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      Breakfast with Chad: Posthumanism

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in US Politics

      Why Donald Trump’s return to Facebook could mark a rocky new age for online discourse

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      Why Donald Trump’s return to Facebook could mark a rocky new age for online discourseThe former president was banned from Instagram and Facebook following the Jan 6 attacks, but Meta argues that new ‘guardrails’ will keep his behaviour in check. Plus: is a chatbot coming for your job?

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      It’s been two years since Donald Trump was banned from Meta, but now he’s back. The company’s justification for allowing the former president to return to Facebook and Instagram – that the threat has subsided – seems to ignore that in the two years since the ban Trump hasn’t changed, it’s just that his reach has reduced.Last week, Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, announced that soon Trump will be able to post on Instagram and Facebook. The company said “the risk has sufficiently receded” in the two years since the Capitol riots on 6 January 2021 to allow the ban to be lifted.What you might not have been aware of – except through media reports – was Trump’s response. That is because the former US president posted it on Truth Social, his own social media network that he retreated to after he was banned from the others. And it is effectively behind a wall for web users, because the company is not accepting new registrations. On that platform, Trump is said to have fewer than 5 million followers, compared to 34 million and almost 88 million he’d had on Facebook and Twitter respectively.Meta’s ban meant that Trump wouldn’t have space on its platforms during the US midterms elections in 2022, but would anything have been different if Trump had been given a larger audience? As Dan Milmo has detailed, almost half of the posts on Trump’s Truth Social account in the weeks after the midterms pushed election fraud claims or amplified QAnon accounts or content. But you wouldn’t know it unless you were on that platform, or reading a news report about it like this one.If given a larger audience, will Trump resume his Main Character role in online discourse (a role that Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has gamely taken on in the past few months)? Or has his influence diminished? This is the gamble Meta is taking.When Musk lifted Trump’s ban on Twitter in November after a user poll won by a slim margin, it was easy to read the former president’s snub of the gesture as a burn on the tech CEO. But it seems increasingly likely that the Meta decision about whether to reinstate him was looming large in Trump’s mind. Earlier this month, NBC reported that Trump’s advisors had sent a letter to Meta pleading for the ban to be lifted, saying it “dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse”. If Trump had gone back to Twitter and started reposting what he had posted on Truth Social, there would have been more pressure on Meta to keep the ban in place (leaving aside the agreement Trump has with his own social media company that keeps his posts exclusive on Truth Social for several hours).Twitter lifting the ban and Trump not tweeting at all gave Meta sufficient cover.The financialsThere’s also the possible financial reasoning. Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters for America, said Facebook is “a dying platform” and restoring Trump is about clinging to relevance and revenue.For months, Trump has been posting on Truth Social about how poorly Meta is performing financially, and in part trying to link it to him no longer being on Facebook. Meta has lost more than US$80bn in market value, and last year sacked thousands of workers as the company aimed to stem a declining user base and loss of revenue after Apple made privacy changes on its software (£).But what of the ‘guardrails’?Meta’s justification for restoring Trump’s account is that there are new “guardrails” that could result in him being banned again for the most egregious policy breaches for between one month and two years. But that is likely only going to be for the most serious of breaches – such as glorifying those committing violence. Clegg indicated that if Trump is posting QAnon-adjacent content, for example, his reach will be limited on those posts.The ban itself was a pretty sufficient reach limiter, but we will have to see what happens if Trump starts posting again. The unpublished draft document from staff on the January 6 committee, reported by the Washington Post last week, was pretty telling about Meta, and social media companies generally. It states that both Facebook and Twitter, under its former management, were sensitive to claims that conservative political speech was being suppressed. “Fear of reprisal and accusations of censorship from the political right compromised policy, process, and decision-making. This was especially true at Facebook,” the document states.“In one instance, senior leadership intervened personally to prevent rightwing publishers from having their content demoted after receiving too many strikes from independent fact-checkers.“After the election, they debated whether they should change their fact-checking policy on former world leaders to accommodate President Trump.”Those “guardrails” don’t seem particularly reassuring, do they?Is AI really coming for your job?Layoffs continue to hit media and companies are looking to cut costs. So it was disheartening for new reporters in particular to learn that BuzzFeed plans to use AI such as ChatGPT “to create content instead of writers”.(Full disclosure: I worked at BuzzFeed News prior to joining the Guardian in 2019, but it’s been long enough that I am not familiar with any of its thinking about AI.)But perhaps it’s a bit too early to despair. Anyone who has used free AI to produce writing will know it’s OK but not great, so the concern about BuzzFeed dipping its toes in those waters seems to be overstated – at least for now.In an interview with Semafor, BuzzFeed tech reporter Katie Notopoulos explained that the tools aren’t intended to replace the quiz-creation work writers do now, but to create new quizzes unlike what is already around. “On the one hand,” she said, “I want to try to explain this isn’t an evil plan to replace me with AI. But on the other … maybe let Wall Street believe that for a little while.”That seems to be where AI is now: not a replacement for a skilled person, just a tool.The wider TechScape
      This is the first really good in-depth look at the last few months of Twitter since Elon Musk took over.
