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      in US Politics

      Trump Media deal faces calls for inquiry over alleged ‘influence peddling’

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      Democratic groups escalated calls on Thursday for Congress to investigate Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media after a report that it relied partly on emergency loans in 2022 traced back to a Russian-American under federal criminal investigation to make it to its stock market debut.The move increased political scrutiny into the merger between Trump Media Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition – which could net Trump about $4bn – as federal prosecutors secured guilty pleas from two investors who insider-traded on the deal.In a three-page letter on Thursday, the Democratic-aligned group Congressional Integrity Project pressed the Republican House oversight chair, James Comer, to launch a parallel congressional investigation into the Trump Media merger and hold hearings into the nature of the loans.“We are calling on you to investigate possible influence peddling and corruption involving a former president and current presidential candidate,” wrote the Congressional Integrity Project’s executive director, Kyle Herrig.The request came a day after the Guardian reported that Trump Media was kept afloat in 2022 with loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, when a securities investigation delayed the original merger date and imperiled its cash reserves.The delay led Trump Media to seek bridge financing, including from an entity called ES Family Trust, which operated through an account at Paxum Bank, a small bank registered on the Caribbean island of Dominica that is best known for providing financial services to the porn industry.Leaked documents obtained by the Guardian made clear that ES Family Trust operated like a shell company for Postolnikov, who co-owns Paxum Bank and became a subject of the criminal investigation into the Trump Media merger.The concern surrounding the loans to Trump Media is that ES Family Trust may have been used to complete a transaction that Paxum itself could not, as it did not offer loans in the US because it lacked a US banking license and is not regulated by the FDIC.“The American people deserve to know the circumstances around ES Family Trust’s loan to Trump,” Herrig wrote. “It is also imperative to determine whether there was any quid pro quo discussed.”There is no indication that Trump Media had any idea about the nature of the loans beyond the fact that they were opaque, nor has the company or its executives been accused of any wrongdoing. A lawyer for Trump Media called the story a “hoax” in a statement after it was published.Still, the Trump Media merger has drawn scrutiny because Trump’s stake in the company amounts to significant increase in his net value.Even if Trump sold only some of his position, he would probably gain a major windfall that could be used to pay about $500m in legal costs stemming from his various civil and criminal cases. That would ease the burden on his political action committees, which are now paying the bills.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn addition, Postolnikov’s connection to the loans raised new questions about the involvement of Michael Shvartsman, who pleaded guilty with his brother to securities fraud weeks before he was due to go to trial on charges of insider trading and money laundering over the Trump Media merger.The Guardian reported that the creation papers for ES Family Trust named Shvartsman as a successor trustee. ES Family Trust stands to gain from the Trump Media merger because the $8m was loaned in the form of convertible notes, meaning it converted to a stake in the post-merger company.While precise figures can only be known by Trump Media, ES Family Trust’s stake in Trump Media is now worth between $20m and $40m, even after the company’s share price plummeted after a poor earnings report.“The full extent of his involvement in the trust is unclear, and getting to the bottom of that fits within your mandate as chairman of the House oversight committee,” Herrig wrote of Shvartsman.Democratic activists have been eager to attack Trump’s business deals as a counterweight to Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, which has unsuccessfully tried to tie the president to business deals done by his son Hunter Biden, in an effort to show corruption or influence peddling.The Biden impeachment inquiry hit a major setback in February after the prosecutors charged an FBI informant with fabricating claims being used by Republicans for their allegations, that Biden and his son each sought $5m in bribes from a Ukrainian company. More

