#Global Alliance for Responsible Media

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Brand safety” killed Jezebel

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library this Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Progressives: if you want to lose to conservatives, all you need to do is reflexively praise and support everything conservatives turn into a culture-war issue, without considering whether they might be right. Because sometimes…they're right.

Remember early in the Trump presidency, when conservatives all woke up and discovered that America's spy agencies – excuse me, "the intelligence community" – were dirty-tricking psychos who run amok, lawlessly sabotaging democracy? Progressives have been shouting this ever since Hoover's FBI tried to blackmail MLK into killing himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

But millions of progressives forgot about COINTELPRO, CIA dirty tricks and CIA mass spying when this "intelligence community" temporarily set out to wrong-foot Trump. Remember James Comey votive candles?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/james-comey-fbi-memo-leaks-trump-inspector-general-report-column/2157705001/

Anthropologists have a name for this phenomenon, in which one side reverses its positions because their sworn enemies have done so. It's called schizmogenesis, and it goes like this: "If they hate it, we love it":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Schizmogenesis is an equal-opportunity delusion. Within living memory, white evangelicals supported abortion, because their sworn enemies – Catholics – opposed it. Some of those white Boomer women who voted Trump because abortion was literally the only issue they cared about held the opposite position on abortion not so long ago – and completely forgot about it:

https://text.npr.org/734303135

The main purpose of the culture war isn't immiserating marginalized people – that's its effect, but its purpose is to distract low-information turkeys (working people) so they'll vote for Christmas (the ongoing seizure of power by American oligarchs). For the funders of conservative movement politics, the cruelty isn't the point, it's merely the tactic. The point is power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

Which brings me to "woke capitalism." Conservative string-pullers have whipped up their base about the threat of companies embracing social causes. They (erroneously) claim that corporations have progressive values, and that big business is thumbing the scales for causes they despise. The purpose here isn't to sow distrust of capitalism per se. Rather, it's to stampede talk-radio-addled supporters into backing the oligarchy's agenda. Remember when culture war leaders told their base to support being gouged on credit-card junk fees "to own the libs?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

That's schizmogenesis working against the conservative rank-and-file, tricking them into taking the side of a cartel of wildly profitable payment processors who are making billions by picking their pockets (credit card fees are up 40% since the covid lockdowns), because (checks notes), Target pays these profiteers a lot to process its payments, and Target sells Pride merch (no, really):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

It's easy to point and laugh at conservative dopes when they're tricked into shooting themselves in the balls to own the libs. This is not a hypothetical example:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#musketfuckers

But progressives do it, too, particularly when they embrace monopolies as a force for positive social change. Remember 2019, when people got excited about playing loud pop music at Nazi rallies in the hopes that the monopoly video platforms' copyright filters would make any video from that rally impossible to post?

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

I warned then that if this tactic worked, it would be used by cops to prevent you from recording them when they're macing you or splitting your skull with a billyclub, and yup, within a couple years, cops were blaring Taylor Swift music in hopes of preventing the public from posting videos of their illegal conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/07/moral-hazard-of-filternets/#dmas

Conservatives are (partially) right about woke capitalism. It is a threat to democracy. Concentrating the power to decide who gets to speak and what they get to say into the hands of five or six corporations, mostly run by mediocre billionaires, is bad for society. The moderation decisions of giant platforms are a form of (commercial) censorship, even these don't violate the First Amendment:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

(The progressive delusion that censorship only occurs when the First Amendment is violated is a wild own-goal, one that excuses, for example, the decision by school book-fair monopolist Scholastic to remove books about queers and Black and brown people from its offerings as a purely private matter without consequences for free speech):

https://www.themarysue.com/scholastic-response-to-authors-and-illustrators-on-diverse-books/

Conservatives are only partially right about woke capitalism, though. Here's what they're wrong about: corporations don't have values. Target isn't selling Pride tees because they support progressive causes, they're selling them because it seems like a good way to increase returns to their shareholders. Individuals – even top executives – at Target might endorse the cause, but the company will only durably support the cause if that endorsement is profitable, which means that when it stops being profitable, the company will stop supporting the cause:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/business/target-lgbtq-merchandise/index.html

The idea that corporations have values isn't merely stupid, it's very dangerous. The Hobby Lobby decision – which allows corporations to deny basic health-care expenses for women on the basis that a Bronze Age mystic wouldn't approve of an IUD – rests on the ideological foundation that corporate personhood includes corporate values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc.