      Social media users are posting feelgood footage of strangers to build a following, but not every subject appreciates the clickbaity attention of these so-called #kindness videos.
      If you’re an influencer in Australia and you’re not declaring your sponcon properly, you might be targeted as part of a review by the local regulator.
      Speaking of influencers, Time has a good explanation for why you might have seen people posting about mascara on TikTok in the past few days.
      Writer Jason Okundaye makes the case that it’s time for people to stop filming strangers in public and uploading the videos online in the hope of going viral.
      Nintendo rereleasing GoldenEye007 this week is a reminder of how much the N64 game shaped video games back in the day.
      TopicsTechnologyTechScapeSocial mediaDonald TrumpDigital mediaMetaFacebookInstagramnewslettersReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      TikTok CEO to testify before US Congress next month over data privacy

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      TikTok CEO to testify before US Congress next month over data privacyShou Zi Chew will face legislators amid concerns over the social media app’s alleged collusion with Beijing in accessing user data As the US legislative battle over TikTok continues to escalate, Shou Zi Chew, the chief executive of the video-sharing app, will make his first appearance before Congress to testify next month. Chew will testify before the House energy and commerce committee on 23 March, Republican representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers confirmed in a statement on Monday, as scrutiny of the Chinese-owned app over data privacy concerns grows.TechScape: Is ‘banning’ TikTok protecting users or censorship? It depends who you askRead moreThe news comes after the app was banned on government devices and school campuses in a number of states in recent months, as well as on federal devices after a ban was passed in Congress in December. Next month the House foreign affairs committee plans to hold a vote on a bill aimed at blocking the use of TikTok entirely in the US.“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist party to access American user data,” McMorris Rodgers said, adding that Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security.TikTok has denied these claims, stating: “The Chinese Communist party has neither direct nor indirect control of ByteDance or TikTok,” according to a company spokesman. It confirmed on Monday that Chew will testify.“We welcome the opportunity to set the record straight about TikTok, ByteDance and the commitments we are making to address concerns about US national security before the House committee on energy and commerce,” the spokesman said, adding the company hopes “by sharing details of our comprehensive plans with the full committee, Congress can take a more deliberative approach to the issues at hand”.McMorris Rodgers and other Republican lawmakers have demanded more information from TikTok regarding the app’s impact on young people, concerns about harmful content and details on potential sexual exploitation of minors on the platform.TikTok was first targeted in earnest by the Trump administration in 2020, with a sweeping executive order prohibiting US companies from doing business with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. In the three years since, the company has sought to assure Washington that the personal data of US citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China’s Communist party or anyone else under Beijing’s influence.While Biden revoked the Trump administration ban in June 2021, the reversal was made with a stipulation that the US committee on foreign investment (CFIUS) conduct a security review of the platform and suggested a path forward to avoid a permanent ban.That review has been ongoing as the CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for more than two years aiming to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of US TikTok users. The White House on Friday declined to comment on whether it would support a legislative ban on TikTok or the status of the talks.Reuters contributed to this articleTopicsTikTokUS CongressSocial mediaDigital mediaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Biden vows to veto Republican plans that threaten economic ‘chaos’ – as it happened

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      “They’re threatening to have us default on the American debt, the debt that has been accumulated for over 230 years … we’ve never ever done that,” Biden said, referring to fiscal policies proposed by Republicans.“Why in God’s name would Americans give up the progress we made for the chaos they’re suggesting? I don’t get it … I will not let that happen, not on my watch,” he said.“I will veto everything they send,” he added.It’s slightly past 4pm in Washington DC. Here’s where things stand:
      Former transportation secretary Elaine Chao has spoken out against former president Donald Trump who has repeatedly issued racist remarks towards her. Chao, who is Asian American, told Politico, “When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name…He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans,” she added.
