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      ‘I’ll Stand on the Side of Russia’: Pro-Putin Sentiment Spreads Online

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      After marinating in conspiracy theories and Donald J. Trump’s Russia stance, some online discourse about Vladimir Putin has grown more complimentary.The day before Russia invaded Ukraine, former President Donald J. Trump called the wartime strategy of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “pretty smart.” His remarks were posted on YouTube, Twitter and the messaging app Telegram, where they were viewed more than 1.3 million times.Right-wing commentators including Candace Owens, Stew Peters and Joe Oltmann also jumped into the fray online with posts that were favorable to Mr. Putin and that rationalized his actions against Ukraine. “I’ll stand on the side of Russia right now,” Mr. Oltmann, a conservative podcaster, said on his show this week.And in Telegram groups like The Patriot Voice and Facebook groups including Texas for Donald Trump 2020, members criticized President Biden’s handling of the conflict and expressed support for Russia, with some saying they trusted Mr. Putin more than Mr. Biden.The online conversations reflect how pro-Russia sentiment has increasingly penetrated Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, right-wing podcasts, messaging apps like Telegram and some conservative media. As Russia attacked Ukraine this week, those views spread, infusing the online discourse over the war with sympathy — and even approval — for the aggressor.The positive Russia comments are an extension of the culture wars and grievance politics that have animated the right in the United States in the past few years. In some of these circles, Mr. Putin carries a strongman appeal, viewed as someone who gets his way and does not let political correctness stop him.“Putin embodies the strength that Trump pretended to have,” said Emerson T. Brooking, a resident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council who studies digital platforms. “For these individuals, Putin’s actions aren’t a tragedy — they’re a fantasy fulfilled.” Support for Mr. Putin and Russia is now being expressed online in a jumble of facts, observations and opinions, sometimes entwined with lies. In recent days, commenters have complimented Mr. Putin and falsely accused NATO of violating nonexistent territorial agreements with Russia, which they said justified the Russian president’s declaration of war on Ukraine, according to a review of posts by The New York Times.Others have spread convoluted conspiracy theories about the war that are tinged with a pro-Russia sheen. In one popular lie circulating online, Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump are working together on the war. Another falsehood involves the idea that the war is about taking down a cabal of global elites over sex trafficking.In all, pro-Russian narratives on English-language social media, cable TV, and print and online outlets soared 2,580 percent in the past week compared to the first week of February, according to an analysis by the media insights company Zignal Labs. Those mentions cropped up 5,740 times in the past week, up from 214 in the first week of February, Zignal said.The narratives have flourished in dozens of Telegram channels, Facebook groups and pages and thousands of tweets, according to The Times’s review. Some of the Telegram channels have more than 160,000 subscribers, while the Facebook groups and pages have up to 1.9 million followers.(It is difficult to be precise on the scope of pro-Russian narratives on social media and online forums because bots and organized campaigns make them difficult to track.)Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kyiv this week. The square was the center of Ukraine’s 2014 revolution.Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesThe pro-Russia sentiment is a stark departure from during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was viewed by many Americans as a foe. In recent years, that attitude shifted, partly helped along by interference from Russia. Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Kremlin-backed groups used social networks like Facebook to inflame American voters, creating more divisions and resistance to political correctness.After Mr. Trump was elected, he often appeared favorable to — and even admiring of — Mr. Putin. That seeded a more positive view of Mr. Putin among Mr. Trump’s supporters, misinformation researchers said.“Putin has invested heavily in sowing discord” and found an ally in Mr. Trump, said Melissa Ryan, the chief executive of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation. “Anyone who studies disinformation or the far right has seen the influence of Putin’s investment take hold.”At the same time, conspiracy theories spread online that deeply polarized Americans. One was the QAnon movement, which falsely posits that Democrats are Satan-worshiping child traffickers who are part of an elite cabal trying to control the world.The Russia-Ukraine war is now being viewed by some Americans through the lens of conspiracy theories, misinformation researchers said. Roughly 41 million Americans believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to a survey released on Thursday from the Public Religion Research Institute. This week, some QAnon followers said online that Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was simply the next phase in a global war against the sex traffickers.Lisa Kaplan, the founder of Alethea Group, a company that helps fight online misinformation, said the pro-Russia statements were potentially harmful because it could “further legitimize false or misleading claims” about the Ukraine conflict “in the eyes of the American people.”Not all online discourse is pro-Russia, and Mr. Putin’s actions have been condemned by conservative social media users, mainstream commentators and Republican politicians, even as some have criticized how Mr. Biden has handled the conflict.“Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is reckless and evil,” Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday.On Tuesday, Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois who was censured recently by the Republican Party for participating in the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, criticized House Republicans for attacking Mr. Biden, tweeting that it “feeds into Putin’s narrative.”Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? 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      Fake news alert! Donald Trump’s new social media app is a triumph | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Fake news alert! Donald Trump’s new social media app is a triumphArwa MahdawiThe former president’s media venture, Truth Social has got off to a rocky start – with technical problems and potential legal issues to boot Truth hurts, everyone knows that. Nevertheless, I wasn’t expecting my experience with Truth Social, Donald Trump’s new social media venture, to be quite so painful. After months of fanfare, the former president’s new app, which is essentially a Twitter clone, was opened to the US public on Sunday night. Obviously, I signed up straight away – or at least I tried to.Donald Trump’s social media app launches on Apple storeRead moreI spent 20 frustrating minutes attempting to create a new account and getting error message after error message. Eventually, I managed to sign up with the username @stormyd, only to be told that I had been put on a waiting list “due to massive demand”. I was number 194,276 in line, apparently. Which, I’m sure, is a very precise number and not something they just pulled out of the air.It is unclear how many people were actually successful at getting on Truth Social – although the Guardian has reported that at least one Catholic priest managed to join. The fact that you, apparently, needed God on your side to secure an account wasn’t the only issue with the launch: the app has also run into potential legal trouble. It turns out Truth Social may not have just taken inspiration from Twitter, the app’s logo looks suspiciously like that of a British solar power startup called Trailar. “Great to see Donald Trump supporting a growing sustainability business!” Trailar tweeted on Monday. “Maybe ask next time?”If Trump’s new app failed to successfully launch on time, it would hardly be the surprise of the century. The last time he made a lot of noise about launching a new media platform, it turned out to be an underwhelming blog, which shuttered after just a few weeks. It’s not as if Trump put a technological genius in charge of Truth Social: Devin Nunes, head honcho at the app’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), may be most famous for the fact that he once unsuccessfully sued a cow.In 2019, Nunes, who used to be a Republican congressman, filed a $250m lawsuit against Twitter and two parody Twitter accounts: one was called “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and one was called “Devin Nunes’ Cow”. This is no laughing matter, I’ll have you know. The cow was very mean to him: it called the politician a “treasonous cowpoke” whose “boots are full of manure”. It was all very hard for the poor man, whose lawsuit claimed that the parody accounts subjected him to a “defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life”.Nunes doesn’t just have beef with cows, by the way. He’s a big fan of suing anyone who says anything mean to him, and has launched defamation lawsuits against a number of journalists. He managed to juggle all these lawsuits with his political career for a while but, in December, announced he was leaving Congress to join TMTG. “The time has come to reopen the internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship,” he proclaimed. Unless cows are involved, obviously. No free speech or free flow of ideas for cows! Or pesky journalists. Or anyone who says anything unflattering, if we’re being honest.Truth Social’s marketing material talks about welcoming diverse opinions but the app’s terms and conditions are rather more restrictive. Under “prohibited activities”, the rules state that users of the site agree not to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site”.A cynic might wonder whether the fact that you are not allowed to say mean things about Trump on his app may factor in why Melania doesn’t appear to be a big fan of her husband’s latest venture. A couple of weeks ago, you see, the former first lady entered into a “special arrangement” to share “exclusive communications” with the conservative social media app Parler. Why would she announce an exclusive relationship with a direct competitor to Truth Social shortly before it launched ? I’m not even going to begin to speculate. The truth is out there, but there’s a very long waiting list to get to it.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS politicsSocial mediaDigital mediaInternetcommentReuse this content More

