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    Twitter and TikTok Lead in Amplifying Misinformation, Report Finds

    A new analysis found that algorithms and some features of social media sites help false posts go viral.It is well known that social media amplifies misinformation and other harmful content. The Integrity Institute, an advocacy group, is now trying to measure exactly how much — and on Thursday it began publishing results that it plans to update each week through the midterm elections on Nov. 8.The institute’s initial report, posted online, found that a “well-crafted lie” will get more engagements than typical, truthful content and that some features of social media sites and their algorithms contribute to the spread of misinformation.Twitter, the analysis showed, has what the institute called the great misinformation amplification factor, in large part because of its feature allowing people to share, or “retweet,” posts easily. It was followed by TikTok, the Chinese-owned video site, which uses machine-learning models to predict engagement and make recommendations to users.“We see a difference for each platform because each platform has different mechanisms for virality on it,” said Jeff Allen, a former integrity officer at Facebook and a founder and the chief research officer at the Integrity Institute. “The more mechanisms there are for virality on the platform, the more we see misinformation getting additional distribution.”The institute calculated its findings by comparing posts that members of the International Fact-Checking Network have identified as false with the engagement of previous posts that were not flagged from the same accounts. It analyzed nearly 600 fact-checked posts in September on a variety of subjects, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the upcoming elections.Facebook, according to the sample that the institute has studied so far, had the most instances of misinformation but amplified such claims to a lesser degree, in part because sharing posts requires more steps. But some of its newer features are more prone to amplify misinformation, the institute found.Facebook’s amplification factor of video content alone is closer to TikTok’s, the institute found. That’s because the platform’s Reels and Facebook Watch, which are video features, “both rely heavily on algorithmic content recommendations” based on engagements, according to the institute’s calculations.Instagram, which like Facebook is owned by Meta, had the lowest amplification rate. There was not yet sufficient data to make a statistically significant estimate for YouTube, according to the institute.The institute plans to update its findings to track how the amplification fluctuates, especially as the midterm elections near. Misinformation, the institute’s report said, is much more likely to be shared than merely factual content.“Amplification of misinformation can rise around critical events if misinformation narratives take hold,” the report said. “It can also fall, if platforms implement design changes around the event that reduce the spread of misinformation.” More

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

    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

    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

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    Christian Walker, Warrior for the Right, Now Battles His Father