      In an address in Springfield, Virginia on Thursday, president Joe Biden hit back against Republican fiscal policies and vowed to not let a national debt default happen. “They’re threatening to have us default on the American debt, the debt that has been accumulated for over 230 years … we’ve never ever done that…Why in God’s name would Americans give up the progress we made for the chaos they’re suggesting? I don’t get it … I will not let that happen, not on my watch,” he said.
      Biden also reaffirmed his administration’s fight against global warming by “finally making sure the biggest corporations just begin to pay a little bit. The days are over where corporations pay zero in federal taxes.”
      San Francisco superior court judge Stephen Murphy has ordered footage of the attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband to be released. In addition to home surveillance footage, Murphy ordered the public release of police body camera footage, 911 audio calls, as well as audio from police interviews with David DePape, the suspect who broke into Pelosi’s San Francisco home last October in attempts to kidnap the former speaker.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis called for a change in leadership of the Republican National Committee in an interview on Thursday morning. “I think we need a change, and I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC outside of DC – why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America?,” DeSantis said on the Charlie Kirk Show, referring to the lawyer who is currently the foremost challenger of RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s position.
      The National Archives has officially requested that former US presidents and their vice presidents check to establish whether they have any classified documents or other presidential records. The request comes amid the ongoing but increasingly surreal scandal tangling up Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Mike Pence.
      Hard right congresswoman and conspiracy-booster Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, has “no chance” of being stated-2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump’s vice presidential choice, despite aspiring to it, a source tells Guardian US.
      Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s owner, is reportedly ready to allow Trump to post on the platforms his ongoing attacks on the results of the 2020 presidential election, where he lost to Joe Biden but claims he really won. But if Trump posts misinformation about upcoming elections, including the 2024 presidential, it will take some unspecified action to restrict his messaging. Meta has reinstated Trump to the platforms after a two-year ban, but he hasn’t posted yet.
      The decision to allow Trump back onto Facebook and Instagram is infuriating many, including some civil rights groups (though not the ACLU) and Democratic politicians. The move has been called dangerous by some.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up today’s US politics blog. Thank you for following along. We’ll be back on Friday. Former transportation secretary Elaine Chao has spoken out against former president Donald Trump who has repeatedly issued racist remarks towards her. Chao, who is Asian American, told Politico, “When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name… Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation.”“He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans,” she added. Earlier this week, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Does Coco Chow have anything to do with Joe Biden’s Classified Documents being sent and stored in Chinatown?” he wrote. “Her husband, the Old Broken Crow, is VERY close to Biden, the Democrats, and, of course, China,” he added. Trump has also previously referred to Chao, who is married to Mitch McConnell, as “China’s loving wife.”“We have more work to do but we’re on the right track… I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future than I am today…and nothing is beyond our capacity if we work together,” said Biden in his closing remarks. “Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in 50 years,” said Biden since taking office two years ago. “We created nearly 11 million jobs, including 750,000 manufacturing jobs…the unemployment rate is near record lowest for Black and Hispanic workers and the lowest ever recorded for people with disabilities,” he added.“If you don’t think we have a climate crisis, come travel with me around the country,” says Biden, adding, “We have enormous drought, now we have these super storms in the west…folks, there is a thing called global warming and it’s real but we can do something about it.”