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      Trump Truth Social app will be fully operational by end of March, Nunes says

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      Trump Truth Social app will be fully operational by end of March, Nunes saysApple App Store lists rightwing Twitter alternative but ex-congressman tapped to lead company indicates slow rollout Donald Trump’s rightwing riposte to Twitter – his new social media app Truth Social – is supposed to launch on Monday. But the rollout of what the former president hopes will be the start of a new media empire continues to be shrouded in confusion and secrecy.Tim Scott, only Black Senate Republican, hints he could be Trump running mateRead moreDevin Nunes, the former Republican congressman and Trump loyalist who heads Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), told Fox News on Sunday Truth Social would make its debut on the Apple App Store this week. The app is featured on the store, with the notice “Expected Feb 21”.But the launch has been beset with delays. On the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures, Nunes indicated that a full service was still weeks away.“Our goal is, I think we’re going to hit it, I think by the end of March we’re going to be fully operational at least within the United States,” he said.Truth Social is Trump’s answer to having been permanently thrown off Twitter after the company ruled that the then president’s tweets leading up to the US Capitol attack on January 6 2021 violated its policy against glorification of violence. The decision cut Trump off from direct contact with almost 90m followers.Facebook has also suspended Trump for comments inciting violence at the Capitol, but has left open the possibility of a return.Glimpses of what Truth Social will look like have been given in the past few days, prompting the observation that it looks remarkably similar to Twitter. Instead of blue ticks to denote verified accounts, it will use red ticks.Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr, tweeted a screenshot of his father’s first post on Truth Social, which said: “Get ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!”The remark was much less memorable than the fact that the Truth Social screenshot and Donald Jr’s actual tweet looked virtually identical.Truth Social describes itself as a “big tent” social media platform “that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology”.But given the initial teething problems of the launch, the former president could find it difficult to fill the hole in his public profile left by his banishment from established social media.Twitter records more than 200 million daily active users and Facebook almost 2 billion. By contrast Gettr, a social media outlet set up by Jason Miller, a former Trump adviser, claims 4 million users on average per month.Gettr is part of a growing number of social media start-ups vying to take on tech giants they accuse of censoring rightwing ideology. Gettr, Parler and Gab all present as rightwing alternatives to Twitter.Rumble is a video platform that sets itself up as conservative competition to YouTube. The company has said it will be providing video on the Truth Social app.The proliferation of rightwing social media sites, despite their relatively small reach compared with Silicon Valley giants, is prompting concern about their political impact.Observers have questioned whether the start-ups, which present themselves as forums for open untrammeled discussion, will act as breeding grounds for misinformation on subjects such as vaccinations, the climate crisis and election integrity.Truth Social has promised to ensure that its contents is “family friendly” and has reportedly entered a partnership with a San Francisco company, Hive, which will moderate posts using cloud-based artificial intelligence.Even the new app’s name is likely to be controversial, given Trump’s legendary struggles with veracity. The Washington Post calculated that in the four years of his presidency, the man now behind Truth Social made 30,573 false or misleading claims.TopicsDonald TrumpSocial mediaDigital mediaInternetUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      Getting the Public Behind the Fight on Misinformation

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      Misinformation is false or inaccurate information communicated regardless of intention to deceive. The spread of misinformation undermines trust in politics and the media, exacerbated by social media that encourages emotional responses, with users often only reading the headlines and engaging with false posts while sharing credible sources less. Once hesitant to respond, social media companies are increasingly enacting steps to stop the spread of misinformation. But why have these efforts failed to gain greater public support? 

      A 2021 poll from the Pearson Institute found that 95% of Americans believed that the spread of misinformation was concerning, with over 70% blaming, among others, social media companies. Though Americans overwhelmingly agree that misinformation must be addressed, why is there little public consensus on the appropriate solution? 

      Social Media and the Cold War Around Free Speech

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      To address this, we ran a national web survey with 1,050 respondents via Qualtrics, using gender, age and regional quota sampling. Our research suggests several challenges to combating misinformation. 

      First, there are often misconceptions about what social media companies can do. As private entities, they have the legal right to moderate content on their platform, whereas the First Amendment applies only to government restriction of speech. When asked to evaluate the statement “social media companies have a right to remove posts on their platform,” a clear majority of 58.7% agreed. Yet a divide emerges between Democrats, where 74.3% agreed with the statement compared to only 43.5% of Republicans.  

      Ignorance of the scope of the First Amendment may partially explain these findings, as well as respondents believing that, even if companies have the legal right, they should not engage in removal. Yet a history of tech companies initially couching policies as consistent with free speech principles only to later backtrack only adds to the confusion. For example, Twitter once maintained “a devotion to a fundamental free speech standard” of content neutrality, but by 2017 had shifted to a policy where not only posts could be removed but even accounts without offensive tweets. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Second, while most acknowledge that social media companies should do something, there is little agreement on what that something should be. Overall, 70% of respondents, including a majority of both Democrats (84%) and Republicans (57.6%), agreed with the statement that “social media companies should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information.”

      We then asked respondents if they would support five different means to combat misinformation. Here, none of the five proposed means mentioned in the survey found majority support, with the most popular option — providing factual information directly under posts labeled as misinformation — supported only by 46.6% of respondents. This was also the only option that a majority of Democrats supported (56.4%).

      Moreover, over a fifth of respondents (20.6%) did not support any of the options. Even focusing just on respondents that stated that social media companies should take steps failed to find broad support for most options. 

      So what might increase public buy-in to these efforts? Transparent policies are necessary so that responses do not appear ad hoc or inconsistent. While many users may not pay attention to terms of services, consistent policies may serve to counter perceptions that efforts selectively enforce or only target certain ideological viewpoints.

