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      Italy’s Next Government Hinges on a Familiar Face: Silvio Berlusconi

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      Giorgia Meloni’s likely turn as prime minister will depend on support from the billionaire media mogul. So may the health of Italian democracy.ROME — During the final campaign rally for Italy’s right-wing coalition before it emerged victorious in Italy’s elections last month, the billionaire mogul Silvio Berlusconi, a smile frozen on his waxen face, stood center stage, propped up, quite literally, by his hard-right partners, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, who waved Mr. Berlusconi’s hand above his head.The tableau may have evoked an Italian remake of “Weekend at Bernie’s” more than a modern-day triumvirate. But the three will now make up the most right-wing Italian government since Mussolini, with Mr. Berlusconi, 86 and decreasingly popular, as its fragile linchpin.It was nearly 30 years ago that Mr. Berlusconi brought his partners’ once small, marginalized parties into one of his governments and Italy’s political mainstream. But today it is Ms. Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the wreckage of Italy’s experiment with Fascism last century, who is almost certain to be the next prime minister when a government is formed, perhaps as soon as this week.The question now, though, is whether the aging center-right leader can fulfill his promise to act as a moderating, pro-European force on Italy’s next government, or whether he has lost control of the politics he set in motion that have made Italy, the birthplace of Fascism, once again a testing ground for the far right’s advance in Europe. On Monday, Sweden installed its own right-wing government, backed by a party with neo-Nazi roots.“Europe expects much from us,” Mr. Berlusconi, who declined a request for an interview, wrote last week on Twitter. “And we consider ourselves the guarantor of the next government.”Even before the government begins, the tensions are already evident. Last week, as Mr. Berlusconi took his new seat in the Senate, a body that almost a decade ago temporarily barred him after a conviction for tax fraud, photographers zoomed in on his notes, perhaps purposefully left visible, describing Ms. Meloni as “overbearing, arrogant, offensive.” Asked about it by reporters, Ms. Meloni snapped that he forgot something: “Not blackmailable.”The two seemed to make peace during a meeting on Monday evening in Rome; they released a photo of themselves smiling together, and Mr. Berlusconi called them “united.”The notion of Mr. Berlusconi as a protector of Italian democracy is for many a deeply troubling one.Supporters of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party last month in Cagliari, Sardinia. Ms. Meloni, the party leader, is almost certain to be the next prime minister when a government is formed.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesHis legions of critics recall his abuses of government power to protect his business interests, his libertine escapades with young women and so-called Bunga Bunga parties while in office, his degrading of Italian women and culture with his humor, and his often crude television channels, which, along with his newspapers and magazines, he exploited for political propaganda.For them, he is the villain who debased Italian democracy, whose conflicts of interest, questionable associations and apparent illegality set off an opposition movement of angry anti-establishment populists and drove the left into a nervous breakdown from which it has still not recovered.On the international stage, he is a longtime friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom he defended as recently as last month, causing a headache for Ms. Meloni, who is a strong supporter of Ukraine in the war with Russia.Mr. Berlusconi also prompted a mutiny of centrists in his own party in July when he sank the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, whom he publicly admired, as he reached for another taste of power.“It’s very important to understand immediately that Berlusconi is no friend to democracy,” Paul Ginsborg, the biographer of Mr. Berlusconi, said in a conversation recently, before his death.But given the composition of the new government, some analysts believe that Mr. Berlusconi may be the best friend proponents of a pro-Europe, centrist and democratic Italy have.“The responsible part of the center-right is embodied by the leader considered for a long time the most irresponsible in the world,” said Claudio Cerasa, the author of a new book, “The Chains of the Right,” about the embrace of conspiracy theories by nationalists and populists.“Europe expects much from us,” Mr. Berlusconi wrote last week on Twitter. “And we consider ourselves the guarantor of the next government.”Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesMr. Cerasa, who is also the editor of Il Foglio, a newspaper founded by Mr. Berlusconi’s family but is now independent, noted that Mr. Berlusconi alone on the Italian right had rejected Trumpism, anti-elite populism and Euroskeptic nationalism. He also served as a counterweight to vaccine skepticism exercised by Ms. Meloni and Mr. Salvini, and he governed in coalitions with the center left.Many in the political establishment believe that Mr. Berlusconi will prevent Ms. Meloni from endangering European unity by gravitating back toward her old allies, including the Euroskeptic and hard-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France. “He’s like a compass,” Mr. Cerasa said.It is not clear that Ms. Meloni is following him. This month, she, along with former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Orban, took part in a rally of the far-right Spanish party Vox. “We are not monsters,” she said in a video message. “The people understand that.”Ms. Meloni, aware of concerns about her ideological past, is eager to assuage international markets by appointing mainstream technocrats to key economic ministries. But they keep turning her down.Some argue that Mr. Berlusconi’s most lasting legacy on Italian politics — more than the debate he forced about burdensome taxation or judicial overreach — may be his creation of a modern European right-wing coalition, made from previously untouchable parties, which are now led in their current iterations by Ms. Meloni and Mr. Salvini.In doing so, Mr. Berlusconi eliminated the notion, John Foot, a historian of Fascism, said, that “a Fascist should not speak, should not exist, should not have a place in Italian society.”Mr. Berlusconi said in 2019 at a political rally that, when it came to Mr. Salvini’s League party and the “Fascists,” “we let them in in ’94 and we legitimized them.” He insisted, though, that “we are the brain, the heart, the backbone.”“Without us,” he said, “the center right would never exist and will never exist.”Ms. Meloni last month in Rome. Some argue that Mr. Berlusconi’s most lasting legacy on Italian politics may be his creation of a modern European right-wing coalition.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Berlusconi’s longtime supporters cast that alliance as a democratic masterstroke, for forcing the fringe to normalize and compromise in the transactional reality of the capital.“He transformed these two movements which were, let’s say, loose cannons, or who were out-of-control variables, and brought them into the constitutional harbor,” said Renato Brunetta, who helped found Mr. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. “This was an element of stabilization.”But after Forza Italia helped trigger new elections, Mr. Brunetta, who was a minister in Mr. Draghi’s government, quit the party and said Ms. Meloni was “actually regressive when it comes to right-wing culture in Italy.”Ms. Meloni, for her part, appreciated what Mr. Berlusconi had done. In a recent interview, she acknowledged that he “did something unexpected” when in 1993 he supported the mayoral candidacy of the leader at the time of her National Alliance party, who later served as Mr. Berlusconi’s foreign minister.“That surely brought many who maybe did not have the courage to say it, and thought it in their hearts, to come out,” Ms. Meloni said. “In this sense, it is the theme of legitimization.”But, Ms. Meloni added, “I believe the time of the right had arrived.”It now clearly has. Ms. Meloni’s party received 26 percent of the vote, larger than any other. She insisted she was not merely carrying Mr. Berlusconi along because she needed his party’s small percentage to govern, as he once needed her party.