“Families are going to save more than $1,000 on tax credits on these [energy efficient] vehicles when they purchase one, and energy efficient appliances like refrigerators and washing machines…and we’re paying for all of this by finally making sure the biggest corporations just begin to pay a little bit. The days are over where corporations pay zero in federal taxes,” he added. “They’re threatening to have us default on the American debt, the debt that has been accumulated for over 230 years … we’ve never ever done that,” Biden said, referring to fiscal policies proposed by Republicans.“Why in God’s name would Americans give up the progress we made for the chaos they’re suggesting? I don’t get it … I will not let that happen, not on my watch,” he said.“I will veto everything they send,” he added.“We’re moving in the right direction, now we have to protect those gains…from the MAGA Republicans… This ain’t your father’s Republican party… They want to pass legislation to do the following things…they want to raise your gas prices…cut taxes of your billionaires…and they want to impose a 30% national sales tax on food…clothing…house, cars… They want to eliminate the income tax system,” Biden said. “We’ve achieved a lot…economic growth is up, stronger than experts expected…jobs are the highest in American history and wages are up. In the past six months, inflation has gone down each month,” Biden said in his address at Springfield, Virginia. San Francisco superior court judge Stephen Murphy has ordered footage of the attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband to be released. In addition to home surveillance footage, Murphy ordered the public release of police body camera footage, 911 audio calls, as well as audio from police interviews with David DePape, the suspect who broke into Pelosi’s San Francisco home last October in attempts to kidnap the former speaker.Unable to find Nancy Pelosi, the alleged perpetrator instead beat her 82-year old husband with a hammer. Murphy’s decision comes amid calls from numerous news agencies that seek the release of the footage and evidence. “You don’t eliminate the public right of access just because of concerns about conspiracy theories,” said Thomas Burke, a lawyer who represented the Associated Press and other media organizations in their attempt to gain access to the footage, the AP reports. Florida governor Ron DeSantis called for a change in leadership of the Republican National Committee in an interview on Thursday morning. .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I think we need a change, and I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC outside of DC – why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America?,” DeSantis said on the Charlie Kirk Show, referring to the lawyer who is currently the foremost challenger of RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s position. He added: .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“We’ve had three substandard election cycles in a row – ’18, ’20, and ’22 – and I would say of all three of those, ’22 was probably the worst given the political environment of a very unpopular President in Biden.”DeSantis’s comments come amid growing concerns from some RNC members that McDaniel has not done enough to push back against Donald Trump from forming a third political party if he does not secure the Republican presidential nomination during the next election cycle. Hello again, US politics live blog readers. It’s been a lively day in the news from Washington so far and there’ll be more to come. Joe Biden is due to leave the White House shortly en route to a union office in Springfield, Virginia, where he’s scheduled to give a speech at 2.45pm ET on the economy (and what he sees as Republican plans to block his economic agenda).Here’s where things stand:
      The National Archives has officially requested that former US presidents and their vice presidents check to establish whether they have any classified documents or other presidential records, amid the ongoing but increasingly surreal scandal tangling up Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Mike Pence.
      Hard right congresswoman and conspiracy-booster Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, has “no chance” of being stated-2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump’s vice presidential choice, despite aspiring to it, a source tells Guardian US.
      Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s owner, is reportedly ready to allow Trump to post on the platforms his ongoing attacks on the results of the 2020 presidential election, where he lost to Joe Biden but claims he really won. But if Trump posts misinformation about upcoming elections, including the 2024 presidential, it will take some unspecified action to restrict his messaging. Meta has reinstated Trump to the platforms after a two-year ban, but he hasn’t posted yet.
      The decision to allow Trump back onto Facebook and Instagram is infuriating many, including some civil rights groups (though not the ACLU) and Democratic politicians. The move has been called dangerous by some.