      Recent research finds that while almost half of Americans have seen posts labeled as potentially being misinformation on social media, they are wary of trusting fact-checks because they are unsure how information is identified as inaccurate. Greater explanation of the fact-checking process, including using multiple third-party services, may also help address this concern.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      Social media companies, rather than relying solely on moderating content, may also wish to include subtle efforts that encourage users to evaluate posting behavior. Twitter and Facebook have already nodded in this direction with prompts to suggest users should read articles before sharing them. 

      Various crowdsourcing efforts may also serve to signal the accuracy of posts or the frequency with which they are being fact-checked. These efforts attempt to address the underlying hesitancy to combat misinformation while providing an alternative to content moderation that users may not see as transparent. While Americans overwhelmingly agree that misinformation is a problem, designing an effective solution requires a multi-faceted approach. 

      *[Funding for this survey was provided by the Institute for Humane Studies.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Peter Thiel to Exit Meta’s Board to Support Trump-Aligned Candidates

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      The tech billionaire, who has been on the board of the company formerly known as Facebook since 2005, is backing numerous politicians in the midterm elections.Peter Thiel, one of the longest-serving board members of Meta, the parent of Facebook, plans to step down, the company said on Monday.Mr. Thiel, 54, wants to focus on influencing November’s midterm elections, said a person with knowledge of Mr. Thiel’s thinking who declined to be identified. Mr. Thiel sees the midterms as crucial to changing the direction of the country, this person said, and he is backing candidates who support the agenda of former President Donald J. Trump.Over the last year, Mr. Thiel, who has a net worth estimated at $2.6 billion by Forbes, has become one of the Republican’s Party’s largest donors. He gave $10 million each last year to the campaigns of two protégés, Blake Masters, who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona, and J.D. Vance, who is running for Senate in Ohio.Mr. Thiel has been on Meta’s board since 2005, when Facebook was a tiny start-up and he was one of its first institutional investors. But scrutiny of Mr. Thiel’s position on the board has steadily increased as the company was embroiled in political controversies, including barring Mr. Trump from the platform, and as the venture capitalist has become more politically active.The departure means Meta loses its board’s most prominent conservative voice. The 10-member board has undergone significant changes in recent years, as many of its members have left and been replaced, often with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Drew Houston, the chief executive of Dropbox, joined Facebook’s board in 2020, and Tony Xu, the founder of DoorDash, joined it last month. Meta didn’t address whether it intends to replace Mr. Thiel.The company, which recently marked its 18th birthday, is undertaking a shift toward the so-called metaverse, which its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, believes is the next generation of the internet. Last week, Meta reported spending more than $10 billion on the effort in 2021, along with mixed financial results. That wiped more than $230 billion off the company’s market value.“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he’s done for our company,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.In a statement on Monday, Mr. Thiel said: “It has been a privilege to work with one of the great entrepreneurs of our time. Mark Zuckerberg’s intelligence, energy and conscientiousness are tremendous. His talents will serve Meta well as he leads the company into a new era.”Mr. Thiel first met Mr. Zuckerberg 18 years ago when he provided the entrepreneur with $500,000 in capital for Facebook, valuing the company at $4.9 million. That gave Mr. Thiel, who with his venture firm Founders Fund controlled a 10 percent stake in the social network, a seat on its board of directors.Since then, Mr. Thiel has become a confidant of Mr. Zuckerberg. He counseled the company through its early years of rapid user growth, and through its difficulties shifting its business to mobile phones around the time of its 2012 initial public offering.He has also been seen as the contrarian who has Mr. Zuckerberg’s ear, championing unfettered speech across digital platforms when it suited him. His conservative views also gave Facebook’s board what Mr. Zuckerberg saw as ideological diversity.In 2019 and 2020, as Facebook grappled with how to deal with political speech and claims made in political advertising, Mr. Thiel urged Mr. Zuckerberg to withstand the public pressure to take down those ads, even as other executives and board members thought the company should change its position. Mr. Zuckerberg sided with Mr. Thiel.But Mr. Thiel’s views on speech were at times contradictory. He funded a secret war against the media website Gawker, eventually resulting in the site’s bankruptcy.Mr. Thiel’s political influence and ties to key Republicans and conservatives have also offered a crucial gateway into Washington for Mr. Zuckerberg, especially during the Trump administration. In October 2019, Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Thiel had a private dinner with President Trump.Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg have long taken heat for Mr. Thiel’s presence on the board. In 2016, Mr. Thiel was one of the few tech titans in largely liberal Silicon Valley to publicly support Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.In 2020, when Mr. Trump’s incendiary Facebook posts were put under the microscope, critics cited Mr. Thiel’s board seat as a reason for Mr. Zuckerberg’s continued insistence that Mr. Trump’s posts be left standing.Facebook banned Mr. Trump’s account last year after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, saying his messages incited violence. The episode became a key rallying point for conservatives who say mainstream social platforms have censored them.Mr. Vance, who used to work at one of Mr. Thiel’s venture funds, and Mr. Masters, the chief operating officer of Mr. Thiel’s family office, have railed against Facebook. In October, the two Senate candidates argued in an opinion piece in The New York Post that Mr. Zuckerberg’s $400 million in donations to local election offices in 2020 amounted to “election meddling” that should be investigated.Recently, Mr. Thiel has publicly voiced his disagreement with content moderation decisions at Facebook and other major social media platforms. In October at a Miami event organized by a conservative technology association, he said he would “take QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories any day over a Ministry of Truth.”Mr. Thiel’s investing has also clashed with his membership on Meta’s board. He invested in the company that became Clearview AI, a facial recognition start-up that scraped billions of photos from Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms in violation of their terms of service. Founders Fund also invested in Boldend, a cyberweapons company that claimed it had found a way to hack WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform.Meta declined to comment on Mr. Thiel’s investments.In the past year, Mr. Thiel, who also is chairman of the software company Palantir, has increased his political giving to Republican candidates. Ahead of the midterms, he is backing four Senate candidates and 12 House candidates. Among those House candidates are three people running primary challenges to Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Mr. Trump for the events of Jan. 6. More