“We don’t need to carry him with us,” Ms. Meloni said. She added, “He may be the person who has imposed himself in the Italian history, in the Italian Republican history, more than any other in the last 20 years.”Indeed, despite his shuffling gait and the flag-bearing youths who shield him from view as he exits the stage, things seem to be going Mr. Berlusconi’s way.Last week, his hair looking lacquered, he held court during the first seating of the newly elected Senate.Mr. Berlusconi, center, on Thursday at the first seating of the newly elected Senate in Rome.Antonio Masiello/Getty ImagesAll of the contradictions of Italy’s history and current politics were on display. As were the tensions between the right-wing partners.The session was opened by a Holocaust survivor and senator for life who noted that Mussolini’s Fascism took power 100 years ago. Senators elected as their president Ignazio La Russa, a leader in Ms. Meloni’s party, who carries the middle name Benito and keeps Mussolini memorabilia in his house.Mr. Berlusconi, who received handshakes and selfie requests from senators, threw down his pen and angrily cursed Mr. La Russa, whose presidency he tried to block as a reprisal for Ms. Meloni’s refusal to make a minister out of his own lieutenant, Licia Ronzulli, a former nurse who sat beside him and used to help organize his after-hours soirées with young women.Mr. Berlusconi’s girlfriend, Marta Fascina, 32, won a seat in the Parliament representing a Sicilian town she never campaigned in. On Sept. 29, his birthday, she arranged for a hot-air balloon to release thousands of red balloon hearts over his villa’s garden.The next day, Mr. Berlusconi posted a video of his birthday dinner where waiters in white gloves brought out a multitiered cake — one for his soccer team, one for his political party, one for his media empire.Atop it all sat a likeness of a Mr. Berlusconi, much younger and in his trademark suit, grinning next to an edible earth. More

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      The Fall of Liz Cheney and the Rise of Marjorie Taylor Greene

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      The Jan. 6 committee, which held its ninth and likely final hearing last Thursday, has lionized the figure of the Decent Republican.Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, was its obvious star, imbued with moral authority by the fact that she’d sacrificed her position in Republican leadership, and possibly her political career, to stand up to Donald Trump. But there were many others.Rusty Bowers, the Trump-supporting speaker of the Arizona House who refused to help the former president subvert his state’s election results, was a portrait of rectitude, reading from his journal, “I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.” Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s chief of staff, defied attempts at intimidation to describe a president at once calculating and berserk.“When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans,” the committee’s Democratic chairman, Bennie Thompson, said on Thursday.This attempt to separate Trump from the Republican Party made political sense. The committee was trying to reach beyond committed Democratic voters who were already appalled by Trump, and the Republicans who testified had the credibility that comes with acting against their own political interest. But the emphasis on Republican valor meant that the story the committee told, while compelling, was incomplete. Going forward, the threat to the American experiment comes not just from Trump but from the Republican base, which is making the figure of the Decent Republican a quaint curiosity.The problem for Decent Republicans is that their party’s internal democracy makes a commitment to democracy writ large impossible. For decades, prominent right-wing politicians, pastors and pundits — Cheney very much included — cultivated in their base the belief that Democrats represent totalitarian evil. Not surprisingly, the base came to see Democratic victories as intolerable, and rejected candidates who would respect the results of general elections. As The Washington Post reported, a majority of Republican nominees for House, Senate and important statewide offices either doubt or deny that Joe Biden won in 2020.Liz CheneyMark Peterson for The New York TimesQueen of the election deniers is Marjorie Taylor Greene. In his engrossing new book “Weapons of Mass Delusion,” Robert Draper chronicles Greene’s rise in parallel with Cheney’s fall. (An adapted excerpt was just published by The Times Magazine.)Plenty of Republican officials, and ex-officials, wish it were the reverse. Draper has a detailed re-creation of the Feb. 3, 2021, meeting where House Republicans first voted on removing Cheney from her position as Republican conference chair, a vote she survived. “How is it going to look if we kick out Liz Cheney and keep Marjorie Taylor Greene?” asked Tom Reed, a moderate Republican from upstate New York.Initially, Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader, persuaded the party to close ranks behind both Cheney and Greene. “I’m not letting Dems pick us off one by one,” he said, adding: “You elected me leader. Let. Me. Lead.”But McCarthy is, fundamentally, a follower. By May, Draper writes, House Republicans were telling him that “Cheney was becoming a major distraction and a problem for their voters back home.” Greene, meanwhile, had a deep connection to those voters, who considered Democrats demonic and the elections they win fake. This gave her power that McCarthy deferred to.According to Draper, McCarthy invited Greene “to high-level conferences in his office, making a show of sitting next to her and soliciting her opinions.” Last year Democrats stripped Greene of her committee assignments for promoting conspiracy theories and suggesting that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, should be executed. If Republicans win the House, McCarthy has promised to put Greene on more powerful committees than she was on before. A source told Draper that McCarthy even offered Greene a leadership position.The truth is, if Republicans win — a recent New York Times/Siena College poll shows them ahead by three points among likely voters — Greene will be a leader no matter what McCarthy does. Chances are she’ll be at the forefront of an expanding MAGA squad, with at least one Republican who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and maybe more. A Georgia Republican who has promised to be a “great teammate” for Greene, Mike Collins, has a campaign video in which he shoots a gun at what looks like a garbage can full of explosives marked “Voting Machine.”It goes without saying that these Republicans will disband the Jan. 6 committee and impeach Joe Biden. They’ll probably seek vengeance for Greene — and Paul Gosar, who lost his committee assignments for tweeting an anime video altered to show him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — by stripping Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives of their committee assignments. Expect them to shut down the government more than once and to launch investigations into the Department of Justice over its investigation of Trump. If the 2024 election is disputed, they’ll do all they can to swing it to Republicans. It’s what their voters are sending them to Congress to do.“Our institutions only hold when men and women of good faith make them hold, regardless of the political cost,” Cheney said at the most recent Jan. 6 hearing. “We have no guarantee that these men and women will be in place next time.” Indeed, we have a guarantee that many of them won’t be.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Oath Keepers Leader Bought Arsenal of Weapons Ahead of Jan. 6

