October, 04 2021, 09:38am EDT
Whistleblower Revelations Demand Response to Make Facebook Accountable
On Sunday, CBS' 60 Minutes aired an interview with Frances Haugen, who revealed herself to be the whistleblower who shared internal Facebook documents with federal regulators showing the company lied repeatedly to the public and investors about its ability to combat hate, violence and misinformation on its platforms. In the 60 Minutes interview, Haugen revealed her identity, and explained why she released the documents. Her main concerns include Facebook executives' repeated choice of "profits over safety" in ways that caused violence around the world.
WASHINGTON
On Sunday, CBS' 60 Minutes aired an interview with Frances Haugen, who revealed herself to be the whistleblower who shared internal Facebook documents with federal regulators showing the company lied repeatedly to the public and investors about its ability to combat hate, violence and misinformation on its platforms. In the 60 Minutes interview, Haugen revealed her identity, and explained why she released the documents. Her main concerns include Facebook executives' repeated choice of "profits over safety" in ways that caused violence around the world.
Among the key findings of TheWall Street Journal's series "The Facebook Files" was evidence that: Facebook exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules; Instagram is harmful to millions of young users; Facebook's 2018 algorithm change promotes objectionable or harmful content; Facebook's tools were used to sow doubt about Covid-19 vaccines; and globally, Facebook is used to incite violence against ethnic minorities and facilitated action against political dissent.
Jessica J. Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press and co-founder of "Ya Basta Facebook" and the Change the Terms coalition, made the following statement:
"Facebook runs on a hate-and-lie-for-profit business model that amplifies all sorts of toxicity on its platforms. Thanks to this brave whistleblower, we now have further proof that Facebook's executives--all the way up to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg--routinely chose profits over public safety. They designed the company's algorithms to put engagement, growth and profits above all else, even allowing lies about the 2020 election results to spread to millions in advance of the white-nationalist assault on the U.S. Capitol.
"The Facebook whistleblower turned evidence of this gross negligence over to the government at great personal risk, and now we need the government to respond with decisive action to hold the company responsible for protecting public safety. The government must demand full transparency on how Facebook collects, processes and shares our data, and enact civil rights and privacy policies to protect the public from Facebook's toxic business model.
"Facebook must also act swiftly to remedy the harms it is continuing to inflict on the public at large. It must end special protections for powerful politicians, ban white supremacists and dangerous conspiracy theorists and institute wholesale changes to strengthen content moderation in English and other languages--and we need this all now."
Free Press activists are urging Congress to adopt a series of measures to hold Facebook to account.
Facebook has not responded to Free Press or Common Cause about its refusal to suspend Team Trump, a PAC established and controlled by Donald Trump, after the ex-president was suspended from Facebook's platforms. In July, more than 20 organizations urged Facebook to close a loophole that allowed dishonest and dangerous ads by groups controlled by banned public figures.
Facebook has also refused to answer members of Congress, Free Press, and other members of the "Ya Basta Facebook" coalition about how many staff and contractors the company employs to reduce Spanish-language disinformation on its platforms. It has also failed to release details on training or support for content moderators for non-English posts. Learn more here.
For years, Free Press, as a leader of the Change the Terms coalition, has pressured Facebook executives to strengthen their policy and enforcement mechanisms to curb hateful activity across the board on their platforms. Learn more here.
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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Groundbreaking TV Producer and Activist Norman Lear Dies at 101
"Anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe," said TV writer and producer David Simon.
Dec 06, 2023
Actors and television and film producers were joined by progressive lawmakers, human rights advocates, and abortion rights groups in paying tribute to Norman Lear, the legendary TV writer and producer who ushered in an entirely new era of sitcom viewing to the American public in the 1970s, as his death at the age of 101 was announced Wednesday.
Lear has long been credited with expanding audiences' ideas about whether salient topics of the day like racism, poverty, and reproductive rights could be fodder for primetime television after his first smash hit, "All In the Family," was introduced in 1971.
The show, which ran for eight seasons and inspired several spin-offs, featured the bigoted Archie Bunker at its center, with his progressive daughter and son-in-law, influenced by the 1960s counterculture, frequently challenging his views.
"All In the Family" broke new ground by confronting Bunker's homophobia, his wife Edith's experience of going through menopause, widespread opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam, and racism.