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      Trump Deal Faced Widespread Investor Doubt Before Raising $1 Billion

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      More than a dozen big Wall Street money managers said no to Trump Media, but the Pentwater and Sabby hedge funds are among those that have committed millions.Last month, Donald J. Trump’s fledgling social media company announced that it had lined up $1 billion from 36 investors. The size of the deal, the former president said in the announcement, signaled that his start-up’s plan to end the “tyranny” of Big Tech had significant support.Getting there was no slam dunk.Beginning in the fall, bankers for the company, Trump Media & Technology Group, approached dozens of investors pitching the $1 billion deal, which offered them lucrative financial terms. By then, the start-up — intended partly as a conservative alternative to Twitter — had separately raised roughly $300 million through its planned merger with a special purpose acquisition company.Those willing to put up at least $100 million, Trump Media’s bankers told potential investors, would get a call from Mr. Trump, said five people who were briefed about the pitches but were not authorized to speak publicly. Despite the opportunity to invest in a deal whose terms were structured to make a profit for investors, many of Wall Street’s big names passed.More than a dozen well-known hedge funds and investment firms were hesitant to go into business with Mr. Trump, people briefed on the matter said, because any association with him could risk alienating their investors, which often include public pension funds and foundations. Others were wary of Mr. Trump’s history of corporate bankruptcies and disputes with lenders and partners, and concerned that details about his media company were scant.At the moment, Trump Media — which hired former Representative Devin Nunes, a staunch Trump ally, as chief executive in December — has no disclosed revenue or products.Among the funds that turned down Trump Media’s bankers were Millennium Management, a $57 billion hedge fund; Hudson Bay Capital, a $15 billion hedge fund; and Balyasny Asset Management, a hedge fund with $13 billion in assets, according to a spokesman. Apollo Global Management, the big private equity firm, also passed, a person briefed on the matter said. The deal on offer is known as a “private investment in public equity,” or PIPE, which gives certain investors discounted shares in a public company.People close to the three hedge funds did not explain why the firms had chosen not to invest.Highbridge Capital Management, a hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, had bought shares in the initial public offering of Digital World Acquisition, the SPAC that later agreed to merge with Mr. Trump’s company. However, Highbridge didn’t go into the PIPE deal because of the optics of doing business with Mr. Trump, one person familiar with the decision said. Investors who buy shares of a SPAC don’t know what company it will end up merging with, which is why they’re often called “blank check” companies.A spokesman for JPMorgan declined to comment.Mr. Nunes did not respond to emails seeking comment sent to his Trump Media address and the general company address. Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, also did not respond to requests for comment.A lawyer for Trump Media and two bankers at EF Hutton, the small investment bank that arranged the financing and recently took the name of a once storied Wall Street firm, either declined to comment or did not return requests.Trump Media agreed to merge with Digital World in October, raising $293 million. On Dec. 4, the Trump company announced that it had lined up an additional $1 billion through the PIPE deal. Three dozen investors signed up, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, although they will have to turn over that money only if Trump Media’s merger with Digital World closes. Currently, that merger is under regulatory investigation. Its outcome will determine whether the deal can go through.Devin Nunes gave up his House seat to become chief executive of Trump Media in December.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAmong the bigger investors: Pentwater Capital, a $10 billion hedge fund in Naples, Fla., and Sabby Management, a hedge fund in Upper Saddle River, N.J., that manages more than $500 million, several people who were briefed about their involvement said. The amounts that Pentwater and Sabby invested couldn’t be learned.“Investors have different risk preferences, including reputational as well as financial risk,” said Usha Rodrigues, who teaches corporate law at the University of Georgia School of Law. “If the deal is sweet enough, then the bankers will find someone who is likely to bite.”In the days before Trump Media announced its $1 billion financing, the former president called a handful of hedge funds, family offices and others who had signaled they would invest at least $50 million each, two people briefed on the matter said. The calls were intended as both a deal sweetener for larger investors and an opportunity for them to ask Mr. Trump questions about the start-up’s plans before they made plans to invest, several people said.Early on, Trump Media bankers told some prospective investors that they would get a call from Mr. Trump if they put in $100 million, according to interviews with those investors. Later on, other investors were told that $50 million was enough for a call.The roughly $1.3 billion raised by the two deals would provide Mr. Trump with funds to get his company going. But before a single dollar can hit Trump Media’s balance sheet, its deal with Digital World must overcome scrutiny by securities regulators. The S.E.C. is investigating some of the events leading up to the Oct. 20 announcement of Trump Media’s planned merger with Digital World.Regulators opened the inquiry after The New York Times reported that the chief executive of Digital World, Patrick Orlando, had talks with representatives of Trump Media as far back as March and had never disclosed that to investors — potentially flouting securities regulations. Regulators are also looking into trading in Digital World securities that happened before the merger announcement.As the start-up waits for the regulatory scrutiny to wrap up and its merger with Digital World to close, several people close to Mr. Trump have sought to raise a few million dollars from past supporters of his to provide Trump Media with funds to get going, said people who were approached or told about the efforts.Among those urging Trump donors to invest is Roy Bailey, a lobbyist who is also raising money for a super PAC that is financing Mr. Trump’s political operation as he weighs another presidential campaign in 2024, two people approached by Mr. Bailey said.One Republican donor, Dan Eberhart, who said he had spent time at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida recently, said he had “been approached by a number of people in Trump’s orbit” about investing in Trump Media. But, Mr. Eberhart said, “my focus is on investing in candidates to help us win back the Senate.”If regulators approve Trump Media’s merger with Digital World, investors in the $1 billion private deal stand to do well whether or not the company thrives. As part of the deal, investors get to buy shares of Trump Media for roughly 40 percent less than the prevailing market price. If the shares rise, they can profit from the rally. If the shares fall, their chance of losing money is significantly lower than that of the company’s other investors.The investors also have the right to “short,” or borrow stock to bet on a fall of Trump Media shares, as a further protection against the risk of a price decline.Vik Mittal, chief investment officer with Meteora Capital, which invested in the Digital World I.P.O., said the PIPE “provides downside protection to PIPE investors if shares of Digital World decline and unlimited upside if the deal works out.” His firm considered going into the PIPE but declined for reasons that Mr. Mittal did not want to divulge.In the meantime, retail investors have turned Digital World into something of “meme stock,” propping up its share price partly because of its association with Mr. Trump. Shares trade around $80 — much higher than the $10 price of the SPAC’s initial public offering.Susan C. Beachy More

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      Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit