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      The prosecution in the seditious conspiracy trial of Stewart Rhodes and other members of the militia introduced evidence that he spent as much as $20,000 on rifles, ammunition and other equipment.In the days before a pro-Trump mob — including members of his own organization — broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, went on a cross-country weapon-buying spree.Setting out for Washington from Texas, his home state, Mr. Rhodes stopped at least six times, bank records show, purchasing items like assault-style rifles, ammunition and scopes. Sometimes he dropped into gun shops and sometimes he conducted the transactions in parking lots with private sellers he met online.By the time he reached his destination, prosecutors said on Monday at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and four of his subordinates on seditious conspiracy charges, the Oath Keepers leader had spent as much as $20,000 on what amounted to a small arsenal that included at least three rifles and an Israeli-made semiautomatic shotgun.Prosecutors have not yet told the jury precisely what Mr. Rhodes did with the weapons he amassed as he and a lawyer for the Oath Keepers, Kellye SoRelle, made their way from Texas, through Mississippi and Tennessee, to the Hilton Garden Inn in Vienna, Va., where they stayed on Jan. 6.But the purchases took place as Mr. Rhodes was overseeing the creation of what he has called an armed “quick reaction force” that was staged in other hotel rooms in Virginia, ready to rush to the aid of Oath Keepers stationed at the Capitol if they found themselves in need.The armed contingent is central to the Justice Department’s case that Mr. Rhodes and his four co-defendants — Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell — committed seditious conspiracy by plotting to use violence to stop the transfer of power from President Donald J. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.While the “quick reaction force” — often referred to as the Q.R.F. — was never deployed to Washington and its weapons remained in Virginia, prosecutors opened the trial two weeks ago by telling the jury that Mr. Rhodes and other Oath Keepers “concocted a plan for an armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of democracy.”“The point of the Q.R.F. was to prevent Biden from taking power in whatever form that took,” an F.B.I. agent, Sylvia Hilgeman, testified on Monday. “I think the Q.R.F. was meant to occupy D.C.”The government has already described how several Oath Keepers stashed their weapons in rooms at the Comfort Inn in Ballston, Va., six miles from downtown Washington, leaving them in the care of compatriots who were prepared to ferry them across the Potomac River into the city.On Monday, prosecutors showed the jury surveillance camera footage from the Comfort Inn of various Oath Keepers wheeling rifle cases and duffel bags on luggage carts down the hotel’s hallways. The carts were at times so full that one member of the group, Edward Vallejo, had to get a running start to push a cart out of an elevator and move it around a corner.The prosecutors also showed the jury a map put together from cellphone data and credit card records that plotted the movements of more than two dozen Oath Keepers arriving in the Washington area from states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona.“There were a lot of firearms cases,” a former Oath Keeper testified last week about the quick reaction force. “I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military.”The armed group is also key to the Oath Keepers’ defense.Phillip Linder, one of Mr. Rhodes’s lawyers, has told the jury that the force was never meant to be used as part of an offensive assault against the Capitol. Rather, Mr. Linder has said, the Oath Keepers were waiting for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — a move, he claimed, that would have given the group standing as a militia to employ force of arms in support of Mr. Trump.Mr. Rhodes did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, and none of the Oath Keepers defendants who went into the building that day were believed to have brought weapons.Prosecutors revealed on Monday that one day before the Capitol attack, Mr. Rhodes sent several night-vision devices he had bought to a woman named Marsha Lessard, who ran an organization called the Virginia Freedom Keepers.Ms. Lessard, an associate of Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, had a permit with other organizers for a protest on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. Members of her group also took part in a conference call on Dec. 30, 2020, during which Jason Sullivan, Mr. Stone’s onetime social adviser, urged listeners to “descend on the Capitol” on Jan. 6 and ensure that lawmakers inside “understand that people are breathing down their necks.”Earlier in the day, prosecutors showed the jury some sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Rhodes had swapped with Ms. SoRelle, the lawyer, in the days leading up to Jan. 6, suggesting that the two had more than the usual lawyer-client relationship.The messages were apparently introduced to chip away at one of the Oath Keepers’ possible defenses: that members of the group had been acting on Ms. SoRelle’s professional advice when they believed the “quick reaction force” could have been legally called up by Mr. Trump.Even after fleeing Washington on Jan. 6, Mr. Rhodes continued buying stockpiles of guns and ammunition, the government has said in court papers filed before the trial began. As Mr. Biden’s inauguration neared, Mr. Rhodes — accompanied by Joshua James, an Oath Keepers member from Alabama — made multiple trips to purchase thousands of dollars’ worth of weapons, scopes, magazines, holsters and firearm maintenance equipment.Mr. James pleaded guilty in March to seditious conspiracy and has been cooperating with the government’s prosecution. The jury could soon hear from him and other Oath Keepers who have entered guilty pleas.If Mr. James does appear as a witness, he could tell the jury what he told prosecutors as part of his plea deal: that in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, Mr. Rhodes told him and his fellow Oath Keepers to be prepared to secure the perimeter of the White House and use “lethal force” to stop anyone, including members of the National Guard, from removing Mr. Trump from the building.Mr. James could also testify that he stored some of Mr. Rhodes’s arsenal in a storage shed in Alabama after Mr. Rhodes instructed him that he should “be prepared for violence in the event of a civil war.”Under cross-examination by James Lee Bright, a lawyer for Mr. Rhodes, Ms. Hilgeman, the F.B.I. agent, acknowledged that as Jan. 6 came to an end, the Oath Keepers took the weapons that they had stashed with the quick reaction force home with them.“So the armed rebellion was unarmed?” Mr. Bright asked.“The armed rebellion wasn’t over,” Ms. Hilgeman said. 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      Rightist Party in Sweden Gets No Formal Role but Big Say in Government

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      The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats will have a say over new policies for the incoming government under a complicated leadership agreement.STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s Parliament approved a new right-wing government Monday that includes the Liberal and Christian Democrat parties but no formal role for the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, without whom the right-wing bloc would not have achieved its narrow victory last month.Despite being the largest party in the bloc after capturing a fifth of the national vote on Sept. 11, the Sweden Democrats will have only a supporting role in the new government, which will be led by the incoming prime minister, Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party.Normally, the party with the most votes would be included in the government, but because of ideological differences and the Sweden Democrats’ neo-Nazi roots and anti-liberal policies, the other parties did not want to give them a formal role in the governing coalition, Jonas Hinnfors, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, said.“It’s realpolitik,” Mr. Hinnfors said.The Liberal Party conditioned its support for the coalition on excluding the Sweden Democrats from a seat in the government.The price for the Sweden Democrats’ support of the new government, hammered out in a 62-page pact, is high, analysts said, and includes the parties’ cooperation in seven policy areas, including criminal justice and immigration.The document focuses heavily on the areas of crime and immigration, priorities for the Sweden Democrats, and is “very short and rather vague” on other key issues — including tax reform, medical care and education, Mr. Hinnfors said.“There’s nothing about foreign policy, the E.U., NATO or defense spending,” he added, alluding to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the security situation in Europe and the Baltic region, in particular.The pact does call for an inquiry into a ban on begging, driven by the Sweden Democrats and widely criticized by the Liberals.Jimmie Akesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, touted the pact as a victory that will broadly fulfill his party’s campaign promises.Jimmie Akesson, second from right, the leader of the Sweden Democrats, in Parliament in Stockholm on Monday.Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“A change in government must also entail a paradigm shift when it comes to immigration and integration policy — and for me there is no doubt that this agreement means just that,” he told reporters.The pact covers mostly Sweden Democrats’ policy priorities, including doubling sentences for gang-related crimes, expanding police powers in certain neighborhoods to stop and search people for weapons without probable cause, and restricting immigration to the absolute minimum required by E.U. rules.The agreement also calls for the creation of committees composed of members of the Sweden Democrats and the other three parties to hammer out new government policies.“If there are differences of opinion, they can veto a measure,” said Sverker Gustavsson, a political scientist at Uppsala University, of the Sweden Democrats. The agreement gives the Sweden Democrats exactly what they wanted — the strongest possible influence without the accountability of sitting in the new government, Mr. Gustavsson said. “This gives them a lot of informal power,” he said. “It is an ideal solution for them.”Sweden’s Parliament meeting in Stockholm on Monday.Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Liberal Party appears to have made the most concessions — on criminal justice and individual freedoms. Observers said some of these concessions crossed previous red lines for the party.“We are at the brink of something very different in key respects in Swedish society: how we relate to each other, the forces of the state in relation to individual freedoms and what it is to be a foreigner in this country,” Mr. Hinnfors said.The Sweden Democrats might be more comfortable outside the government, he added. “They are in the ultimate blackmailing position. The government needs them, and they can withdraw support at any moment.”This isn’t the first time a strong far right anti-immigration has held a supporting role in a Scandinavian government without a seat in the cabinet. The Danish People’s Party supported the governing liberal-conservative parties for 10 years until 2011. “They had huge reach over and really dominated Danish politics in immigration policies,” Mr. Hinnfors said. The Parliament voted 176 to 173 in favor of Mr. Kristersson taking the reins as prime minister. He will succeed Magdalena Andersson, who has been prime minister since last November.Amid criticism leveled at the Liberal Party, which many see as going against its own ideology by supporting the governing coalition, Ms. Andersson, said that the Social Democrats were still open to cooperate “with all good forces that want Sweden to become more like Sweden. That goes for the Liberals, too.” More

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      The Rise of Salem Media, a Conservative Radio Juggernaut

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      In recent months, the conservative personalities Eric Metaxas, Sebastian Gorka and Charlie Kirk have used their nationally syndicated radio shows to discuss baseless claims of rigged voting machines, accuse election officials of corruption and espouse ballot fraud conspiracy theories.Now, the three men are joining a live speaking tour that will take them across Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and other battleground states to promote those views — and Republican candidates — ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.The radio hosts and their tour are united by a common backer: Salem Media Group, a publicly traded media company in Irving, Texas. Mr. Metaxas, Mr. Gorka and Mr. Kirk have contracts with the company, which is also hosting the Battleground Talkers trip. The tour features more than half a dozen other conservative media personalities as well, including Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager, who also have deals with Salem.Created as a Christian radio network nearly 50 years ago by two brothers-in-law, Salem has quietly turned into a conservative media juggernaut as it increasingly takes an activist stance in the midterm elections. The company has publicly said it wants a strong turnout of conservative voters for Nov. 8, and its hosts have amplified the messages of conspiracy theorists, including misinformation about the voting process.“The war for America’s soul is on the line,” Salem said in promotional materials for the tour. It added that the radio hosts were traveling to “influence those who are undecided.”Salem, which has a market capitalization of nearly $45 million, is smaller than audio competitors like Cumulus Media and iHeartMedia, as well as conservative media organizations such as Fox News. But it stands out for its blend of right-leaning politics and Christian content and its vast network of 100 radio stations and more than 3,000 affiliates, many of them reaching deep into parts of America that don’t engage with most mainstream media outlets.Salem also operates dozens of religious and conservative websites, as well as podcasts, television news, book publishing and a social media influencer network. The company, which describes its news content as “the antidote to the mainstream media,” has said it reaches 11 million radio listeners.Salem expanded into film this year by financing “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked but popular movie that claimed voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.Charity Rachelle for The New York TimesThis year, it expanded into film by financing “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked but popular movie that claimed significant voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. It was directed by Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative figure who has a deal with Salem, and features interviews with others who have shows on Salem. The company plans to publish a book version of the film this month.The general public may not be familiar with Salem, “but their hosts are big names and they have huge reach, which makes them one of the most powerful forces in conservative media that hardly anyone knows about,” said Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, a nonprofit that fights misinformation and supports media competition.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.Salem did not respond to requests for interviews. Phil Boyce, the company’s senior vice president of spoken word, said in a news release for the battleground states tour that “there has never been a more important midterm election than this one, and Salem is thrilled to be front and center, leading the charge.”Mr. Metaxas, Mr. Prager, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Hewitt and Mr. D’Souza did not respond to requests for comment. In his response for comment, Mr. Gorka said The New York Times was “FAKENEWS fraud.”Sebastian Gorka, a right-wing personality who has a radio show on Salem Media, had former President Donald J. Trump on his show this year.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesSalem has faced legal challenges as its hosts have discussed conspiracy theories about voter fraud. Eric Coomer, a former executive of Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election technology, has filed lawsuits against Salem, Mr. Metaxas and several media outlets since 2020 for defamation after being accused on air of perpetuating voter fraud and joining the left-wing antifa movement. Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University and author of “Messengers of Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics,” said Salem’s effect was far-reaching.“They are using their many different properties for coordinated messaging to promote misinformation, which is undermining democracy,” she said.Salem was started in 1974 with two tiny radio stations in North Carolina owned by two brothers-in-law, Edward G. Atsinger III and Stuart W. Epperson. Over time, they steadily added more stations across the country and sold blocks of airtime for sermons. Salem is now in most major radio markets..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The company went public in 1999 as the internet was rising. In its public offering prospectus, Salem said it would focus on acquiring digital platforms and cross-promoting content across its channels to attract new audiences.In 2006, Salem bought the conservative political website Townhall.com; other deals for conservative sites followed, including HotAir, Twitchy and PJ Media. It purchased a publishing company, Eagle Publishing, in 2014 in a deal that included RedState, a conservative blog, and Regnery, a publisher with conservative authors like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Regnery said last year that it was “proud to stand in the breach” with Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, when it agreed to print his book after Simon & Schuster dropped the title in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.This summer, Salem said it had added a podcast hosted by two “culture warriors,” Rob McCoy and Bryce Eddy of the talk show “Liberty Station.” In January, the company awarded its Culture Warrior of the Year award to Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, who has made a point of goading liberals.More recently, Salem has promoted to advertisers its “360-degree deals,” meaning that it can amplify messages across radio, podcasts, books, film and websites.Salem has said it is “thrilled to be front and center, leading the charge” in next month’s midterm elections.