"Honesty about white racism was such a relief," reflected Maya Wiley, CEO and president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
As critic Ben Brantley said on social media, Lear "redefined what could be said and seen on television" and "made the uncomfortably narrow American mind the center of a sitcom."
Other hit series included "The Jeffersons," which featured an upwardly-mobile Black family and which Lear said he was inspired to write after members of the Black Panthers told him, "Every time you see a Black man on the tube, he is dirt poor." The family at the center of the sitcom discussed issues including alcoholism, interracial relationships, and classism. As Danielle Cadet wrote at HuffPost in 2012, the show "opened doors for future black actors, and its success proved that African American sitcoms did, in fact, resonate with general audiences."
"Sanford and Son," about a Black junk dealer who often butts heads with his more open-minded son, "mine[d] laughs in a setting that in real life had been torn apart over police abuse issues not long before, during the Watts riots of August 1965," noted the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In "Good Times," a Black woman faced challenges as she raised her family in public housing in Chicago.
The success of Lear's series meant that "anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe," said TV writer and producer David Simon.
The nonprofit group Abortion Access Front paid tribute to another series, "Maude," in which the title character had an abortion in an historic 1972 episode.
"We humbly aim to continue the legacy of smashing stigma and promoting the vitality of abortion access through humor," said the group, posting a clip for the episode in which Maude's daughter says, "We're free, we finally have the right to decide what we can do with our own bodies."
The show "broke many barriers," said researcher Steph Herold, not only by being the first sitcom to contain a plotline dealing with abortion care, but also by having "the first abortion plotline that centered the woman instead of her partner, doctor, or lawyer, the first legal abortion plotline."
"Norman Lear moved minds through the moving image," said U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "His commitment to social justice ran through his work."
Lear founded the progressive group People for the American Way (PFAW) in 1981 and oversaw its advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech, and other issues.
He later established groups that aimed to push for voter registration among young people, promote socially responsible behavior by corporations, and encourage the entertainment industry to educate viewers about environmental damage.
Lear was awarded lifetime achievement awards from the Producers Guild of America, the Television Critics Association, and the free expression group PEN Center USA, as well as a National Medal of Arts in 1999.
As Common Dreams reported in 2017, Lear refused to attend a reception at the White House to celebrate the Kennedy Center's decision to honor him that year, saying he did not want to mark the occasion at the home of then-President Donald Trump, who had slashed arts funding.
"I can't see myself visiting a White House, what [Trump] called a dump, that dumps on the National Endowment for the Arts," he told The Washington Post.
PFAW noted on Wednesday that Lear considered himself a patriot, and once wrote that he would not "surrender that word to those who play to our worst impulses rather than our highest ideals."
"That belief shone through in his work," said the group.
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'Apocalyptic' Horror in Gaza Called 'Total Failure of Our Shared Humanity'
"How is it that these atrocities are beamed across the world for all to witness, and yet so little is done to stop them?"
Dec 06, 2023
Humanitarian groups and United Nations officials expressed horror Wednesday at the disaster unfolding in Gaza as Israeli forces stormed the largest city in the southern part of the strip, fueling concerns of a repeat of the appalling destruction that Israel inflicted in the north.
Volker Türk, the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights, said at a press conference that the "catastrophic situation" in Gaza was "entirely foreseeable and preventable." He noted that his colleagues on the ground in the besieged strip "have described the situation as apocalyptic."
"Military operations, including bombardment, by Israeli forces continue in north, middle, and south Gaza, affecting people who have already been displaced multiple times—forced to flee—in search of safety," said Türk. "But no place is safe."
Many had fled to Khan Younis from the north in search of safety, only to be told to evacuate again weeks later as the Israeli military closed in.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier this week that its ground offensive now encompasses the entirety of the Gaza Strip, leaving the nearly 2 million people who have been displaced with no viable options to avoid near-constant Israeli bombing, shelling, and firefights that have prevented the delivery of critical aid, including medicine and food.
Virtually the entire population of Gaza is at imminent risk of starvation, the World Food Program has warned.
"The hunger war has started," one displaced person toldThe Associated Press, saying that Gazans are now fighting over dwindling food supplies. "This is the worst of all wars."
"Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell."
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said that tens of thousands of people are living on the streets of southern Gaza in makeshift and overcrowded shelters, heightening the risk of infectious disease. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East reported an outbreak of Hepatitis A at one of its facilities last week.