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      The panel investigating the attack on the Capitol is demanding information from Alphabet, Meta, Reddit and Twitter.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas on Thursday to four major social media companies — Alphabet, Meta, Reddit and Twitter — criticizing them for allowing extremism to spread on their platforms and saying they have failed to cooperate adequately with the inquiry.In letters accompanying the subpoenas, the panel named Facebook, a unit of Meta, and YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet’s Google subsidiary, as among the worst offenders that contributed to the spread of misinformation and violent extremism. The committee said it had been investigating how the companies “contributed to the violent attack on our democracy, and what steps — if any — social media companies took to prevent their platforms from being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence.”“It’s disappointing that after months of engagement, we still do not have the documents and information necessary to answer those basic questions,” said the panel’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi.The committee sent letters in August to 15 social media companies — including sites where misinformation about election fraud spread, such as the pro-Trump website TheDonald.win — seeking documents pertaining to efforts to overturn the election and any domestic violent extremists associated with the Jan. 6 rally and attack.After months of discussions with the companies, only the four large corporations were issued subpoenas on Thursday, because the committee said the firms were “unwilling to commit to voluntarily and expeditiously” cooperating with its work. A committee aide said investigators were in various stages of negotiations with the other companies.In the year since the events of Jan. 6, social media companies have been heavily scrutinized for whether their sites played an instrumental role in organizing the attack.In the months surrounding the 2020 election, employees inside Meta raised warning signs that Facebook posts and comments containing “combustible election misinformation” were spreading quickly across the social network, according to a cache of documents and photos reviewed by The New York Times. Many of those employees criticized Facebook leadership’s inaction when it came to the spread of the QAnon conspiracy group, which they said also contributed to the attack.Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee turned whistle-blower, said the company relaxed its safeguards too quickly after the election, which then led it to be used in the storming of the Capitol.Critics say that other platforms also played an instrumental role in the spread of misinformation while contributing to the events of Jan. 6.In the days after the attack, Reddit banned a discussion forum dedicated to former President Donald J. Trump, where tens of thousands of Mr. Trump’s supporters regularly convened to express solidarity with him.On Twitter, many of Mr. Trump’s followers used the site to amplify and spread false allegations of election fraud, while connecting with other Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists using the site. And on YouTube, some users broadcast the events of Jan. 6 using the platform’s video streaming technology.Representatives for the tech companies have been in discussions with the investigating committee, though how much in the way of evidence or user records the firms have handed over remains unclear.The committee said letters to the four firms accompanied the subpoenas.The panel said YouTube served as a platform for “significant communications by its users that were relevant to the planning and execution of Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol,” including livestreams of the attack as it was taking place.“To this day, YouTube is a platform on which user video spread misinformation about the election,” Mr. Thompson wrote.The panel said Facebook and other Metaplatforms were used to share messages of “hate, violence and incitement; to spread misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories around the election; and to coordinate or attempt to coordinate the Stop the Steal movement.”Public accounts about Facebook’s civic integrity team indicate that Facebook has documents that are critical to the select committee’s investigation, the panel said.“Meta has declined to commit to a deadline for producing or even identifying these materials,” Mr. Thompson wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 12The House investigation. More

