He has also suggested that Kamala Harris, who is likely to become the Democratic nominee for president after Joe Biden ended his presidential campaign on Sunday, should not have political power because she does not have biological children.“Why have we let the Democrat party become controlled by people who don’t have any children? And why is this just a normal fact of American life?” Vance asked during a 2021 Virginia talk. “That the leaders of our country should be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring, via their own children?” Harris has two step-children.Vance’s own wife, Usha Vance, earned a law degree from Yale Law School as well as a master’s from Cambridge University. She clerked for Brett Kavanaugh before he joined the supreme court, and, up until JD Vance’s nomination for the vice-presidency, worked at a law firm that describes itself as “radically progressive”. Usha Vance resigned from the firm last week to focus on supporting her family.Tradwives are trending – and Vance is rising – as the United States is being roiled by fights over gender rights, which are only set to intensify if Trump and Harris go head to head. American women are grappling with a backlash against abortion rights, their economic mobility and feminism itself. They are also dealing with the failure of US social programs to keep up with the rising cost of living or to provide meaningful support for working moms. As of 2023, the United States was one of only six countries on the planet – as well as the only rich country – not to offer any kind of national paid leave.Tradwives portray a fundamentally conservative and individual solution to that societal failure: retreat not only into the home, but also into history. Using the iconography of an idealized past, they evoke the economic and emotional fantasy that families, and especially women, can opt out of the complexity of modern society. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could choose to live on one income? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could choose to stay home and raise children, rather than be forced into it because childcare is so damn expensive?In reality, that past was only made possible through extensive government intervention – the kind to which modern Republicans are fiercely opposed.A softer lifeFor the internet to dub you a tradwife, you typically have to be more than a homemaker. You must swath yourself in an aesthetic that draws from a vast and varied array of historical reference points.The account of Gwen the Milkmaid, a blonde who boasts about 70,000 TikTok followers and a backstory as a former OnlyFans worker turned God-fearing tradwife, lives at the center of a Venn diagram of common tradwife inspirations: the nuclear family of the 1950s, Little House on the Prairie, and a 19th-century belief in “separate spheres”, when men went out to Do Industry while women upheld a cult of domesticity. Gwen likes to frolic in sundresses, “homestead” in the Canadian suburbs, and glory in “the feminine urge to take care of your husband and make him food all the time”. (Gwen also throws in a distinctly modern set of pseudoscientific beliefs, like “the sun doesn’t cause cancer”.) Above all, tradwives like Gwen preach self-sufficiency.But 19th-century homesteading, the source of so much inspiration for both tradwives and the GOP – was not a private endeavor undertaken by hardy men and their supportive wives. It was the result of the huge government subsidy program known as the Homestead Act. The 1950s, another conservative inspiration, were also shaped by government subsidies for housing and education – as well as a post-second world war movement to pressure women out of the workforce – that briefly made it economically possible for vast numbers of white American women to live as housewives. (These subsidies were nowhere near as available to people of color.)The women of the 19th century and 1950s also lived without the right to birth control or, after they were invented, credit cards. (Gwen the Milkmaid is skeptical of the former.) Domestic violence was not taken seriously. Rape victims’ sexual history could be brought up in trials, while marital rape was not even a crime. There’s a reason that the 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique, a book about the widespread unhappiness of white middle-class housewives – written by a white middle-class housewife – triggered the advent of second-wave feminism.View image in fullscreen“None of these people would seriously want to go back to a period when a man had a right to rape his wife,” said Stephanie Coontz, the author of six acclaimed books about the history of marriage and families, including her forthcoming book For Better and Worse: The Problematic Past and the Challenging Future of Marriage. Tradwives are nostalgic for the 1950s because, she said, “they’re looking back at a time when it was economically possible for a woman who didn’t want to work out of the home to stay home.”The social and economic conditions that made the nuclear family structure so dominant in the 1950s were also exceedingly unique. Except for this post-war period, it has been far from traditional for US families to be made up of a breadwinner husband, a wife who stays home to do unpaid cooking and cleaning as well as 2.5 kids who get to enjoy an extended childhood.“The tradwives misrepresent what they are doing as what everybody used to do,” Coontz said.Many so-called tradwives do openly work for money – often through home-based small businesses, influencing or a combination of the two, such as selling courses on how to be a stay-at-home influencer. Like all influencers, their product is their own lifestyle.‘A sneaky little bit of prosperity gospel’Tradwifery is not a monolith, and some of the most popular women who have been labeled “tradwives” by the internet don’t talk about politics or gender roles. But social media algorithms and chatter can co-opt them into conservative projects about femininity and families that these women may not personally support.The internet has crowned @Ballerinafarm, whose real name is Hannah Neeleman, the queen of tradwifery. Neeleman, who told the New York Times that she was unfamiliar with the term “tradwife”, has 9 million followers on Instagram, eight children, and a husband whose father has founded airlines, among them JetBlue. They all live on a working farm in Utah, where Neeleman – who has a mane of blond hair that would make Cinderella jealous – helps run the farm, cooks meals from scratch and competes in beauty pageants. Neeleman has been doing this since before the Covid pandemic struck, but after being literally crowned Mrs American, Neeleman competed in Mrs World this year days after giving birth and rocketed to mainstream fame.Neeleman leans into the homesteading aesthetic, framing herself as a “city folk” Juilliard-trained ballerina who chose to go back to the land. But, unlike Estee Williams (who supports Donald Trump) and Gwen the Milkmaid (who doesn’t seem to like Justin Trudeau), Neeleman does not talk about her politics. Same goes for the model Nara Smith, a mother of three with 8 million followers on TikTok. Although Smith is open about her work as a model, describes herself as a “working mom” and is more likely to cook in a slinky slip than gingham, she has also been labeled a tradwife.She’s known for videos where she’ll whisper things like: “My husband has been loving Snickers bars and when he was craving one, I just decided to make him a batch myself.” Other recent productions include homemade Cheez-Its and cough drops, because Smith “doesn’t usually keep cough drops or traditional medicine in the house”. She cooks the messy cough drops while wearing a (white!) dress that retails for $2,990. Her motherhood and marriage look effortless – which may be the source of the tradwife label.