      At a press briefing with the US attorney general Merrick Garland earlier, FBI director Christopher Wray warned, amid the scandal of classified documents turning up in the possession of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, that people with access to such material should be more “conscious of the rules.”“Obviously I can’t comment on any specific investigation, but we have had, for quite a number of years, any number of mishandling investigations,” Wray told reporters at the briefing that was chiefly called to talk about the Department of Justice seizing a website used by a ransomware outfit.“That is, unfortunately, a regular part of our counterintelligence division, counterintelligence programs work,” Wray added. “And people need to be conscious of the rules for classified information and appropriate handling of it. Those rules are there for a reason,” Wray said.Today FBI Director Christopher Wray weighed in on the classified doc drama, I believe for the first time, saying in part, “people need to be conscious of the rules regarding classified information and appropriate, handling of them…those rules are there for a reason.”— Evan Lambert (@EvanLambertTV) January 26, 2023
      It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at this point. But, again, there is a vast difference between what appears to be a careless oversight by Joe Biden, followed by an infuriating and outrageous information blackout before the public were told, and the case of Trump, who refused to hand over boxes of classified and secret documents to the government after leaving the White House and had to be raided by the FBI last summer.The National Archives has officially requested that former US presidents and their vice presidents do a sweep or a re-sweep, if they’ve checked before, to establish whether they have any classified documents or other presidential records among their personal records, amid the rumbling scandal, CNN reports. The call comes as Donald Trump is being investigated by a special counsel appointed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) for withholding many boxes of material, including top secret documents, Joe Biden is being investigated by a separate special counsel after it was discovered that there were a few classified documents outstanding from his time as vice president, which he’s handed over, and that Mike Pence had some documents, too.The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent federal agency within the executive branch. The agency sent a letter today to representatives of former presidents and vice presidents from, according to CNN, the last six administrations covered by the Presidential Records Act (PRA).“The letter, which was reviewed by CNN, requests that they check their files to ensure that material thought to be personal does not “inadvertently” contain presidential records that are required by law to be turned over to the Archives,” the cable news channel reports.The report continues: “The Archives sent the letter to representatives for former Presidents Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and former Vice Presidents Pence, Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle.Representatives for the four former presidents have all so far told CNN they do not have any classified records in their possession.”Here again, FYI, is the Guardian’s great explainer on the fundamental differences between the Trump and Biden cases.Obama, Dubya, Clinton, Cheney, Gore, Quayle (and president Jimmy Carter, aged 98, who hasn’t been mentioned in this latest sweep), are still alive.NBC News made a splash on Wednesday with a report that said Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to be Donald Trump’s pick for vice-president in 2024.Greene, from Georgia, is a far-right controversialist and conspiracy theorist who was barred from House committees by Democrats but is now suddenly strongly allied with Republican leaders, after supporting Kevin McCarthy through his 15-vote ordeal to be elected speaker.Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist, now a far-right media figure (and accused fraudster), told NBC Greene saw herself “on the short list for Trump’s VP”.An unnamed source “who has advised Greene said her ‘whole vision is to be vice president’.”So the Guardian asked its own anonymous source, a veteran Trumpworld insider, if there was any chance Trump would pick Greene.The source said: “No chance. She might want it but it’s not real.”So there’s that.There’s also this, an interview with Robert Draper of the New York Times about his fascinating book about Republican dysfunction and, in particular, the rise of Marjorie Taylor Greene:‘A nutso proposition’: Robert Draper on Trump, Republicans and January 6 Read moreThe Guardian’s David Smith earlier this month ran through some of Trump’s options in the veepstakes, including Taylor Greene. You can read it here. More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s Facebook and Instagram ban to be lifted, Meta announces

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      Trump’s Facebook and Instagram ban to be lifted, Meta announcesEx-president to be allowed back ‘in coming weeks … with new guardrails in place’ after ban that followed January 6 attack In a highly anticipated decision, Meta has said it will allow Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram following a two-year ban from the platforms over his online behavior during the 6 January insurrection.Meta will allow Trump to return “in coming weeks” but “with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses”, Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a blogpost explaining the decision.Two more papers found in Trump’s storage last year were marked secretRead more“Like any other Facebook or Instagram user, Mr Trump is subject to our community standards,” Clegg wrote.