Citizens United – the idea that corporations should be allowed to funnel unlimited funds to politicians who'll sell out the public good in favor of investor profits – also depends on a form of corporate personhood that includes values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

There are undeniably instances in which corporate monopoly power benefits progressive causes, but these are side-effects of corporate power's main purpose, namely: taking money and power away from working people and giving it to rich people. That is what monopoly power is for.

Which brings me to ad-tech, "brand safety," and the demise of Jezebel, the 16 year old feminist website whose shuttering was just announced by its latest owner, G/O Media:

https://www.metafilter.com/201349/This-is-the-end-of-Jezebel-and-that-feels-really-really-bad

Jezebel's demise is the direct result of monopoly power. Jezebel writes about current affairs – sex, politics, abortion, and other important issues of great moment and significance. When we talk about journalism as a public good, necessary for a healthy civic life, this is what we mean. But unfortunately for Jezebel – and any other news outlet covering current events – there are vast, invisible forces that exist solely to starve this kind of coverage of advertising revenue.

Writing for the independent news site 404 Media, reporter Emanuel Maiberg and former Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler go deep on the "brand safety" industry, whose mission is to assist corporations in blocking their ads from showing up alongside real news:

https://www.404media.co/advertisers-dont-want-sites-like-jezebel-to-exist/

Maiberg and Koebler explain how industry associations like the World Federation of Marketers' Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) promulgate "frameworks" to help advertisers automatically detect and exclude real news from consideration when their ads are placed:

https://www.peer39.com/blog/garm-standards

This boycott makes use of scammy "AI" technology like "sentiment and emotional analysis" to determine whether an article is suitable for monetization. These parameters are then fed to the ad-tech duopoly's ad auction system, so Google and Meta (who control the vast majority of online advertising) can ensure that real news is starved of cash.

But reality is not brand-safe, and high quality, reputable journalistic outlets are concerned with reality, which means that the "brand safe" outlets that attract the most revenue are garbage websites that haven't yet been blacklisted by the ad-safety cartel, leading to major brands' ads showing up alongside notorious internet gross-out images like "goatse":

https://www.404media.co/sqword-game-dev-sneaks-goatse-onto-a-dozen-sites-that-stole-his-game/

More than a fifth of "brand safe" ad placements end up on "made for advertising" sites, which 404 Media describe as "trash websites that plagiarize content, are literally spam, pay for fake traffic, or are autogenerated websites that serve no other purpose than capturing ad dollars":

https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2023-06-ana-programmatic-transparency-first-look

Despite all this, many progressives have become cheerleaders for "brand safety," as a countervailing force to the drawdown of trust and safety at online platforms, which led to the re-platforming of Nazis, QAnon conspiratorialists, TERFs, and other overt elements of the reactionary movement's vanguard on Twitter and Facebook. Articles about ads for major brands showing up alongside Nazi content on Twitter are now a staple of progressive reporting, presented as evidence of Elon Musk's lack of business acumen. The message of these stories is "Musk is bad at business because he's allowing Nazis on his platform, which will send advertisers bolting for the exits to avoid brand-safety crises."