    Soon after Herschel Walker, the former football star, announced he would run for U.S. Senate in Georgia as a Republican, his son Christian appeared with him at an event at Mar-a-Lago, and grinned when his father greeted him with a kiss on the head. “Had the honor of introducing my dad,” he tweeted, “then got to hug a future senator. Perfect night.”The moment seemed a logical convergence of Christian Walker’s personal and public lives: the young man was already emerging as a conservative social media star who took delight in provoking the left, and defending Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.Yet, after that night, he fell largely silent about his father’s campaign. That changed in spectacular fashion Monday night after news broke that in 2009, Herschel Walker, a staunch opponent of abortion rights, paid for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion, according to a report from the Daily Beast.“You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” Christian Walker wrote of his father on Twitter.Feuding among family can be a source of embarrassment for any political campaign. But what unfolded in Georgia this week was extraordinary for the level of indignation so forcefully and publicly aimed at a candidate by his child at such a crucial campaign moment.Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, one of the most competitive races in the country,Nicole Craine for The New York TimesNow, Christian Walker, 23, is at the center of a drama that could upend one of the most competitive races in the country.The elder Mr. Walker called the abortion report a “flat-out lie,” while conservative news media and Republicans, eager to regain control of the narrowly split Senate, rallied to his side. The Walker campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article.The spectacle has also put a fresh spotlight on how Christian Walker arrived at his political views, some, he now says, directly connected to his father and his own tumultuous family life.Christian Walker, though, has been his own right-wing warrior for several years. He built a large social media presence, and revels in his seeming contradictions. He is a young Black man who called the George Floyd protests “terrorist attacks.” He is attracted to men but does not identify as “gay,” while calling L.G.B.T.Q. activists a “rainbow cult” and mocking Pride Month. He delights in antagonizing the left through short video rants on social media, often while holding an iced coffee and wearing an impish grin.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.His following on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram has made him well-known among members of Gen Z — many of whom are now just hearing about his father’s heyday as a Heisman Trophy-winning football star at the University of Georgia.In several statements (some deleted) and videos posted on Twitter on Monday and Tuesday, the younger Mr. Walker tore into his father, displaying an angry, wounded vulnerability that points to a complicated relationship with his celebrity father.“My favorite issue to talk about is father absence. Surprise! Because it affected me,” he said in a video posted to Twitter this week.“He has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising one of them,” he said of his father in one of two videos he posted to Twitter. “He was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values?”Christian Walker has leveled some of his criticism at conservative activists and pundits who he said are “questioning my authenticity” while trying to pressure him into publicly supporting his father’s candidacy.He said he decided to speak out after his father denied the abortion story.“I haven’t told one story about what I experienced with him,” he said in one video. “I’m just simply saying don’t lie.”Christian Walker in 2020. He has leveled some of his criticism at conservative activists and pundits who he said are “questioning my authenticity” while trying to pressure him into publicly supporting his father’s candidacy.RHTY/starmaxinc.com/ShutterstockDespite the personal nature of his latest posts about his father, they echoed similar themes from many of his political diatribes, videos that often include tirades against men, like Herschel Walker, who have fathered children out of wedlock, or men and women who have affairs.