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      in Elections

      En la carrera hacia el futuro, la historia sufre un nuevo asedio

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      Una ola de revisionismo engañoso se ha convertido en una epidemia tanto en las autocracias como en las democracias. Ha sido notablemente efectiva… y contagiosa.En Rusia, una organización dedicada a recordar los abusos de la era soviética se enfrenta a la liquidación ordenada por el Estado mientras el Kremlin impone en su lugar una historia nacional aséptica.En Hungría, el gobierno expulsó o asumió el control de las instituciones educativas y culturales y las utiliza para fabricar un patrimonio nacional xenófobo alineado con su política etnonacionalista.En China, el Partido Comunista en el poder usa abiertamente los libros de texto, las películas, los programas de televisión y las redes sociales para escribir una nueva versión de la historia china que se adapte mejor a las necesidades del partido.Y en Estados Unidos, Donald Trump y sus aliados siguenpromoviendo una falsa versión de las elecciones de 2020, en la que aseguran que los demócratas manipularon los votos y afirman que el ataque del 6 de enero para interrumpir la certificación del presidente Joe Biden fue en su mayoría un acto pacífico o escenificado por los opositores de Trump.Unos revoltosos se enfrentaron a las fuerzas del orden del Capitolio de EE. UU. el 6 de enero de 2021.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesLa historia se reescribe todo el tiempo, ya sea por los académicos que actualizan sus supuestos, los activistas que reformulan el registro o los políticos que manipulan la memoria colectiva para sus propios fines.Pero una oleada de revisiones históricas falsas o engañosas de manera flagrante, tanto por parte de gobiernos democráticos como autoritarios, puede estar amenazando el ya debilitado sentido de un relato compartido y aceptado sobre el mundo.Los académicos creen que esta tendencia refleja algunas de las fuerzas que definen el siglo. Sociedades polarizadas y receptivas a las falsedades que afirman la identidad. El colapso de la fe en las instituciones centrales o en los árbitros de la verdad. El auge del nacionalismo. Tiranos cada vez más astutos. Líderes elegidos que giran cada vez más hacia el antiliberalismo.Como resultado, “deberíamos ser más propensos a ver el tipo de revisionismo histórico” impulsado por estos líderes, señaló Erica Frantz, politóloga de la Universidad Estatal de Michigan.Understand the Jan. 6 InvestigationBoth the Justice Department and a House select committee are investigating the events of the Capitol riot. Here’s where they stand:Inside the House Inquiry: From a nondescript office building, the panel has been quietly ramping up its sprawling and elaborate investigation.Criminal Referrals, Explained: Can the House inquiry end in criminal charges? These are some of the issues confronting the committee.Garland’s Remarks: Facing pressure from Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed that the D.O.J. would pursue its inquiry into the riot “at any level.”A Big Question Remains: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?En algunos lugares, los objetivos son ambiciosos: rediseñar una sociedad, empezando por su comprensión más básica de su patrimonio colectivo. Para subrayar la importancia de este proceso, el líder de China, Xi Jinping, repite la frase de un erudito confuciano del siglo XIX: “Para destruir un país, primero hay que erradicar su historia”.Victoria Park en Hong Kong el 4 de junio de 2020Lam Yik Fei para The New York TimesEl lugar estaba vacío el 4 de junio de 2021Lam Yik Fei para The New York TimesPero, a menudo y al parecer, el objetivo es más a corto plazo: provocar la rabia o el orgullo de manera que los ciudadanos se unan a la agenda del líder.Las mentiras electorales de Trump parecen ser un ejemplo de éxito. Han escindido el sentido compartido de la realidad de los estadounidenses de manera que podrían fortalecer a los aliados de Trump y justificar los esfuerzos para controlar la maquinaria de futuras elecciones. Si las tendencias globales que permiten tales tácticas continúan, puede que vengan más casos parecidos.Integrantes del Ejército Juvenil de Rusia practicaban el montaje de rifles, técnicas de primeros auxilios y artes marciales el mes pasado en Noginsk, cerca de Moscú.