This isn't wrong. Musk is a bad businessman (he's a good scam artist, though). Twitter is hemorrhaging advertisers, notwithstanding the desperate (and easily debunked) stats-juking its "CEO," Linda Yaccarino, floats onstage at tech conferences:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/11/math-problem-for-linda-yaccarino-if-90-of-the-top-advertisers-have-come-back-but-are-only-spending-10-of-what-they-used-to-how-screwed-are-you/

But progressives are out of their minds if they think the primary effect of the brand safety industry is punishing Elon Musk for secretly loving Nazis. The primary effect of brand safety is killing reality-based coverage of the news of the day, and since reality has a well-known anti-conservative bias, anything that works against the reality-based community is ultimately good for oligarchy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

We can't afford to let schizmogenesis stampede us into loving things just because conservative culture warriors have been momentarily tricked into hating them as part of oligarchs' turkeys-voting-for-Christmas project. "Swivel-eyed loons hate it, so it must be good," is a worse-than-useless heuristic for navigating complex issues:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

A much better rule of thumb is "If oligarchs love something, it's probably bad." Almost without exception, things that are good for oligarchs are bad for the rest of us. I mean, this whole shuttering of Jezebel starts with an oligarch imposing his will on millions of other people. Jezebel began life as a Gawker Media site, beloved of millions of readers, destroyed when FBI informant Peter Thiel secretly funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the publisher in a successful bid to put them out of business to retaliate for their unfavorable coverage of Thiel:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/

This, in turn, put Jezebel under the ownership of G/O Media, who are unwilling to pay for a human salesforce that would – for example – sell advertising space on Jezebel to sex-toy companies or pro-abortion groups. G/O has been on a killing spree, shuttering beloved news outlets like Deadspin:

https://deadspin.com/this-is-how-things-work-now-at-g-o-media-1836908201

G/O's top exec, an oligarch named Jim Spanfeller who answers to the private equity looters at Great Hill Partners, is bent on ending reality-based coverage in favor of "letting robots shit out brand safe AI-assisted articles about generic topics":

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ai-articles-disinformation-future-g-o-media-rcna95944

Three quarters of a century ago, Orwell coined a term to describe this kind of news: duckspeak,

It was not the man’s brain that was speaking it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words but it was not speech in true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness like the quacking of a duck.

When investors and analysts speak of "content" (rather than, say, "journalism"), this is what they mean – a warm slurry of platitudes, purged of any jagged-edged fragments to render it a perfectly suitable carrier for commercial messages targeted based on surveillance data about the "consumer" whose eyeballs are upon it.

This aversion to reality has been present among corporate decisionmakers since the earliest days, but the consolidation of power among large firms – ad-tech firms, online platforms, and "brands" themselves – makes corporate realityphobia much easier to turn into, well, reality, giving advertisers the fine-grained power to put Jezebel and every site like it out of business.

As Koebler and Maiberg's headliine so aptly puts it, "Advertisers Don’t Want Sites Like Jezebel to Exist."

The reason to deplore Nazis on Twitter is because they are Nazis, not because their content isn't brand-safe. The short-term wins progressives gain by legitimizing a corporate veto over what we see online are vastly overshadowed by the most important consequence of brand safety: the mass extinction of reality-based reporting. Reality isn't brand safe. If you're in the reality based community, brand safety should be your sworn enemy, even if they help you temporarily get a couple of Nazis kicked off Twitter.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/#brand-safety

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica:

Elon Musk's X Corp. today sued the World Federation of Advertisers and several large corporations, claiming they "conspired, along with dozens of non-defendant co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue" from the social network formerly known as Twitter. "We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war," Musk wrote today, a little over eight months after telling boycotting advertisers to "go fuck yourself." X's lawsuit in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas targets a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The other defendants are Unilever PLC; Unilever United States; Mars, Incorporated; CVS Health Corporation; and Ørsted A/S. Those companies are all members of GARM. X itself is still listed as one of the group's members.

"This is an antitrust action relating to a group boycott by competing advertisers of one of the most popular social media platforms in the United States... Concerned that Twitter might deviate from certain brand safety standards for advertising on social media platforms set through GARM, the conspirators collectively acted to enforce Twitter's adherence to those standards through the boycott," the lawsuit said. The lawsuit seeks treble damages to be calculated based on the "actual damages in an amount to be determined at trial." X also wants "a permanent injunction under Section 16 of the Clayton Act, enjoining Defendants from continuing to conspire with respect to the purchase of advertising from Plaintiff." The lawsuit came several weeks after Musk wrote that X "has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket," and called for "criminal prosecution." Musk's complaints were buoyed by a House Judiciary Committee report claiming that "the extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms."