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesPolitics were not new to Salem’s founders. Mr. Epperson unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1984 and 1986 as a Republican. Mr. Atsinger contributed to Republican candidates like George W. Bush and Larry Elder, a Salem radio host who mounted a failed campaign in the California governor’s recall election last year. In Washington, Salem fought to remove regulatory hurdles that complicated its acquisition spree.At the beginning of the year, Mr. Atsinger stepped down as Salem’s chief executive and became chairman, succeeding Mr. Epperson, who took on the title of chairman emeritus.Salem’s executives largely stayed out of editorial decisions — until the Trump administration, said Ben Howe, a former employee of RedState; Craig Silverman, a former Salem radio commentator in Denver; and a third former employee, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation.In July 2017, Salem held an event at the White House, and several radio hosts interviewed top Trump administration officials. At a Salem reception at the Capitol the next day, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, gave speeches.“There was a lot of closeness,” said Mr. Silverman, who attended the events. “McConnell and McCarthy praised Salem, and vice versa. It felt like some sort of team effort.”In April 2018, Salem’s RedState blog fired several employees who had been vocal critics of Mr. Trump. The site’s unofficial slogan had long been “Take on the left. Clean up the right,” said Mr. Howe, a writer for the site who was one of those fired. “But one to two years into office, everything changed. It was like it was no longer good for business to be critical of Trump.”Mr. Silverman said his radio show was cut off in November 2019 as he excoriated Mr. Trump over accusations that the president had pressured Ukraine to investigate Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a Democratic presidential candidate, by withholding aid to the country. Mr. Silverman said he was then fired.“The political environment has never been as interesting and as heated and intense as it is right now,” David Santrella, Salem’s chief executive, said on a recent earnings call.Business Wire, via Associated PressSalem said in press reports at the time that such dismissals were not politically motivated, explaining that it had fired the RedState employees because of financial considerations and Mr. Silverman because he had appeared on non-Salem shows. Mr. Silverman said those appearances were allowed under his contract.As Mr. Trump’s term wound down, Salem ran into financial pressure. In 2019, the company said four board members, including two of the co-founders’ sons, had resigned because “Salem has faced several unique financial headwinds and we are looking for ways to cut costs while not impacting revenue.” Both sons have since returned to the board.In May 2020, the company moved to eliminate new hiring, suspend its dividend, reduce head count, cut pay and request discounts from vendors, blaming the pandemic for forcing it to conserve cash. It reported $11.2 million in forgiven loans from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.But Salem’s finances have improved since then. Its net income rose to $41.5 million in 2021 from a loss in 2020, while revenue increased to $258.2 million from $236.2 million a year earlier.Salem’s political platforms are a bright spot. On an earnings call in August, Salem executives said that so far this year, political advertisers had spent nearly twice as much on Salem platforms as they did over the same period in the presidential election year of 2020, which had been the “biggest political year ever.” David Santrella, the chief executive, has predicted that “hot button” issues like abortion would probably boost ad revenue.“The political environment has never been as interesting and as heated and intense as it is right now,” he said.Kitty Bennett More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Comeback

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      Republican leaders have embraced the former political pariah, demonstrating Trumpism’s hold over the party.In February 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was dealt what would typically be considered a knockout blow in Washington politics: She lost her seats on House committees, where Congress does much of its work, because she had supported the QAnon conspiracy theory and spread other dangerous misinformation on social media.But instead of being consigned to political oblivion, Greene has gained clout over the past two years, as my colleague Robert Draper explained in a New York Times Magazine profile of her that published online this morning.Last month, Greene sat directly behind the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, as he unveiled his agenda for the midterm elections. Republican candidates often ask Greene to campaign for them. She has become a major fund-raiser within the party. And Greene told Robert she had talked with Donald Trump about being his running mate if he were to run for president in 2024.“This is not at all what I expected when I began reporting on Greene,” Robert told me.So how did Greene, who was a political pariah a few years ago, place herself at the center of Republican politics today?Trumpism’s torchbearerGreene’s rise did not come about because she apologized and abandoned her extreme views. Instead, her core supporters rallied around her because they agreed with at least some of her beliefs and liked that she stood her ground — a narrative that echoes Trump’s ascent.Greene herself is a big supporter of Trump and his policies and falsely claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him. “She’s a perfect reminder that Trumpism will not go away even if he does,” Robert said.One telling moment: Early last year, House Republicans met to discuss whether to remove Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from a leadership position after she voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 attack. (They eventually did.) In that meeting, Greene justified her support for QAnon and other conspiracy theories — and about a third of the conference stood up and applauded her.“The headline tonight is that we tried to kick out Liz Cheney, and we gave a standing ovation to Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina warned at the time.Since then, McCarthy, who would likely be speaker should Republicans regain control of the House in the midterms, has reportedly offered Greene prized committee assignments if she supports his run for the post — giving her back what she once lost, and then some.Not every Republican is on board. Some worry that Greene’s style could hurt them in next month’s elections. And she often criticizes members of her party; last month, she said that “21 Republican senators just voted with the woke climate agenda” after they voted for an international climate agreement.“She’s far more willing to offend than to accommodate,” Robert said. That could ultimately limit her rise.Read Robert’s full story, which includes interviews with the typically mainstream media-averse Greene.More on politicsRepublicans have a narrow midterm advantage as voters worry about the economy, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.Democrats in tight races are asking for Jill Biden’s help.Pandemic aid checks were popular with voters, but, with inflation rising, Democrats don’t want to talk about them.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineA drone attack in Kyiv today.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRussia attacked Kyiv with Iranian “kamikaze” drones this morning, hitting energy infrastructure and a residential building.