“In the event that Mr Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.”Trump was removed from Meta platforms following the Capitol riots on 6 January 2021, during which he posted unsubstantiated claims that the election had been stolen, praised increasingly violent protestors and condemned former vice-president Mike Pence even as the mob threatened his life.Clegg said the suspension was “an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances” and that Meta has weighed “whether there remain such extraordinary circumstances that extending the suspension beyond the original two-year period is justified”.Ultimately, the company has decided that its platforms should be available for “open, public and democratic debate” and that users “should be able to hear from a former President of the United States, and a declared candidate for that office again”, he wrote.“The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying – the good, the bad and the ugly – so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” he said.As a general rule, we don’t want to get in the way of open debate on our platforms, esp in context of democratic elections. People should be able to hear what politicians are saying – good, bad & ugly – to make informed choices at the ballot box. 1/4— Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) January 25, 2023
      While it is unclear if the former president will begin posting again on the platform, his campaign indicated he had a desire to return in a letter sent to Meta in January.“We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” the letter said.Safety concerns and a politicized debateThe move is likely to influence how other social media companies will handle the thorny balance of free speech and content moderation when it comes to world leaders and other newsworthy individuals, a debate made all the more urgent by Trump’s run for the US presidency once again.Online safety advocates have warned that Trump’s return will result in an increase of misinformation and real-life violence. Since being removed from Meta-owned platforms, the former president has continued to promote baseless conspiracy theories elsewhere, predominantly on his own network, Truth Social.While widely expected, it still drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act.”The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern on Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.“With the mass murders in Colorado or in Buffalo, you can see there is already a cauldron of extremism that is only intensified if Trump weighs in,” said Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of media watchdog Media Matters for America. “When Trump is given a platform, it ratchets up the temperature on a landscape that is already simmering – one that will put us on a path to increased violence.”After the 6 January riots, the former president was also banned from Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube. Some of those platforms have already allowed Trump to return. Twitter’s ban, while initially permanent, was later overruled by its new chief executive Elon Musk. YouTube has not shared a timeline on a decision to allow Trump to return. Trump remains banned from Snapchat. Meta, however, dragged out its ultimate decision. In 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in a post Trump had been barred from the platforms for encouraging violence and that he would remain suspended until a peaceful transition of power could take place.While Zuckerberg did not initially offer a timeline on the ban, the company punted its decision about whether to remove him permanently to its oversight board: a group of appointed academics and former politicians meant to operate independently of Facebook’s corporate leadership. That group ruled in May 2021 that the penalties should not be “indeterminate”, but kicked the final ruling on Trump’s accounts back to Meta, suggesting it decide in six months – two years after the riots.The deadline was initially slated for 7 January, and reports from inside Meta suggested the company was intensely debating the decision. Clegg wrote in a 2021 blog post that Trump’s accounts would need to be strictly monitored in the event of his return.How the ‘guardrails’ could workAnnouncing the decision on Wednesday, Clegg said Meta’s “guardrails” would include taking action against content that does not directly violate their community standards but “contributes to the sort of risk that materialized on January 6th, such as content that delegitimizes an upcoming election or is related to QAnon”.Meta “may limit the distribution of such posts, and for repeated instances, may temporarily restrict access to our advertising tools”, Clegg said, or “remove the re-share button” from posts.Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook accountRead moreTrump responded to the news with a short statement on Truth Social, reposted by others on Twitter, saying that “such a thing should never happen again to a sitting president” but did not indicate if or when he would return to the platform.It remains to be seen if he will actually begin posting again on the platforms where his accounts have been reinstated. While he initially suggested he would be “staying on Truth [Social]”, his own social media platform, recent reports said he was eager to return to Facebook, formally appealing Meta to reinstate his accounts. But weeks after returning to Twitter, Trump had yet to tweet again. Some have suggested the silence has been due to an exclusivity agreement he has with Truth Social.A report from Rolling Stone said Trump planned to begin tweeting again when the agreement, which requires him to post all news to the app six hours in advance of any other platform, expires in June. Trump has a far broader reach on mainstream social platforms compared to Truth Social, where he has just 5 million followers.Many online safety advocates have warned Trump’s return would be toxic, and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill urged Meta in a December letter to uphold the ban.Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House intelligence committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.