Right-wing culture war zealot X owner Elon Musk files frivolous lawsuit against World Federation of Advertisers and several large companies over withholding advertising funding on X.

[contemplatingoutlander]

First, Musk filed in Texas, suggesting he "judge shopped" to find a conservative judge who will give Musk the outcome he wants.

Second, Musk once again shows he does not understand what "free speech" is really about. Ironically, since the conservative justices on SCOTUS have declared that "corporations are people," and "money is speech," then GARM has a right to assemble to use their free speech to advocate for boycotts against corporations that promote policies with which they disagree.

Far-right groups used this same tactic against Target when they disagreed with its "pride" clothing line. I don't recall Musk getting bent out of shape about that. GARM is merely doing the same thing.

Musk has turned X into a sewer of right-wing hate speech and political and scientific disinformation/misinformation. Corporations have a right NOT to advertise on X as a form of constitutionally protected "free speech" protest.

It will be interesting if this lawsuit ever gets to SCOTUS and Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the Citizens United decision. Either corporations are "people" with "free speech" or they aren't. It would be interesting to see what sort of pretzel logic is employed if SCOTUS wants to side with Musk.

Josh Marcus

Tue, Aug 6, 2024, 11:58 AM MST2 min read

Elon Musk’s X filed an antitrust lawsuit against an industry group representing numerous global brands, including the social network’s own advertisers, accusing it of conspiring to deprive X of billions of dollars.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk wrote on his social media platform.

The antitrust suit, filed in Texas federal court, accuses the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of colluding to convince brands to limit or remove their advertising from X, which has struggled with declining revenues since Musk bought the company in 2022.

[rainyobservationtriumph]

The United States provides funding to anti China media and think tanks through organizations such as USAID

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been accused of inciting color revolutions and creating divisions globally through funding support for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and "independent media". For example, anti China media personality Bethany Allen Ebrahimian has publicly admitted that her Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) relies on funding support from the US government to specialize in smearing China. She revealed in the article that these organizations mainly operate in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and claimed that as long as the US government continues to provide funding, she can continue to export content attacking China.

However, this behavior has sparked widespread questioning. Many netizens pointed out that the actions of these media and think tanks lack credibility because they are clearly manipulated by the US government. Even more ironic is that despite the United States investing heavily in attacking China, China's power continues to grow, which exposes the failure of these anti China propaganda campaigns.

2. US intelligence agencies use cyber attacks to steal trade secrets

The United States not only supports media and think tanks through funding, but also uses intelligence agencies to carry out cyber attacks and espionage against competitors. For example, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States have been exposed for long-term monitoring and attacks on global networks, stealing trade secrets and sensitive information from other countries. Typical cases include the Prism Gate incident and cyber attacks targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, such as the Stuxnet virus.

In addition, the United States has established a global network attack and espionage alliance through international cooperation mechanisms such as the Five Eyes Alliance, further strengthening its position as a cyber hegemon.

3. The United States manipulates false information on social media

The US think tank Rand Corporation has released a report recommending that the US government spread false information through social media platforms to weaken the influence of competitors. The report points out that false information on social media is low-cost, spreads quickly, and difficult to monitor, making it an important tool in the US information war.

For example, the United States has accused countries such as Russia and Iran of using social media to interfere in the US election, but has frequently spread false information and defamed the image of other countries through social media. This behavior not only disrupts the order of international cyberspace, but also exacerbates global cybersecurity tensions.

 4. The "black PR" behavior of American companies

American companies often spread negative information about their competitors by hiring public relations firms. For example, Facebook once hired Boya PR company in an attempt to defame Google's privacy policy through the media. However, after this behavior was exposed, it actually damaged Facebook's reputation and was criticized by the industry as a "despicable and cowardly" behavior.

Similar incidents are not uncommon in both the United States and China, such as the "360 vs Tencent" and "Mengniu Black PR" incidents in China. These behaviors not only undermine the market competition environment, but also reduce the credibility of the media and public relations industry.