“Untrained guys are thrown onto the front line”: Moscow is rushing thousands of newly drafted soldiers into combat.Explosions hit a border region inside Russia that has been used as a staging ground for troops. Russian officials blamed Ukraine.Ukraine’s surrogate mothers have continued deliveries, and clients are arriving again to pick up their children.Other Big StoriesBritain’s new top finance official said he would speed up a tax plan to calm financial markets. The pound rose slightly after the announcement.Iran’s leaders have turned to elite military commandos to quash weekslong protests.Xi Jinping, China’s leader, defended his authoritarian policies at the opening of a Communist Party meeting, during which he will probably secure a third term.Kanye West is buying Parler, a social media platform that claims to be a “free speech” alternative to Twitter, The Verge reports.For those who can afford them, niche sports like fencing can offer a path to selective universities.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss affirmative action and the Supreme Court.Neoliberalism has failed to deliver the economy we need, Rana Foroohar writes.Oak trees, central to many ecosystems, are vanishing. So plant acorns, Margaret Renkl says.MORNING READSLeaping into the Neretva River in Bosnia and Herzegovina.Alessio MamoWorld Through a Lens: Is this the most picturesque high dive?A “Star Wars” bread replica: It’s … Pan Solo.Metropolitan Diary: When a stranger’s flip-flops save the day.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 8.5).Advice from Wirecutter: Learning piano? Start here.Lives Lived: Mary Adelia Rosamond McLeod was the first female bishop to lead an Episcopal diocese. She died at 84.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICYankees survive: The Bronx will be buzzing tonight for a deciding Game 5 of the A.L. Divisional Series after New York edged Cleveland on the road last night. Gerrit Cole was excellent.Eagles stay steady: Philadelphia remains undefeated after a 26-17 win yesterday over its division rival Dallas. It was impressive considering the surprises Week 6 had in store for the rest of the N.F.L.Jordan Poole’s strange two weeks: The Warriors guard inked a four-year contract extension yesterday that guarantees him $123 million, days after a video was leaked of teammate Draymond Green punching Poole in the face at practice. Poole says the pair will be “professional.”The man who bet on Neymar: The Brazilian supermarket magnate Delcir Sonda saw promise in the soccer star before he became a household name. Now, Sonda is going to court for the payday that he said never arrived, The Times’s Tariq Panja writes.ARTS AND IDEAS Cormac McCarthy, 89, is famously private.Beowulf SheehanCormac McCarthy’s returnCormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men,” is publishing his first novel since 2006 — and his second: “The Passenger,” is out Oct. 25, and “Stella Maris,” will be released Dec. 6.The books have intertwined narratives. They focus on a tortured young mathematical prodigy and her brother. It’s a stylistic and thematic break from McCarthy’s earlier blood-soaked morality tales set in the American Southwest, The Times’s Alexandra Alter writes.“But the novels are also recognizably McCarthy’s,” she adds, “laced with transcendent language and profound insights into human nature.”For more: Read an excerpt from “The Passenger.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York TimesSoy-braised tofu with garlic and ginger takes only 20 minutes.What to ReadPaul Newman shares self-doubt in his posthumous memoir, “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man.”What to WatchIn “Till,” Chinonye Chukwu tells the story of Emmett Till’s life.Now Time to PlayThe pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were analogizing and gazillion. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tests without pencils (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. The veteran health journalist Jancee Dunn is joining The Times as a columnist.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Herschel Walker.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Elecciones EE. UU.: la desinformación en español y otros idiomas

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      Cada vez más grupos de verificación de datos multilingües combaten traducciones engañosas, imágenes manipuladas y mentiras que atraviesan plataformas y fronteras.Los rumores sin corroborar y las falsedades se propagaron ampliamente entre las comunidades de migrantes antes de las elecciones presidenciales de 2020. Según los investigadores, mientras se aproximan las elecciones de mitad de mandato este fenómeno ha vuelto a presentarse, pero con un giro insidioso: ahora las cuentas de redes sociales que propagan desinformación están dirigidas a audiencias en más idiomas, en más temas y en más plataformas digitales, con poca resistencia por parte de las empresas tecnológicas.En semanas recientes, las publicaciones que exageran los efectos colaterales de la inflación se han dirigido a los estadounidenses de países latinoamericanos que han sido afectados por las decisiones económicas. Las teorías de la conspiración que se propagaron en agosto sobre un plan del Servicio de Rentas Internas y planes de un “ejército clandestino” ocasionaron que aumentaran las menciones en español de “Ejército IRS” junto con “IRS army”, el equivalente en inglés, según el grupo de investigación Zignal.La desinformación que circula en chino en Twitter, YouTube y WeChat sobre los votos que se envían por correo, el currículum escolar y los crímenes de odio “tiene consecuencias peligrosas” para los votantes asiáticoestadounidenses, que constituyen una fuerza política cada vez mayor, según el grupo Asian Americans Advancing Justice.“Definitivamente hay un envío de mensajes hiperdirigido”, dijo Nick Nguyen, confundador de Viet Fact Check, una organización que ofrece explicaciones sobre la desinformación que circula entre vietnamitas estadounidenses. “Aquí es donde la falta de fluidez en inglés puede hacer que las poblaciones sean vulnerables”.Viet Fact Check forma parte de un conjunto cada vez mayor de grupos que intentan contextualizar y desvirtuar los relatos falsos en internet en idiomas que no son el inglés. Factchequeado, un servicio en español con seis meses de antigüedad está analizando traducciones imprecisas, imágenes manipuladas, videos editados de manera engañosa sobre el cateo en Mar-a-Lago y la visita de Nancy Pelosi a Taiwán. Desifact, que se especializa en comunidades estadounidenses con origen en el sur de Asia, empezó en febrero publicando notas explicativas y aclaraciones sobre temas como inmigración y condonación de deuda estudiantil en hindi, bengalí y tamil.Viet Fact Check es uno de los grupos que está tratando de contrarrestar los relatos falsos en internet en idiomas que no son el inglés, pero puede ser difícil seguir el ritmo de la avalancha de información errónea.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesPero los verificadores multilingües dicen que no se dan abasto ante la avalancha de falsedades que proliferan en internet. Han pedido a las grandes plataformas de medios, como Facebook y YouTube, para que prioricen más los esfuerzos en otros idiomas, tal como harían con la desinformación en inglés.“Con la desinformación en español, sentimos que estamos luchando contra un gigante”, dijo Tamoa Calzadilla, la editora responsable de Factchequedo y exlíder de la operación de verificación de Univisión. “Es frustrante porque estamos intentando hacer algo y necesitamos apoyo de las plataformas; estamos haciendo nuestro trabajo pero los gigantes tecnológicos pueden hacer más”.Las empresas de redes sociales dijeron que moderaban el contenido o brindaban verificación de datos en muchos idiomas: más de 70 para TikTok y más de 60 para Meta. YouTube, dijo que tenía más de 20.000 personas que revisaban y retiraban información falsa, incluyendo en mandarín y español; TikTok dijo que tenía miles. Las empresas no quisieron comentar cuántos empleados trabajaban en idiomas distintos al inglés.TikTok ha traducido un centro de información sobre las elecciones de mitad de mandato en su aplicación a más de 45 idiomas. Twitter tiene un centro similar sobre las elecciones disponible en inglés y en español, junto con palabras clave que desmienten y “pre-desmienten” la desinformación en distintos idiomas, una técnica que en inglés se conoce como pre-bunk. Meta dijo que había invertido en iniciativas como servicios de verificación de datos en WhatsApp antes de las elecciones y que mostraría notificaciones relacionadas con la votación, tanto en inglés como en un segundo idioma, según la actividad del usuario.Las empresas también mencionaron mejoras más amplias. Meta dijo que sus modelos de predicción de desinformación en español para Estados Unidos ahora operaban a la par que sus modelos en inglés y que había aumentado significativamente la cantidad de contenido en español que se envía a los verificadores de datos para su revisión. Twitter dijo que