“Trump incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”Trump’s account has remained online even after his ban, but he had been unable to publish new posts. Civil rights groups say that regardless of the former president’s future actions the Meta decision marks a dangerous precedent. “Whether he uses the platforms or not, a reinstatement by Meta sends a message that there are no real consequences even for inciting insurrection and a coup on their channels,” said a group of scholars, advocates and activists calling itself the Real Facebook Oversight Board in a statement. “Someone who has violated their terms of service repeatedly, spread disinformation on their platforms and fomented violence would be welcomed back.”Reuters contributed reportingTopicsDonald TrumpMetaFacebookInstagramUS politicsSocial networkingUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Justice department alleges Google tried to ‘eliminate’ ad market rivals in lawsuit

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      Justice department alleges Google tried to ‘eliminate’ ad market rivals in lawsuitThe DoJ and eight states have filed a complaint against the tech company for violating antitrust laws The US justice department and eight states filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday over allegations that the company abused its dominance of the digital advertising business, according to a court document.Google parent firm Alphabet to cut 12,000 jobs worldwideRead more“Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the government said in its antitrust complaint.The government alleges that Google’s plan to assert dominance has been to “neutralize or eliminate” rivals through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors’ products.The antitrust suit was filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Attorney general Merrick Garland said in a press conference Tuesday that Google’s dominance in the ad market means fewer publishers are able to offer their products without charging subscription or other fees, because they can’t rely on competition in the advertising market to keep ad prices low.As a result of Google’s dominance, he said, “website creators earn less and advertisers pay more”.The justice department asked the court to compel Google to divest its Google Ad manager suite, including its ad exchange AdX.The department’s suit accuses Google of unlawfully monopolizing the way ads are served online by excluding competitors. This includes its 2008 acquisition of DoubleClick, a dominant ad server, and subsequent rollout of technology that locks in the split-second bidding process for ads that get served on Web pages.Google’s ad manager lets large publishers who have significant direct sales manage their advertisements. The ad exchange, meanwhile, is a real-time marketplace to buy and sell online display ads.The lawsuit demands that Google break off three different businesses from its core business of search, YouTube and other products such as Gmail: the buying and selling of ads and ownership of the exchange where that business is transacted.Garland said that “for 15 years, Google has pursued a course of anti-competitive conduct” that has halted the rise of rival technologies and manipulated the mechanics of online ad auctions to force advertisers and publishers to use its tools.In so doing, he added, “Google has engaged in exclusionary conduct” that has “severely weakened”, if not destroyed competition in the ad tech industry.Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, said in a statement that the suit “doubles down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow”.The lawsuit is the second federal antitrust complaint filed against Google, alleging violations of antitrust law in how the company acquires or maintains its dominance. The justice department lawsuit filed against Google in 2020 focuses on its monopoly in search and is scheduled to go to trial in September.Eight states joined the department in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, including Google’s home state of California. The states taking part in the suit include California, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee.Dina Srinivasan, a Yale University fellow and adtech expert, said the lawsuit is “huge” because it aligns the entire nation – state and federal governments – in a bipartisan legal offensive against Google.Google shares were down 1.3% on the news.While Google remains the market leader by a long shot, its share of the US digital ad revenue has been eroding, falling to 28.8% last year from 36.7% in 2016, according to Insider Intelligence. Google’s advertising business is responsible for about 80% of its revenue.TopicsGoogleAlphabetUS politicsAdvertisingnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook account

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      Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook accountFormer president’s lawyers petition company to allow access following ban from platform in wake of 2021 Capitol attack Donald Trump has petitioned Meta to restore his access to Facebook, as he reportedly looks to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear.The former president was banned from Facebook more than two years ago, after his followers attacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.In a letter to Meta obtained by NBC News on Wednesday, Trump advisers argued that the ban “dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse” and should be rescinded.Meta said it would “announce a decision in the coming weeks”.Free the nipple: Facebook and Instagram told to overhaul ban on bare breastsRead moreFacebook and Twitter banned Trump a day after the January 6 attack, which has been linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.Trump used his Twitter account to encourage supporters to gather near the Capitol. In a speech before the attack, he urged supporters to “fight like hell”. He then used Twitter to criticize his vice-president, Mike Pence, for not stopping certification while the attack was in progress.A congressional committee recommended that Trump be criminally charged in connection with the attack, the fate of hundreds of his supporters.Twitter lifted its ban on Trump after Elon Musk bought the platform last year. But Trump has not tweeted since, choosing to remain on his own rival social media service, Truth Social.NBC quoted an anonymous Republican who said Trump had been bragging about eventually returning to Twitter and predicted the ex-president would do so.Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Twitter have 34 million and nearly 88 million followers respectively. On Truth Social, he has fewer than 5 million followers.Trump used Twitter and Facebook extensively when he ran for the presidency in 2016 and throughout his time in office.Impeached over the Capitol attack but acquitted, Trump announced his 2024 run in mid-November. In doing so he sought to take credit for Republicans winning back the US House in the midterm elections, though their majority was much narrower than expected and many candidates Trump endorsed suffered high-profile defeats.TopicsDonald TrumpMetaFacebookUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-secretary of state George Shultz was besotted by Theranos fraudster Holmes, book says

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      Ex-secretary of state George Shultz was besotted by Theranos fraudster Holmes, book saysHe was either ‘corrupt’, ‘in love’ or had ‘completely lost’ his mental edge, says grandson who blew whistle on Holmes’s scheme Former US secretary of state George Shultz’s support for Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent blood testing company, Theranos, which devastated his family and caused a bitter feud with his grandson, receives fresh scrutiny in a biography published on Tuesday.Year of the tech grifter: will Silicon Valley ever learn from its mistakes? Read moreShultz was Ronald Reagan’s top diplomat at the end of the cold war. Before that, he was secretary of the treasury and secretary of labor under Richard Nixon. He is now the subject of In the Nation’s Service, written by Philip Taubman, a former New York Times reporter.Shultz joined the Theranos board of directors in 2011.Taubman recounts how Shultz – then in his 90s and with no biomedical expertise – was impressed by Holmes’s startup and its promise to revolutionise blood testing. He helped the young entrepreneur form a board of directors and raise money from heavyweight investors including Rupert Murdoch.“Shultz repeatedly told friends that Holmes was brilliant,” Taubman writes. “Over time, his associates grew alarmed, fearing that his enthusiasm was colored by personal affection for Holmes. He talked by phone with her almost every day and invited her to join Shultz family Christmas dinners. She encouraged his attention by leaning in close to him when they were seated together on sofas.”Dismissing scepticism regarding Holmes’s claim to have come up with a quick and easy blood test that would dramatically simplify healthcare, Shultz encouraged his grandson, Tyler Shultz, to work a summer internship at Theranos and become a full-time employee.But Tyler Shultz came to suspect that Holmes was overselling her technology and took his concerns to the Wall Street Journal. Suspecting the younger Shultz was the whistleblower, Holmes set her lawyers on him and put him under surveillance. Alarmed, Tyler Shultz went to his grandfather for help.Taubman writes: “Instead of hugging his grandson and disowning Holmes, Shultz equivocated. He tried unsuccessfully to mediate between Tyler and Holmes.”When that effort failed, Shultz refused to cut ties with the businesswoman. He told Tyler: “I’m over 90 years old. I’ve seen a lot in my time, I’ve been right almost every time and I know I’m right about this.”Tyler felt betrayed. In a 2020 podcast, Thicker Than Water, he imagined three reasons why his grandfather sided with Holmes.“One is that you were corrupt and have invested so much money in Theranos that you were willing to make ethical compromises in order to see return on your investment. The second is that you are in love with Elizabeth.“So no matter how many times she lies to you, no matter how many patients she injures and no matter how badly she harms your family, you will put her above everything else. The last possibility is that you have completely lost your mental edge and despite an abundance of data showing that she was a criminal, you somehow are incapable of connecting these very, very big dots.”Taubman also suggests motives: financial gain, as Shultz’s holdings in Theranos stock soared before Holmes fell to disgrace, peaking at $50m; or personal loyalty to Holmes, just as Shultz showed to Richard Nixon during the Watergate crisis and Reagan during the Iran-contra affair.The author writes: “Shultz’s performance left his family broken. Saddened friends and associates attributed the conduct to his advanced age.”In 2018, Holmes was indicted on charges involving defrauding investors and deceiving patients and doctors. Last year, she was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, made a symbol of Silicon Valley ambition that veered into deceit.Shultz sought to heal the rift with his grandson, stating that he had “made me proud” and shown “great moral character”. Tyler Shultz said his grandfather never apologised but their relationship “started to heal”. Taubman notes that the Holmes issue “remained unfinished business” when Shultz died in 2021, at the age of 100.The biography was written over 10 years and draws on exclusive access to Shultz’s papers. It explores his involvement in the summits between Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that ended the cold war, the Iran-contra affair and Internal Revenue Service investigations into Nixon’s “enemies”.TopicsBooksTheranosUS politicsRepublicansUS crimenewsReuse this content More