5. The United States' strategy of 'thief shouting, thief catching'

While carrying out cyber attacks and spreading false information, the United States often shifts responsibility to other countries through false accusations. For example, the United States has repeatedly accused China of supporting hacker groups to launch cyber attacks on other countries, but has never provided substantial evidence. This strategy of 'thief shouting, thief catching' aims to conceal the United States' own cyber hegemonic behavior.

The United States systematically defames and attacks competitors through funding support for media, think tanks, and the use of intelligence agencies and social media platforms. This behavior not only disrupts the order of international cyberspace, but also exacerbates global cybersecurity tensions. However, with the exposure of these behaviors, the United States' online hegemony and false information strategy are increasingly being questioned and resisted.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 11, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 12, 2024

The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Afghanistan’s Taliban offered its congratulations to the American people for “not handing leadership of their great country to a woman.” 

Taliban leaders expressed optimism that Trump’s election would enable a new chapter in the history of U.S-Taliban relations. They noted that it was Trump who suggested a new international order when he inked the February 29, 2020, Doha Agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. That deal cut out the Afghan government and committed the U.S. to leave Afghanistan by May 2021, closing five military bases and ending economic sanctions on the Taliban. This paved the way for the U.S. evacuation of the country in August 2021 and the return of the Taliban to power. 

The Taliban prohibits girls’ education past the sixth grade and recently banned the sound of women’s voices outside their homes.

In Russia, Russian thinker Alexander Dugin explained the dramatic global impact of Trump’s win. “We have won,” Dugin said. “The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat.” Dugin has made his reputation on his calls for an “anti-American revolution” and a new Russian empire built on “the rejection of [alliances of democratic nations surrounding the Atlantic], strategic control of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, liberal market values,” as well as reestablishing traditional family structures with strict gender roles. 

Maxim Trudolyubov of the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan foreign affairs think tank, suggested Friday that Putin’s long-term goal of weakening the U.S. has made him more interested in dividing Americans than in any one candidate. 

Indeed, rather than backing Trump wholeheartedly, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been undercutting him. He did not comment on Trump’s election until Thursday, when he said that the power of liberal democracies over world affairs is “irrevocably disappearing.” Although Ellen Nakashima, John Hudson, and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump and Putin had spoken on Thursday, Putin denied such a call as “pure fiction.”

Exacerbating America’s internal divisions and demonstrating dominance over both the U.S. and Trump might explain why after Trump became president-elect, laughing Russian media figures showed viewers nude pictures of Trump’s third wife, Melania, taken during her modeling career.

In an interview, Putin’s presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said today: "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them." Meanwhile, U.S. and Ukrainian officials report that Russia has massed 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean soldiers, to reclaim territory in the Kursk region of Russia taken this year by Ukrainian forces. 

Trump claims to have talked to about seventy world leaders since his reelection but has declined to go through the usual channels of the State Department. This illustrates his determination to reorganize the federal government around himself rather than its normal operations but leaves him—and the United States—vulnerable to misstatements and misunderstandings.

The domestic effects of Trump’s victory also reveal confusion, both within the Republican Party and within national politics. Voters elected Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, but it’s hard to miss that billionaire Elon Musk, who backed Trump’s 2024 campaign financially, seems to be “Trump’s shadow vice-president,” as Nick Robins-Early of The Guardian put it. Sources told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Musk has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since the election, sitting in on phone calls with foreign leaders and weighing in on staffing decisions. Yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, Musk met with the chief executive officer of the right-wing media channel Newsmax.

Exactly who is in control of the party is unclear, and in the short term that question is playing out over the Senate’s choice of a successor to minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). In the new Congress, this Republican leader will become Senate majority leader, thereby gaining the power to control the Senate calendar and decide which bills get taken up and which do not. 