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      in Elections

      Government Bans on Social Media Endanger Speech Rights

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      My entire life I’ve seen a similar pattern. Older generations reflect on the deficiencies of “kids these days,” and they find something new to blame. The latest technology and new forms of entertainment are always bewitching our children. In my time, I’ve witnessed several distinct public panics over television, video games and music. They’ve all been overblown.This time, however, I’m persuaded — not that smartphones are the sole cause of increasing mental health problems in American kids, but rather that they’re a prime mover in teen mental health in a way that television, games and music are not. No one has done more to convince me than Jonathan Haidt. He’s been writing about the dangers of smartphones and social media for years, and his latest Atlantic story masterfully marshals the evidence for smartphones’ negative influence on teenage life.At the same time, however, I’m wary of government intervention to suppress social media or smartphone access for children. The people best positioned to respond to their children’s online life are parents, not regulators, and it is parents who should take the lead in responding to smartphones. Otherwise, we risk a legal remedy that undermines essential constitutional doctrines that protect both children and adults.I don’t want to minimize the case against phones. Haidt’s thesis is sobering:Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity — all were affected.The consequences, Haidt argues, have been dire. Children — especially teenagers — are suffering from greater rates of anxiety and depression, and suicide rates have gone up; and they spend less time hanging out with friends, while loneliness and friendlessness are surging.Neither smartphones nor social media are solely responsible for declining teen mental health. The rise of smartphones correlates with a transformation of parenting strategies, away from permitting free play and in favor of highly managed schedules and copious amounts of organized sports and other activities. The rise of smartphones also correlates with the fraying of our social fabric. Even there, however, the phones have their roles to play. They provide a cheap substitute for in-person interaction, and the constant stream of news can heighten our anxiety.I’m so convinced that smartphones have a significant negative effect on children that I’m now much more interested in the debate over remedies. What should be done?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Biden’s Challenges in Reaching Young Voters on TikTok Include Anger Over Gaza

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      For his campaign, navigating the platform has meant encountering over and over some of the thorniest issues plaguing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid.President Biden’s campaign is working to reach across the generation gap to the tens of millions of predominantly younger voters on TikTok, where the challenges are daunting and the rewards difficult to track.The obstacles range from anger over the war in Gaza to what social media experts describe as the unavoidably uncool nature of supporting the administration in power.Mr. Biden, 81, joined the app owned by a Chinese company last month, in what was widely seen as an effort to communicate with voters under 30, among whom he has polled poorly for months. In interviews and surveys, those voters indicated an unawareness about his administration’s accomplishments, something a word of mouth campaign on TikTok could alleviate.But navigating the platform and its more than 150 million users in the U.S. has involved confronting, usually in the comments sections of his own posts, some of the thorniest issues plaguing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid: disillusioned voters averse to politics, concerns about his age, outrage over the death toll in Gaza. Former President Donald J. Trump isn’t on the app, but his supporters are active. Adding to the puzzle, Mr. Biden’s aides are trying to sell his record on a platform his administration has argued poses a national security threat.President Joe Biden sits with attendees while listening to an opening speaker, during a campaign event at the El Portal restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 19, 2024.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesA bill to force TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese owner or otherwise face a ban in the U.S. is stalled in the Senate, but the president has said he’ll sign it if it passes — a position that has rankled even his staunchest young supporters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      The U.S. Investors Caught in the Scrum Over TikTok

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      Major U.S. investment firms such as General Atlantic, Susquehanna and Sequoia Capital own stakes in ByteDance, the parent of TikTok. Their investments are increasingly under fire.For years, the U.S. investors who backed ByteDance, the Chinese internet company that owns TikTok, have wrestled with the complexities of owning a piece of a geopolitically fraught social media app.Now it’s gotten even more complicated.A bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok is winding its way through the Senate after sailing through the House this month. Questions about whether TikTok’s Chinese ties make it a national security threat are mounting. And U.S. investors including General Atlantic, Susquehanna International Group and Sequoia Capital — which collectively poured billions into ByteDance — are facing increased pressure from state and federal lawmakers to answer for their investments in Chinese companies.Last year, a House committee began examining U.S. investments in Chinese companies. The Biden administration has curbed U.S. investments in China. In December, a Missouri pension board voted to divest from some Chinese investments, following political pressure from the state treasurer. And Florida passed legislation this month to require the state’s Board of Administration to sell off its stakes in China-owned companies.All of this comes on top of existing issues with owning a piece of ByteDance. The Beijing-based company has grown into one of the world’s most highly valued start-ups, worth $225 billion, according to CB Insights. That’s a boon, at least on paper, for U.S. investors who put money into ByteDance when it was a smaller company.Yet in reality, these investors have an illiquid investment that is hard to spin into gold. Since ByteDance is privately held, investors cannot simply sell their stakes in it. A confluence of politics and economics means ByteDance is also unlikely to go public soon, which would enable its shares to trade.Even if a sale of TikTok was easy to pull off, the Chinese government appears reluctant to relinquish control of an influential social media company. Beijing moved to stop a deal for TikTok to American buyers a few years ago and recently condemned the congressional bill that mandates ByteDance divest the app.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Signs Social Media Bill Barring Accounts for Children Under 14