“The sort of totalizing world of the tradwife – she’s in control of her home, she’s in her home, she’s controlling the food that comes in, controlling the media that comes in – there’s a real appeal to purity,” said Kelsey Kramer McGinnis, an adjunct professor at Iowa’s Grand View University. “There is a sneaky little bit of prosperity gospel thinking in here. ‘If you live this lifestyle, if you do this thing that God is calling you to [do] as a woman, he will provide. And not only will he provide, he will provide beautifully. He will provide a beautiful family, a beautiful home, beautiful surroundings, a beautiful body.’”McGinnis first encountered tradwives because, as she researched Christian influencers for her forthcoming book on Christian parenting, her social media algorithm presumed she’d be interested in tradwives, too.“I really quickly started to realize that there was a ton of overlap. Not just among the people making it but among the audience,” said McGinnis, who has written about tradwives for Christianity Today.View image in fullscreenAfter I watched several Williams videos on YouTube, the platform started serving me ads for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the powerhouse Christian law firm that masterminded the overturning of Roe and continues to chip away at abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. In May, Media Matters for America found that watching tradwife content on TikTok led its “For You” Page to be flooded with far-right conspiracy theory content “within an afternoon”.Estee Williams, Gwen, Neeleman and Smith did not respond to detailed lists of questions from the Guardian for this story through their email addresses and social media accounts. Smith did also not immediately reply to a request for comment through her representation at IMG Models.‘Starting with the American family’Despite the tradwives’ popularity, it’s not financially feasible for many women to quit their jobs. It’s not even clear that women want to. Almost 80% of women between the ages of 25 and 54 are now part of the US workforce.While Maga Republicans like Vance have a lot to say about the “traditional” family, they don’t seem interested in reviving the kind of widespread social programs that enabled it. Vance has called universal childcare “a massive subsidy to the lifestyle preferences of the affluent over the preferences of the middle and working class”.Project 2025, a policy playbook written by the influential conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, has a litany of proposals aimed at the intersection of labor and family life that stop well short of a full-spectrum social safety net. The playbook suggests improving retirement savings for families where only one spouse works, allowing workers to accumulate time off and incentivizing employers to provide on-site childcare.“We must replace ‘woke’ nonsense with a healthy vision of the role of labor policy in our society, starting with the American family,” Project 2025 adds. To that end, its architects propose that the Department of Labor to “commit to honest study of the challenges for women in the world of professional work”.Inadvertently or not, tradwives are already supplying an answer to this study, and it’s one that conservatives may like: what if women just stayed home? More

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      Meta lifts restrictions on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts

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      Meta has removed previous restrictions on the Facebook and Instagram accounts of Donald Trump as the 2024 election nears, the company announced on Friday.Trump was allowed to return to the social networks in 2023 with “guardrails” in place, after being banned over his online behavior during the 6 January insurrection. Those guardrails have now been removed.“In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for president on the same basis,” Meta said in a blogpost, citing the Republican national convention, slated for next week, which will formalize Trump as the party’s candidate.As a result, Meta said, Trump’s accounts will no longer be subject to heightened suspension penalties, which Meta said were created in response to “extreme and extraordinary circumstances” and “have not had to be deployed”.“All US presidential candidates remain subject to the same community standards as all Facebook and Instagram users, including those policies designed to prevent hate speech and incitement to violence,” the company’s blogpost reads.Since his return to Meta’s social networks, Trump has primarily shared campaign information, attacks on Democratic candidate Biden, and memes on his accounts.Critics of Trump and online safety advocates have expressed concern that Trump’s return could lead to a rise of misinformation and incitement of violence, as was seen during the Capitol riot that prompted his initial ban.The Biden campaign condemned Meta’s decision in a statement on Friday, saying it is a “greedy, reckless decision” that constitutes “ a direct attack on our safety and our democracy”.“Restoring his access is like handing your car keys to someone you know will drive your car into a crowd and off a cliff,” said campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak. “It is holding a megaphone for a bonafide racist who will shout his hate and white supremacy from the rooftops and try to take it mainstream.”In addition to Meta platforms, other major social media firms banned Trump due to his online activity surrounding the 6 January attack, including Twitter (now X), Snapchat and YouTube.The former president was allowed back on X last year by the decision of Elon Musk, who bought the company in 2022, though the former president has not yet tweeted.Trump returned to YouTube in March 2023. He remains banned from Snapchat.Trump founded his own social network, Truth Social, in early 2022. More