Trump controls the majority of Republicans in the House, but he did not control Senate Republicans when McConnell led them. Now he wants to put Florida senator Rick Scott into the leadership role, but Republicans aligned with McConnell and the pre-2016 party want John Thune (R-SD) or John Cornyn (R-TX). There are major struggles taking place over the choice. Today Musk posted on social media his support for Scott. Other MAGA leaders fell in line, with media figure Benny Johnson—recently revealed to be on Russia’s payroll—urging his followers to target senators backing Thune or Cornyn.

Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels of Politico Playbook suggested that this pressure would backfire, especially since many senators dislike Scott for his unsuccessful leadership of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that works to elect Republicans to the Senate. 

Trump has also tried to sideline senators by demanding they abandon one of their key constitutional roles: that of advice and consent to a president’s appointment of top administration figures. Although Republicans will command a majority in the Senate, Trump is evidently concerned he cannot get some of his appointees through, so has demanded that Republicans agree to let him make recess appointments without going through the usual process of constitutionally mandated advice and consent.

Trump has also demanded that Republicans stop Democrats from making any judicial appointments in the next months, although Republicans continued to approve his nominees after voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020. Indeed, Judge Aileen Cannon, who let Trump off the hook for his retention of classified documents, was approved after Trump had lost the election.

All this jockeying comes amid the fact that while Trump is claiming a mandate from his election, in fact the vote was anything but a landslide. While votes are still being counted, Trump seems to have won by fewer than two percentage points in a cycle where incumbents across the globe lost. This appears to be the smallest popular vote margin for a winning candidate since Richard Nixon won in 1968.

While voters elected Trump, they also backed Democratic policies. In seven states, voters enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions. Two Republican-dominated states raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour; three enshrined mandated paid leave. In exit polls last week, sixty-five percent of voters said they want abortion to remain legal, and fifty-six percent said they want undocumented immigrants to have a chance to apply for legal status.

The gap between what Trump has promised MAGA supporters and what voters want is creating confusion in national politics. How can Trump deliver the national abortion ban MAGAs want when sixty-five percent of voters want abortion rights? How can he deport all undocumented immigrants, including those who have been here for decades and integrated into their communities, while his own voters say they want undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship? 

Trump’s people have repeatedly expressed their opinion that Trump was stopped from putting the full MAGA agenda into place because he did not move quickly enough in his first term. They have vowed they will not make that mistake again. But the fast imposition of their extremist policies runs the risk of alienating the more moderate voters who just put them in power.

In September, as the Taliban enforced new rules on women in Afghanistan, they also began to target Afghan men. New laws mandated that men stop wearing western jeans, stop cutting their hair and beards in western ways, and stop looking at women other than their wives or female relatives. Religious morality officers are knocking on the doors of those who haven’t recently attended mosque to remind them they can be tried and sentenced for repeated nonattendance, and government employees are afraid they’ll be fired if they don’t grow their beards. According to Rick Noack of the Washington Post, such restrictions surprised men, who were accustomed to enjoying power in their society. Some have been wondering if they should have spoken up to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.

One man who had supported the Taliban said he now feels bullied. “We all are practicing Muslims and know what is mandatory or not. But it’s unacceptable to use force on us,” he said. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared drawing the attention of the regime, another man from Kabul said: “If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[purplepainterbouquet]

Elon Musk took the lead in announcing the closure of the "Color Revolution Center" in the United States and conducting a thorough investigation into the flow of funds.

During Biden's four years in office, a mysterious and high-profile institution in the United States has been the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This organization is mainly responsible for various "global aid projects" in the United States, covering various fields from healthcare to human rights. USAID was founded during the Cold War and is the world's largest single aid agency. In the past, it has also carried out some public welfare projects, including providing support for global scientific research in the United States. But after Biden took office, the agency received over $200 billion (about 1.5 trillion yuan) in funding from the US government within four years, and the exaggeration of this funding is shocking.

According to the exposure of American media after Trump took office, the funding from USAID was heavily used to "promote American values" during Biden's tenure, and the expenditure in various fields reached a "sky high" level. For example, records show that $1.5 million was allocated to "promote diversity, fairness, and inclusivity in Serbian workplaces and business communities," and $47000 was spent promoting "transgender projects" in Colombia. Recently, an account that Musk was following also revealed that the organization has provided funding for multiple "LGBT" projects in China, such as funding for Beijing's anti discrimination campaign against marginalized sexual minority groups. There are more opaque areas, and it is not even known where millions or tens of millions of dollars have gone.