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      A new Florida law also requires apps like TikTok and Snapchat to obtain a parent’s consent before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds.Florida on Monday became the first state to effectively bar residents under the age of 14 from holding accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, enacting a strict social media bill that is likely to upend the lives of many young people.The landmark law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of the more restrictive measures that a state has enacted so far in an escalating nationwide push to insulate young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute both prohibits certain social networks from giving accounts to children under 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users.It also requires the platforms to obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds.In a press conference on Monday, Mr. DeSantis hailed the measure, saying it will help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. He added that “being buried” in devices all day long was not the best way to grow up.“Social media harms children in a variety of ways,” Mr. DeSantis said in a statement. The new bill “gives parents a greater ability to protect their children”Mr. DeSantis had vetoed a previous bill that would have banned social media accounts for 14- and 15-year-olds even with parental consent. The governor said the earlier bill would impinge on parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s online activities.The new Florida measure is almost certain to face constitutional challenges over young people’s rights to freely seek information and companies’ rights to distribute information.Federal judges in several other states have recently halted less-restrictive online safety laws on free speech grounds in response to lawsuits brought by NetChoice, a tech industry trade group that represents firms including Meta, Snap and TikTok.Judges in Ohio and Arkansas, for instance, have blocked laws in those states that would require certain social networks to verify users’ ages and obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to children under 16 or 18. A federal judge in California has halted a law in that state that would require certain social networks and video game apps to turn on the highest privacy settings by default for minors and turn off by default certain features, like auto-playing videos, for those users.In addition to social media age restrictions, the new Florida statute requires online pornography services to use age-verification systems to keep minors off their platforms.Apps like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram already have policies prohibiting children under the age of 13. That is because the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires certain online services to obtain parental permission before collecting personal information — like full names, contact information, locations or selfie photos — from children under 13.But state regulators say millions of underage children have been able to sign up for social media accounts simply by providing false birth dates. More

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      in Elections

      Princess Kate’s Cancer Diagnosis Plunges Royal Family Into Uncertainty

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      First King Charles and now Catherine, Princess of Wales, are facing grave health concerns, stretching an already slimmed-down monarchy.In a video statement, Catherine, Princess of Wales, said that she had been diagnosed with cancer and started chemotherapy.BBC StudiosCatherine, Princess of Wales, has been diagnosed with cancer and has begun chemotherapy, she announced on Friday, putting a grim coda on months of rumors about her condition and plunging Britain’s royal family into deep uncertainty as two of its most senior figures grapple with grave health concerns.Her diagnosis follows that of King Charles III, who announced his own cancer diagnosis and treatment in early February. Like the king, Catherine, 42, did not specify what type of cancer she had, nor what her prognosis was.Speaking in a prerecorded video released on Friday evening, Catherine said, “It has been an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family” as she described having major abdominal surgery in January and then learning through subsequent tests that she had a form of cancer.Looking fatigued but determined to express hope about her recovery, Catherine said she and her husband, Prince William, were helping their three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis, cope with having a sick mother.“This of course came as a huge shock,” Catherine said, “and William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family. As you can imagine, this has taken time.”“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” said Catherine, who wore a simple striped sweater and sat on a bench, against a backdrop of early spring flowers, in the video, which was recorded by BBC Studios on Wednesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More