“You’re not a victim when you sleep with a married man,” Christian Walker titled a recent episode of his podcast, “Uncancellable.” He has criticized an Instagram model for her alleged affair with the singer Adam Levine, who he noted “had a pregnant wife with children at home.”At times, he has publicly embraced his father’s legacy, initially promoting his candidacy. At other times he’s asserted his independence, writing in 2015, when he was a teenager, “um people need to understand that I’m CHRISTIAN WALKER not Herschel walkers son.”Christian Walker did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Walker, who grew up in Dallas, is the only child of Herschel Walker and his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman. Ms. Grossman filed for divorce in 2001, two years after their son was born.Herschel Walker dedicated his 2008 memoir to his son, writing: “To my son, Christian Walker, I love you. Thank you for helping me to mature as a man and a father.”After his son’s Twitter posts this week, Herschel Walker tweeted, “I LOVE my son no matter what.”Heath Garrett, a strategist whose firm does work with a Herschel Walker-aligned PAC, said Wednesday that he thinks “it is possible that Georgia voters are capable of having sympathy for both Herschel and Christian in this saga.”Christian Walker’s comments this week prompted a backlash from some conservatives, but also an outpouring of support on social media. Many, including some self-described liberals, said they disagreed with his politics but were moved by his family struggle. Others shared stories of their own absentee parents or childhood trauma.In Dallas, Christian Walker became a star athlete making waves in the competitive cheer scene in Texas. He won a world championship as a member of Spirit of Texas, a premier cheer team, according to social media reports and press interviews.In past interviews, Herschel Walker has said that after getting over the surprise about his son’s sport of choice, he was supportive. “I was proud that he was doing it,” he told C.B.S. News in 2015.Christian Walker continued his cheer career when he enrolled at Southern Methodist University in 2017. But in 2020, when he moved to the West Coast and transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, his priorities seemed to change.Posts on Christian’s Instagram account dated before June 2020 mostly consist of cheerleading photos, scenic Los Angeles, and typical influencer shots of him posing in designer clothing brands such as Gucci and Givenchy.But his posts made after the murder of George Floyd have an explicitly political slant. He called the Black Lives Matter protest movement the “KKK in blackface.” Along the way he amassed hundreds of thousands of followers across social media platforms.In online classes at U.C.L.A., however, Mr. Walker did not display the same level of combativeness, fellow classmates said.Jessica Epps, who took several classes with him during her time at U.C.L.A., remembered being surprised about how understated he was. During one class that took place amid the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the professor asked students to discuss the movement, and Ms. Epps remembered Mr. Walker speaking up and being somewhat critical. Still, he was measured in his response, she said.“His demeanor definitely seemed a lot more calm and reserved in the classroom setting,” she said. He seldom spoke during lectures, and mostly “kept to himself,” she said.He was also shaped by the uniqueness of being a conservative on a liberal college campus, he told The Conservateur, a conservative site.“Public schools and colleges have turned into Leftists’ indoctrination centers,” he told the publication. “There’s no ‘tolerance’ for any perspective other than the one that the professor is pumping into you.”At U.C.L.A., Christian Walker became known for tirades filmed in his car at a Starbucks drive-through, and conflicts with students and administrators.In livestreams and direct messages on social media, he feuded with fellow students and other people who assailed his political beliefs and, specifically, his use of an offensive term for mentally disabled people.The incident that seemed to spark the most acrimony occurred earlier this year, when he tweeted screenshots of comments made by students in a Chinese language class he had taken the year before, which showed them expressing their anger at his being in the class with them.“How dare you @ucla. I’ve paid 100s of thousands for this degree. I show up to class to study like everyone else. And you allow your students to treat me like crap because of my political beliefs? Wow. Disgusting,” Christian tweeted.Some U.C.L.A. students were fascinated by his persona.“He’s very loud, very flamboyant, he’s very attention-grabbing if you’re scrolling and find one of his videos — he’s immediately yelling,” said Joseph Keane, a recent U.C.L.A. graduate who said he and his roommate would watch Christian Walker’s videos to amuse themselves. “We would laugh — it’s intentionally over the top.”Mr. Keane said Christian Walker was well-known on campus as a conservative firebrand, though he and his friends did not take him seriously.In June, Christian Walker graduated from U.C.L.A. with a bachelor’s degree, according to the school. Shortly after, he announced he was moving to a place where more people shared his political beliefs: Florida. More