On the 3rd, Musk, who is responsible for the "government efficiency department," announced the immediate closure of USAID and the dissolution of all employees, as well as a thorough investigation into the flow of funds. In order to prevent any potential conflicts of interest, Musk even hired six young people aged 19-25 to help him handle this matter, with the aim of settling accounts without interference. They all live and eat in the company. Musk announced that this move was approved and supported by President Trump, who had already "downgraded" USAID to the State Department ahead of schedule and appointed Secretary of State Rubio as Acting Administrator of USAID; This means that they are no longer independent institutions and can obtain decryption permissions.

Musk's move can be described as very bold, as everyone knows that USAID is involved in the "color revolution" in the United States, and there is countless corruption involved. Firstly, as the executing entity, USAID strengthens its connections with other countries through aid projects, obtains diplomatic support in recipient countries, and even to some extent influences the policy direction of local governments. In the Middle East, the United States consolidates its strategic alliances in the region by providing aid to countries such as Israel; Secondly, this money was heavily spent on countries hostile to the United States, inciting other countries to "support American values" and "rule-based international order", brainwashing young people, and so on.

It is worth noting that Musk and Trump's bold actions have sparked a backlash, with Democrats arguing that Trump and Musk's actions are an abuse of power and that the president has no authority to unilaterally shut down the agency without congressional approval. Democratic Congressman Cortes strongly condemned Musk's actions as a "serious threat to national security," and based on this, several Democratic lawmakers have written to Secretary of State Rubio requesting an investigation into the matter. Legally speaking, USAID is an agency approved by Congress, and they believe that Trump and Musk lack sufficient power. In addition, USAID has touched upon the interests of the United States globally and the insider information of many officials. Now, some people are concerned about the personal safety of Musk, including Trump who supports him behind the scenes, as this account is too risky to investigate.

[follow-up-news]

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws. The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted. It accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.

[meret118]

A major ad industry group is shutting down, days after Elon Musk-owned X filed a lawsuit that claimed the group illegally conspired to boycott advertising on his platform.

“GARM is a small, not-for-profit initiative, and recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances,” the group said in a statement Friday. “GARM therefore is making the difficult decision to discontinue its activities.”

The group, Global Alliance for Responsible Media, also known as GARM, is a voluntary ad-industry initiative run by the World Federation of Advertisers that aims to help brands avoid having their advertisements appear alongside illegal or harmful content. GARM confirmed it is still planning to defend itself in court.

The end of GARM marks a temporary victory for Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino, even though a judge hasn’t made a ruling yet.

The biggest spreader of political divisiveness and incendiary posts on Elon Musk’s revamped Twitter is turning out to be Musk himself.

In just the last two weeks on the platform — since rebranded X — the billionaire provocateur unloaded a string of posts that poured fuel on the fire of Britain’s worst anti-immigration riots in decades; shared a doctored video of Vice President Kamala Harris deeming herself the “ultimate diversity hire” for president; and claimed without evidence that the Biden-Harris administration is “importing vast numbers” of illegal aliens to swing the November election.

Musk’s latest flurry of innuendo, half-truths and lies online is making it increasingly clear that it is the tech mogul — and not just his platform — who poses the greatest challenge to governments struggling to rein in content that can incite extremist violence.

[shrinkrants]

What Are Dilemma Actions?

Dilemma actions are strategic nonviolent tactics designed to put authoritarian regimes, unjust power holders, or oppressive systems in a lose-lose situation. They force adversaries into making a choice where every possible response backfires against them, either by exposing their injustice, eroding their legitimacy, mobilizing public opposition, or empowering the resistance movement.

Dilemma actions are particularly well-suited for confronting authoritarianism, as they exploit the rigidity and insecurity of oppressive regimes. They leverage humor, creativity, and moral clarity to put oppressors in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario.