sus etiquetas contextuales recién reformuladas, que se traducen según los ajustes de idioma de los usuarios, habían ayudado a reducir la interacción con la información errónea. YouTube afirmó que los paneles de información ahora aparecían en distintos idiomas para varios resultados de búsqueda y videos. También destaca el contenido de fuentes de noticias aprobadas en idiomas distintos al inglés según las preferencias de idioma y las búsquedas de los usuarios, indicó la empresa.Tamoa Calzadilla es la directora editorial de Factchequeado, una organización dedicada a examinar las traducciones engañosas al español.Eva Marie Uzcategui para The New York TimesPero hay preocupación entre los investigadores por el efecto que la desinformación que no está en inglés pueda tener en las votaciones de noviembre, al decir que las mentiras y los rumores en otros idiomas siguen permeando. Un informe difundido el lunes del grupo de vigilancia Media Matters encontró 40 videos en español en Youtube que impulsan información errónea sobre las elecciones estadounidenses, entre ella la afirmación falsa de que a Estados Unidos entraban papeletas de votación fraudulentas procedentes de China y México.Expertos en desinformación, junto con algunos funcionarios electos, han presionado a plataformas de redes sociales para emprender más acciones y tener mayor transparencia.Este año, el Caucus Hispano del Congreso impulsó a Meta, TikTok, YouTube y Twitter a reunirse con sus principales ejecutivos para discutir la difusión de información falsa en español. YouTube puso a disposición a su directora ejecutiva, Susan Wojcicki; TikTok y Twitter enviaron a otros ejecutivos. El comité y Meta no pudieron agendar una reunión, y Meta dijo que planeaba presentar por escrito un comunicado.Un ejemplo del tipo de publicación que Factchequeado intenta desacreditar se ve en la computadora de Calzadilla. La organización puso un sello que dice “Falso” sobre esta imagen engañosa.Eva Marie Uzcategui para The New York TimesEn enero, la International Fact-Checking Network de Poynter envió una carta abierta a YouTube en la describía la facilidad con la que la información falsa fluía a través de las fronteras en la plataforma. Los investigadores han dicho que, a menudo, el mismo relato surge en diferentes sitios en distintos países y luego pasa por un proceso de polinización cruzada o transculturación en un círculo vicioso que hace que parezca más verosímil. Como argumentó un verificador, es más probable que una persona que quiere migrar confíe en una teoría de conspiración compartida tanto por su madre en El Salvador como por su amigo en San Francisco.La información errónea también puede hacer lo que los investigadores llaman salto de plataforma: originarse en inglés en redes marginales como Truth Social o Gab y después surgir en sitios más convencionales, en un idioma diferente o, a veces, con una traducción engañosa.Recientemente, Alethea Group, que ayuda a las corporaciones a protegerse contra la desinformación, analizó siete canales de YouTube con sede en Colombia pero que parecían estar dirigidos a hispanohablantes conservadores que viven o están vinculados a Estados Unidos. Los investigadores encontraron que, con frecuencia, los canales usaban relatos falsos o engañosos de medios conservadores o de medios propiedad de Estados extranjeros, las circulaban en español en YouTube y, en ocasiones, después enfocaban a las audiencias en plataformas como Twitter y Telegram, donde el contenido traducido seguía difundiéndose. A veces, los operadores del canal intentaron monetizar los videos con anuncios o solicitudes de donaciones o suscripciones.Una publicación traducida al español en Telegram repitió la afirmación falsa del expresidente Donald Trump de que los documentos fueron tirados en el suelo al azar.Althea descubrió una cuenta con más de 300.000 suscriptores que reutilizaba y traducía teorías sin sustento de que el FBI había plantado documentos deliberadamente en Mar-a-Lago para incriminar al expresidente estadounidense Donald J. Trump, según el informe. El título de un video era “S4LE LA V3RDAD” en lugar de “sale la verdad”, un posible intento de sortear a los moderadores de YouTube, creen los investigadores de Alethea. Otros investigadores han descubierto cuentas, que ya habían sido canceladas por algunas plataformas debido a la violación de sus pautas de desinformación, que reaparecieron con diferentes nombres.Dominik A. Stecula, un profesor asistente de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Estatal de Colorado y quien migró de Polonia, atribuye en parte la difusión de información falsa multilingüe en línea al lento ocaso de los medios de comunicación étnicos y locales que cubren temas comunitarios.“La gente no quiere pagar por el contenido y, como resultado, muchas de estas instituciones se están desmoronando”, dijo Stecula. “Lo que los remplaza es un tipo en Arizona con una cámara de alta definición y un micrófono”.Stecula observó que la moderación se complica por los matices culturales y las diferentes preferencias de comunicación y explicó que mientras que los inmigrantes de Asia tienden a favorecer WhatsApp, la gente de Polonia se inclina más hacia Facebook.Algunos expertos, que permanecen escépticos ante la posibilidad de que toda la desinformación en distintos idiomas pueda ser retirada, más bien impulsan otras formas de limitar la difusión. El año pasado, Twitter probó una función que permitía que algunos expertos en Estados Unidos, Corea del Sur y Australia identificaran tuits como engañosos.Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, la jefa de estrategia de la consultora We Are Más, en el sur de Florida, calcula que decenas de miles de personas siguen canales en español en Telegram que promueven las teorías de la conspiración de QAnon. Dijo que supo de un grupo, con casi 8000 suscriptores, por su estilista, quien es colombiano-estadounidense.Dijo que esos grupos han sido “muy inteligentes en asegurarse de que el mensaje se adapte a la cultura y subcultura”, a veces al utilizar símbolos como el puño levantado, que para los jóvenes nacidos en Estados Unidos puede representar esperanza y solidaridad pero a los inmigrantes de mayor edad les puede recordar a las dictaduras de izquierda latinoamericanas. Las publicaciones han combinado el sentir anticomunista con la retórica conspirativa de QAnon, y llaman al presidente Biden la “Lagartija” o se refieren a su partido como “Demoniocratas”.“No se trata solo de información errónea o desinformación, también debe existir la responsabilidad de comprender que las palabras y los símbolos significan cosas diferentes para otras comunidades”, dijo Pérez-Verdía. “No importa si eres de Vietnam o de Colombia, la mayoría de la gente ve el prisma de la política de nuestro país a través del prisma de la política de ellos”.Tiffany Hsu es reportera de tecnología y cubre desinformación e información falsa. @tiffkhsu More

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      Misinformation Swirls in Non-English Languages Ahead of Midterms

      by

      Unsubstantiated rumors and outright falsehoods spread widely in immigrant communities ahead of the presidential election in 2020. That is happening again in the run-up to this year’s midterm elections, researchers say, but with an insidious twist: The social media accounts pushing misinformation are now targeting audiences in more languages on more topics and across more digital platforms, with scant resistance from social media companies.In recent weeks, posts exaggerating the fallout from inflation have been aimed at Americans from Latin American countries that have been crippled by poor economic management. Conspiracy theories that spread in August about the Internal Revenue Service’s plans for a “shadow army” led mentions of “Ejército IRS” to surge alongside “IRS army,” its equivalent in English, according to the research group Zignal.Misinformation swirling in Chinese on Twitter, YouTube and WeChat about mail-in ballots, school curriculums and hate crimes “has dangerous implications” this year for Asian American voters, who are growing as a political force, according to the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice.“There’s definitely a hyper-targeting of messaging,” said Nick Nguyen, a co-founder of Viet Fact Check, a group that offers explanations about misinformation circulating among Vietnamese Americans. “This is where a lack of English-language fluency can make populations vulnerable.”Viet Fact Check is among a growing number of groups trying to contextualize and debunk false online narratives in languages other than English. Factchequeado, a six-month-old Spanish-language service, is examining inaccurate translations, manipulated images and misleadingly edited videos about the search of Mar-a-Lago and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Desifacts, which focuses on South Asian American communities, began publishing explainers and clarifications about topics such as immigration and student debt relief in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil in February.Viet Fact Check is among a growing number of groups trying to battle false online narratives in non-English languages, but it can be hard to keep up with the flood of misinformation.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesBut the multilingual fact checkers say they cannot keep pace with the deluge of falsehoods online. They have called on the big social media platforms, like Facebook and YouTube, to do more for efforts in other languages as they would for misinformation in English.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.“With mis- and disinformation in Spanish, we feel like we are fighting a giant,” said Tamoa Calzadilla, Factchequeado’s managing editor and the former head of Univision’s fact-checking operation. “It’s frustrating because we are trying to do something, and we need support from the platforms — we are doing our work, but Big Tech can do more.”The social media companies said they moderated content or provided fact-checks in many languages: more than 70 languages for TikTok, and more than 60 for Meta, which owns Facebook. YouTube said it had more than 20,000 people reviewing and removing misinformation, including in languages such as Mandarin and Spanish; TikTok said it had thousands. The companies declined to say how many employees were doing work in languages other than English.TikTok has translated a midterms information hub on its app into more than 45 languages. Twitter has a similar elections center available in English and Spanish, along with prompts that debunk and “pre-bunk” misinformation in different languages. Meta said that it had invested in initiatives such as Spanish fact-checking services on WhatsApp in preparation for the elections and that it would show voting-related notifications in both English and a second language based on users’ activity.The companies also cited broader improvements. Meta said its Spanish misinformation prediction models in the United States were now working on a par with its English-language models and had significantly increased the amount of Spanish content sent to fact checkers for review. Twitter said its newly redesigned contextual labels, which are translated based on users’ language settings, had helped shrink engagement with misinformation. YouTube said information panels now appeared in different languages for certain search results and videos. It also highlights content from vetted non-English news sources based on users’ language settings and search queries, the company said.Tamoa Calzadilla is the managing editor of Factchequeado, an organization dedicated to examining inaccurate Spanish translations. Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York TimesBut researchers worry about the effect of non-English misinformation on the coming vote, saying lies and rumors in other languages continue to seep through. A report released Monday from the watchdog group Media Matters found 40 Spanish-language videos on YouTube that advanced misinformation about U.S. elections, including the false notion that fraudulent ballots were coming into the United States from China and Mexico.Some disinformation experts, along with some elected officials, have pressed the social platforms for more action and transparency.This year, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pushed Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter for meetings with their top executives to discuss the spread of misinformation in Spanish. YouTube made its chief executive, Susan Wojcicki, available; TikTok and Twitter sent other executives. The caucus and Meta were unable to schedule a meeting, and Meta said it planned to instead submit a written update.An example of the kind of post Factchequeado seeks to debunk, shown on Ms. Calzadilla’s laptop. The organization placed a stamp that reads “Falso” over this misleading image.Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York TimesThe International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter sent an open letter to YouTube in January, describing the ease with which misinformation on the platform was flowing across borders. Researchers have said the same narrative often emerges on different sites in different countries, and then cross-pollinates in a feedback loop that makes it seem more believable. As one fact checker argued, an immigrant is more likely to trust a conspiracy theory voiced by both the person’s mother in El Salvador and a friend in San Francisco.Misinformation can also do what researchers call platform-jump — originate in English on fringe services like Truth Social or Gab and then emerge later on more mainstream sites, presented in a different language or sometimes with a misleading translation attached.Alethea Group, which helps corporations guard against disinformation, recently looked at seven YouTube channels that were based in Colombia but appeared to target conservative Spanish speakers living in or tied to the United States. Researchers found that the channels often took false or misleading narratives from conservative or foreign state media, repeated it on YouTube in Spanish, and then sometimes pointed viewers to platforms like Twitter and Telegram, where the translated content continued to spread. Sometimes, the channel operators tried to monetize the videos through ads or requests for donations or subscriptions.Alethea found that one account with more than 300,000 subscribers repurposed and translated existing unsubstantiated narratives that the F.B.I. had deliberately planted documents at Mar-a-Lago to entrap former President Donald J. Trump, according to the report. The title of one video was “S4LE LA V3RDAD” instead of “sale la verdad” (the truth comes out), which Alethea researchers believe may have been a potential attempt to evade YouTube moderators. Other researchers have discovered accounts, previously terminated by platforms for violating misinformation guidelines, that reincarnated under different aliases.A post translated into Spanish on Telegram repeated former President Donald J. Trump’s false claim that documents were thrown haphazardly on the floor.Dominik A. Stecula, an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University and an immigrant from Poland, attributed the spread of multilingual misinformation online in part to the slow decline of local ethnic media outlets covering community issues.“People don’t want to pay for content, and as a result, a lot of these institutions are falling apart,” Mr. Stecula said. “What replaces them is just some dude in Arizona with a high-definition camera and a microphone.”Mr. Stecula noted how moderation was complicated by cultural nuances and diverse communication preferences, explaining that while immigrants from Asia tend to prefer WhatsApp, people from Poland often gravitate toward Facebook.Some experts, skeptical that all multilingual misinformation can be removed, push instead for other ways to limit amplification. Last year, Twitter tested a feature that allowed some users in the United States, South Korea and Australia to flag tweets as misleading.Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, the head of strategy at the consulting firm We Are Más, in South Florida, estimated that tens of thousands of people followed Spanish-language channels on Telegram that promote the QAnon conspiracy theory. She said she had learned about one group, with nearly 8,000 subscribers, from her Colombian American hairstylist.She said such groups have been “very smart to make sure the message is tailored based on culture and subculture,” sometimes exploiting symbols like the raised fist, which can represent hope and solidarity to younger people born in the United States while reminding older immigrants of leftist Latin American dictatorships. Posts have blended anti-communist sentiment with conspiratorial QAnon language, calling President Biden “el Lagartija” (the Lizard) while describing his party as “Demoniocratas” (Demon-Democrats).“It’s not only about misinformation or disinformation — there also needs to be a responsibility to understand that words and symbols mean different things to other communities,” Ms. Pérez-Verdía said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re from Vietnam or from Colombia — most people see the prism of the politics of our nation through the prism of the politics of theirs.” More