Hospitals are also overwhelmed and out of basic supplies, forcing doctors to operate on wounded patients without anesthesia and proper sanitation.
"Many of my own NRC staff members now live on the streets. One of them does so with her two-month-old baby," said Egeland. "Our colleagues in Gaza ask themselves a simple question: How is it that these atrocities are beamed across the world for all to witness, and yet so little is done to stop them?"
Egeland called Israel's "pulverizing of Gaza" one of "the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age."
"Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell," he added, calling for an immediate cease-fire. "The situation in Gaza is a total failure of our shared humanity. The killing must stop."
Israel—whose assault has been backed politically and militarily by the U.S. and other Western nations—claims its intensifying attack on Khan Younis and other areas of southern Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas strongholds, an assertion it has used throughout the two-month war to justify the mass slaughter of civilians and the decimation of large swaths of the Palestinian territory.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based nonprofit, estimated Tuesday that at least 90% of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 7 have been civilians, contradicting Israel's claim that two Gaza civilians have been killed for every Hamas combatant.
Including the number of people missing under rubble and presumed dead, the human rights group said at least 21,022 people have been killed by the Israeli military since early October, when the assault on Gaza began in the wake of a deadly Hamas-led attack. The U.N. has estimated that nearly 70% of those killed have been women and children.
"The only way for civilians to be protected and for humanitarian assistance to be provided at the necessary scale required is for the conflict to end," Bob Kitchen, vice president for emergencies at the International Rescue Committee, said in a statement Tuesday. "The need for a cease-fire becomes more urgent as each hour passes, with more than two million Palestinians facing humanitarian catastrophe."
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Trump Pledges to Be a Dictator on 'Day One'
The former president's remarks came as his allies are reportedly preparing specific plans to wield the federal government to target political enemies, including journalists.
Dec 06, 2023
Amid mounting alarm over his authoritarian ambitions for a second term, former President Donald Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday that he would be a dictator only on "day one," pledging to unilaterally close the U.S.-Mexico border and accelerate fossil fuel drilling.
Trump's remarks came in response to a question from host Sean Hannity, who asked the former president if he would promise to never "abuse power as retribution against anybody."
"Except for day one," Trump replied. "I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill... We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator."
"The moment for resisting Trump is right now, not waiting until January 21, 2025."
President Joe Biden's 2024 campaign immediately highlighted Trump's comments, posting a clip on social media and saying in a statement that the former president "has been telling us exactly what he will do if he's reelected."
"Tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one," said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. "Americans should believe him."
Trump's remarks Tuesday were just the latest evidence that the former president is preparing to aggressively wield executive power and arms of the federal government to pursue a far-right agenda and target his political enemies if he wins another White House term next year.
The Washington Postreported last month that Trump and his allies "have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents... with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations."
"Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington," the Post noted. "Dubbed 'Project 2025,' the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act."
During a speech in New Hampshire last month, Trump promised to "root out" those he dubbed "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country," a threat that critics likened to Nazi rhetoric.
The former president, who is currently facing more than 90 felony charges, also pledged that his administration would carry out "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history," revive the Muslim ban, slash taxes for the wealthiest even further, and accelerate pipeline approvals.
The New York Timesreported Tuesday that a Trump confidant who is "likely to serve in a senior national security role in any new Trump administration" threatened to "target journalists for prosecution if the former president regains the White House."
Kash Patel, who served as Trump's counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, said during an appearance on former Trump strategist Steve Bannon's podcast that "we will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media."
"Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we're going to come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out," Patel said. "We're actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have."
In a column published Tuesday, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch expressed concern about what he described as the lack of mass mobilization against Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, given his openly fascistic threats and behind-the-scenes planning.
" Trump is back, and no one calls him a demagogue anymore—because that's too polite," Bunch wrote. "The 47th presidency he envisions is tyrannical, even dictatorial—siccing zealous MAGA prosecutors on his political enemies and the media, pardoning 2021's insurrectionists, mass detention camps for deporting migrants, and calling out troops to put down protests, perhaps as early as his Inauguration Day. And yet he is all but guaranteed the GOP nomination, and an even-money bet against President Joe Biden next fall."
"As I write this on Monday night, '
dictator' is a trending topic on X/Twitter. It could be trending nightly if the too-silent majority of Americans who believe in democracy don't take a more forceful stand," Bunch warned. "The moment for resisting Trump is right now, not waiting until January 21, 2025."
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