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    Elon Musk’s Twitter Will Be a Wild Ride

    His deal to buy the company is back on. Here are six predictions about Twitter under Musk’s control, if it happens.Buckle up.Elon Musk, who for months has been strenuously trying to back out of a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, now appears ready to buy the company after all. In a surprise letter to Twitter on Monday night, Mr. Musk offered to take Twitter private at his originally proposed price — $54.20 per share — marking a possible end to one of the most dramatic legal feuds in Silicon Valley history.It’s worth noting that the deal could still fall apart — Mr. Musk is famously subject to 11th-hour mood shifts — but the most likely outcome now is that the world’s richest man will in fact become Twitter’s new owner, possibly as soon as this week.Much is unknown about what Mr. Musk will do with Twitter if he acquires it. The mercurial billionaire has made only the vaguest of public statements about his plans for the company and its products.But we now know, thanks in part to a bevy of text messages released as part of the protracted legal battle, that it will be nothing like business as usual. And there are at least six predictions I feel confident making, if the deal does in fact close.He’s going to clean house, starting with firing Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal.A juicy set of text messages between Mr. Musk and his friends and business associates emerged last week, as part of the legal battle. In them, Mr. Musk made clear that he was unhappy with Twitter’s current leadership — in particular with Parag Agrawal, the chief executive, who took over last year from Jack Dorsey.The texts revealed that Mr. Agrawal had initially sought to work constructively with Mr. Musk, and that the two even had a friendly dinner near San Jose, Calif., in March. But the men eventually clashed. Mr. Agrawal, at one point, told Mr. Musk via text message that his habit of tweeting things like “Is Twitter dying?” was “not helping me make Twitter better.”“What did you get done this week?” Mr. Musk shot back. “This is a waste of time.”From reading Mr. Musk’s texts, it’s clear he believes that Twitter’s leadership is weak and ineffective, and lacks the ability to carry out his vision for the company. If Mr. Agrawal doesn’t immediately resign once the deal is complete, I’d expect Mr. Musk to fire him on Day 1 and name himself or a close ally as a replacement.Mr. Musk has also expressed displeasure with other Twitter executives, and it’s hard to see how he could fire Mr. Agrawal without also clearing out most or all of the company’s top leadership and installing his own slate of loyalists.Parag Agrawal, the chief executive of Twitter, may be at risk of losing his job if Mr. Musk takes control of the company.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesEmployees will revolt.Another easy prediction to make about Mr. Musk’s takeover is that it will generate enormous backlash among Twitter’s rank-and-file employees.Twitter, more so than other social media platforms, has a vocally progressive work force and many employees who are deeply invested in the company’s mission of promoting “healthy conversation.” Those employees may believe — for good reason! — that under Mr. Musk’s leadership, Twitter will abandon many of the projects they care about in areas like trust and safety. Or they may simply not want to deal with the drama and tumult of a Musk regime, and start looking for jobs elsewhere.What Happened to Elon Musk’s Twitter DealCard 1 of 9A blockbuster deal. More