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesUn mundo cambianteLa manera en que los gobiernos tienden a gobernar es uno de los cambios más importantes de esta tendencia.Un reciente artículo académico afirma que el autoritarismo “está sufriendo una transformación”, con lo que resume la opinión cada vez más extendida entre los académicos.Desde la Primavera Árabe y los levantamientos de la “revolución de colores” de hace una década, los dictadores han dejado de hacer hincapié en la represión por la fuerza bruta (aunque esto también sigue ocurriendo) y han adoptado técnicas más sutiles, como la manipulación de la información o la generación de divisiones, con el objetivo de prevenir la disidencia en lugar de suprimirla.Entre otros cambios, se sustituye la estruendosa prensa estatal por una serie de llamativos medios de comunicación alineados con el Estado y bots en las redes sociales, lo que crea la falsa sensación de que la narrativa oficial no se impone desde lo alto, sino que surge de forma orgánica.La propaganda más sofisticada, cuyo objetivo es la persuasión en lugar de la coerción, se manifiesta a menudo como un tipo particular de reescritura histórica. En lugar de limitarse a eliminar a los funcionarios desfavorecidos o los errores del gobierno, cultiva el orgullo nacional y el agravio colectivo con el fin de congregar a los ciudadanos.Por ejemplo, el Kremlin ha manipulado los recuerdos de la Unión Soviética y de su caída para convertirlos en una memoria de grandeza y asedio de la herencia rusa, justificando la necesidad de un líder más fuerte como Vladimir Putin y alentando a los rusos a apoyarlo con gratitud.Esto también se manifiesta en pequeñas formas. Putin ha insistido, falsamente, en que la OTAN prometió nunca extenderse al este de Alemania, justificando así la reciente agresión a Ucrania como una necesidad defensiva.Las democracias cambian también de modos dramáticos y los líderes se vuelven cada vez menos liberales y emplean más mano dura.Las crecientes divisiones sociales, junto con la creciente desconfianza popular hacia los expertos y las instituciones, a menudo contribuyen a encumbrar a esos líderes en primer lugar.Esto puede ser una fuente de apoyo para un líder dispuesto a desechar la historia oficial y sustituirla por algo más cercano a lo que sus partidarios quieren oír. Y da a esos líderes otro incentivo: justificar la toma de poder como algo esencial para derrotar a los enemigos externos o internos.Por ejemplo, Viktor Orbán, el primer ministro húngaro, hizo una revisión de la historia de Hungría para convertirla en una víctima inocente de los nazis y los comunistas, que logró salvarse gracias a su guía patriótica. De este modo, defiende el escepticismo hacia la inmigración como la continuación de una gran batalla nacional, que también le exige suprimir a los rivales, a los críticos y a las instituciones independientes.El presidente Donald J. Trump dijo en 2020 que promovería un nuevo plan de estudios escolar “pro estadounidense”.Oliver Contreras para The New York TimesPor qué funciona el revisionismo históricoSegún las investigaciones, la propaganda más eficaz de cualquier tipo, suele centrarse en una apelación a la identidad de algún grupo, como la raza o la religión.Hay un experimento famoso: a la gente se le da un examen, se le dice su puntuación y luego se le pide que califique la objetividad del examen. Las personas a las que se les dice que han obtenido una buena puntuación tienden a calificar la prueba de justa y rigurosa. Las personas a las que se les dice que han obtenido una mala puntuación son más propensas a considerar que el examen es tendencioso o inexacto.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More