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    Meta Removes Chinese Effort to Influence U.S. Elections

    Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said on Tuesday that it had discovered and taken down what it described as the first targeted Chinese campaign to interfere in U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections in November.Unlike the Russian efforts over the last two presidential elections, however, the Chinese campaign appeared limited in scope — and clumsy at times.The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November 2021, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names of women, according to the company’s report.The users later posed as conservative Americans, promoting gun rights and opposition to abortion, while criticizing President Biden. By April, they mostly presented themselves as liberals from Florida, Texas and California, opposing guns and promoting reproductive rights. They mangled the English language and failed to attract many followers.Two Meta officials said they could not definitively attribute the campaign to any group or individuals. Yet the tactics reflected China’s growing efforts to use international social media to promote the Communist Party’s political and diplomatic agenda.What made the effort unusual was what appeared to be the focus on divisive domestic politics ahead of the midterms.In previous influence campaigns, China’s propaganda apparatus concentrated more broadly on criticizing American foreign policy, while promoting China’s view of issues like the crackdown on political rights in Hong Kong and the mass repression in Xinjiang, the mostly Muslim region where hundreds of thousands were forced into re-education camps or prisons.Ben Nimmo, Meta’s lead official for global threat intelligence, said the operation reflected “a new direction for Chinese influence operations.”“It is talking to Americans, pretending to be Americans rather than talking about America to the rest of the world,” he added later. “So the operation is small in itself, but it is a change.”The operation appeared to lack urgency and scope, raising questions about its ambition and goals. It involved only 81 Facebook accounts, eight Facebook pages and one group. By July, the operation had suddenly shifted its efforts away from the United States and toward politics in the Czech Republic.The posts appeared during working hours in China, typically when Americans were asleep. They dropped off noticeably during what appeared to be “a substantial lunch break.”In one post, a user struggled with clarity: “I can’t live in an America on regression.”Even if the campaign failed to go viral, Mr. Nimmo said the company’s disclosure was intended to draw attention to the potential threat of Chinese interference in domestic affairs of its rivals.Meta also announced that it had taken down a much larger Russian influence operation that began in May and focused primarily on Germany, as well as France, Italy and Britain.The company said it was “the largest and most complex” operation it had detected from Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February.The campaign centered around a network of 60 websites that impersonated legitimate news organizations in Europe, like Der Spiegel, Bild, The Guardian and ANSA, the Italian news agency.The sites would then post original articles criticizing Ukraine, warning about Ukrainian refugees and arguing that economic sanctions against Russia would only backfire. Those articles were then promoted across the internet, including on Facebook and Instagram, but also on Twitter and Telegram, the messaging app, which is widely used in Russia.The Russian operation involved 1,633 accounts on Facebook, 703 pages and one group, as well as 29 different accounts on Instagram, the company’s report said. About 4,000 accounts followed one or more of the Facebook pages. As Meta moved to block the operation’s domains, new websites appeared, “suggesting persistence and continuous investment in this activity.”Meta began its investigation after disclosures in August by one of Germany’s television networks, ZDF. As in the case of the Chinese operation, it did not explicitly accuse the government of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, though the activity clearly mirrors the Kremlin’s extensive information war surrounding its invasion.“They were kind of throwing everything at the wall and not a lot of it was sticking,” said David Agranovich, Meta’s director of threat disruption. “It doesn’t mean that we can say mission accomplished here.”Meta’s report noted overlap between the Russian and Chinese campaigns on “a number of occasions,” although the company said they were unconnected. The overlap reflects the growing cross-fertilization of official statements and state media reports in the two countries, especially regarding the United States.The accounts associated with the Chinese campaign posted material from Russia’s state media, including those involving unfounded allegations that the United States had secretly developed biological weapons in Ukraine.A French-language account linked to the operation posted a version of the allegation in April, 10 days after it had originally been posted by Russia’s Ministry of Defense on Telegram. That one drew only one response, in French, from an authentic user, according to Meta.“Fake,” the user wrote. “Fake. Fake as usual.” More

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    ¿El máximo tribunal de Brasil se extralimita en su defensa de la democracia?

    El principal contrapeso al poder del presidente Jair Bolsonaro ha sido el Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil. Ahora muchos temen que el organismo se convierta en una amenaza.RÍO DE JANEIRO — El chat grupal en WhatsApp era una especie de vestidor de gimnasio para decenas de los más grandes empresarios de Brasil. Estaba un magnate de centros comerciales, el fundador de una tienda de ropa para surfear y el multimillonario de la tienda departamental más conocida de Brasil. Se quejaban de la inflación, enviaban memes y, a veces, compartían opiniones incendiarias.El Times More

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    Will U.S. Democracy Survive the Threats?

    More from our inbox:Women, ‘Stay Loud’A Childhood HomeGet a Living WillIllustration of the American flag.Illustration by Matt ChaseTo the Editor:Re “Democracy Challenged,” by David Leonhardt (front page, Sept. 18):Your excellent, and frightening, article suggests that our democracy is facing two simultaneous crises: Republicans who refuse to accept defeat in an election, and a growing disconnect between political power and public opinion. But there is a third, equally serious danger.While it is critical to get rid of dark money (reversing Citizens United) and gerrymandering, and to set term limits on the Supreme Court, an equally significant element of the current nightmare is coming from social media.Indeed, the degree to which social media has not only ginned up but actually created some or much of the current social-cultural-political zeitgeist is not well understood or acknowledged. For all the positives it provides, social media has become a cancer on society — one that has metastasized and continues to do so, often with the full knowledge (and even complicity) of social media companies.If we are going to begin arresting, and then (hopefully) reversing, the crisis described in the article, we need to address the social media issue as urgently as we need to address the overtly political ones. Addressing the latter without the former simply will not do the job.Ian AltermanNew YorkTo the Editor:Our democracy and our constitutional republic are not only challenged, but are on the verge of collapse. Should the Republicans capture the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, I believe that it will be a long time before we have another free and fair election in this country.The G.O.P. has stacked state houses with MAGA Republicans who, if given the chance, will do what Donald Trump wanted done in 2020: refuse to certify the will of the voters. In other areas we are rapidly losing our freedoms. We are in danger of losing the right to choose whether or not to bring a child into the world, the right to read or watch whatever we choose, and in many cases, the right to vote.The Republican Party has developed into a race-baiting, hateful group of people, inspired and directed by Mr. Trump, and Americans need to beware the consequences of electing more of their ilk at the local, state and federal level.Henry A. LowensteinNew YorkTo the Editor:“Democracy Challenged” is a chilling portrait of the bitter ideological civil war raging in America today. While not a conflict exacting physical wounds for the most part, it is for many of us emotionally exhausting, compounded by the realization that no obvious relief or solution is evident. It is almost impossible to watch cable news or read the daily papers without feeling despondent about the widening philosophical gulf separating the two parties.It is ironic that Democratic-leaning states contribute more to the federal government than they receive, in effect subsidizing Republican state policies that Democrats strongly oppose.I look forward to future articles in which I can hopefully discover a nugget of hope.Howard QuinnBronxTo the Editor:Thank you for all of your efforts to highlight the challenges to democracy and fair elections, but what I believe you are failing to do is sell democracy. You assume that democracy will sell itself. It won’t. There was a time when it would, but not today.Not only do you need to sell democracy — that is, emphasize its benefits — but you also need to highlight the cons of the alternative.We must sell democracy as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.Dan BuchanCheyenne, Wyo.To the Editor:While David Leonhardt is correct, of course, that the Republican Party’s increasing inclination to refuse to accept defeat in an election constitutes an existential threat to our democracy, so, too, does the likelihood that some of the large number of election deniers now running for statewide or local positions of electoral authority will prevail in November.Such a calamitous result would mean that if the outcome of a subsequent election is called into question by a defeated, victimized Democrat with legitimate cries of foul, it will be met with derision and scorn by the faux patriot MAGA crowd, and upheld by judges and justices whose allegiance to one man outweighs any sense of loyalty to the Constitution they might once have held sacrosanct.Edward PellSanta Monica, Calif.Women, ‘Stay Loud’ Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesTo the Editor:“Trolls in Russia Schemed to Divide Women’s March,” by Ellen Barry (front page, Sept. 19), is a thorough, well-researched piece about how Russian trolls deliberately created discord within the Women’s March and across the women’s rights movement more broadly.While the details may be shocking to many, it’s old news that women are in the sightlines. Whether the actors are foreign or domestic, we’ve long been the targets of disinformation, harassment and violence, against our bodies and our freedoms.We’ve had to create programs like Digital Divas and Digital Defenders to combat disinformation, because it is still happening and only going to get worse as we fight back. In addition to digital spaces, we’re leaning on proven analog tactics, including get-out-the-vote training, phone banking and postcard mailing.Thousands of women, including many who have never volunteered before, are active ahead of the critical midterm elections to get people registered to vote and educated on the issues. We saw in the abortion referendum in Kansas last month how our efforts can succeed.Silence us, they will not. Women more than ever need to stay loud in the battle for equality. Neither a Russian bot nor a domestic terrorist will silence us into submission.Emiliana GuerecaLos AngelesThe writer is the founder and president of Women’s March Foundation and Action.A Childhood Home Marine BuffardTo the Editor:Re “Your Childhood Home Is in Front of You. Do You Go In?,” by Mark Vanhoenacker (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 12):I enjoyed this article, which described the pull toward one’s childhood home. As a psychiatrist, I begin my journey with patients by asking about their earliest years.“Who lived with you during your childhood?”“Were there any disruptive moves or departures?”By exploring these distant memories, I begin to understand their path to my office, and how I can help them shape a healthier future.If looking back is a positive experience, I may encourage those struggling with insomnia to imagine a virtual tour of their earliest home, focusing on even the most minute details. “What do you see as you look around your bedroom?”As a busy working mom, I find that this technique has helped me return to sleep despite my anxious mind, a soothing recall of a childhood filled with safety and love.Jennifer ReidMoorestown, N.J.Get a Living Will Emiliano PonziTo the Editor:Re “The Space Between Brain Death and Organ Donation,” by Daniela J. Lamas (Sunday Opinion, Sept. 18):It behooves everyone to make their wishes clear regarding organ donation (like on a driver’s license). Just as important, if not more so, is that each of us make our wishes clear regarding life support and other artificial means: respirator, feeding tube, etc.Making our wishes known in a living will not only has cost-saving implications but also assures our dignity.Pankaj GuptaEdison, N.J.The writer is a geriatrician. More