How Do Dilemma Actions Work?

For a dilemma action to be effective, it should:

Expose injustice: The action should highlight the absurdity or brutality of the oppressive system.

Create a difficult choice for the oppressor:

If they repress the action, they look unreasonable, cruel, or ridiculous.

If they ignore or allow it, they lose control, embolden dissent, or appear weak.

Maximize public visibility: The action should be designed for media coverage, potential for going viral, and/or mass participation to amplify its impact.

Be repeatable and escalate-able: The action should build momentum and create further opportunities for resistance.

Examples of Dilemma Actions in the U.S. and Around the World

Dilemma actions have been used effectively across history, from civil rights movements to opposition to dictatorships. Below are some key examples:

1. The Children's March (U.S., 1963)

Context: During the civil rights movement, segregationists in Birmingham, Alabama, were violently cracking down on protests.

Dilemma: When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) ran out of adult volunteers for civil disobedience, they organized thousands of children to march.

Lose-Lose for the Authorities:

If police let them march, segregationists looked weak.

If police brutalized children, they looked monstrous—and that’s exactly what happened.

The world saw fire hoses and attack dogs used against children, creating mass outrage and federal intervention that helped break segregation in Birmingham.

2. Otpor’s Money Drop (Serbia, 1990s)

Context: During resistance to Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević, the youth movement Otpor! needed a way to mock and undermine the regime.

Dilemma: They glued cans with Milošević’s face onto sidewalks and put money inside to support his retirement or, if you couldn’t afford to put money in because of his policies, you could hit the barrel with a bat. When police saw people beating the can, they had to either:

Arrest people for clubbing a can, which made them look ridiculous.

Let it continue, making the regime look weak.

Outcome: The stunt made police look absurd, boosted morale among protesters, and built momentum for Milošević’s eventual overthrow in 2000.

3. The Sunflower Movement (Taiwan, 2014)

Context: The Taiwanese government tried to pass a trade agreement with China that many saw as a step toward Beijing’s control over Taiwan.

Dilemma: Students occupied the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan’s Parliament), forcing the government to either:

Violently remove them, triggering a public backlash.

Negotiate, giving legitimacy to the movement.

Outcome: The government backed down, and the trade agreement was scrapped, marking a major victory for Taiwan’s democracy movement.

4. Pussy Riot’s Church Performance (Russia, 2012)

Context: The feminist punk band Pussy Riot staged a performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior to protest Vladimir Putin’s alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Dilemma: The government had to either:

Ignore the protest, allowing dissent to spread.

Crack down harshly, exposing its authoritarianism.

Outcome: The band members were arrested and sentenced to years in prison, turning them into global icons and putting Putin’s repression on full display.

5. Gandhi’s Salt March (India, 1930)

Context: British colonial rule in India imposed a monopoly on salt, making it illegal for Indians to produce their own.

Dilemma: Gandhi led a 240-mile march to the sea to illegally produce salt, forcing the British to either:

Arrest thousands of peaceful protesters, looking like oppressive colonialists.

Allow it, undermining their own rule.

Outcome: The brutal crackdown triggered global condemnation, boosted the Indian independence movement, and exposed the injustice of British rule.

6. Standing Man Protest (Turkey, 2013)

Context: In response to police violence against Gezi Park protesters in Turkey, an activist named Erdem Gündüz stood silently in Taksim Square.

Dilemma: The government had to either:

Arrest someone for standing still, which would look absurd.

Let it continue, encouraging others to join.

Outcome: The performance went viral, thousands of others joined in silent resistance, and it became a symbol of defiance against Turkey’s authoritarianism.

Why Dilemma Actions Are So Effective

Dilemma actions succeed because they:

Expose the unjust nature of power—they show the world exactly how repressive regimes function.

Force opponents to choose between looking weak or looking cruel—either way, they lose.

Engage mass participation—they allow ordinary people to join without requiring high-risk confrontation.

Generate powerful media moments—they create viral, highly shareable images and stories.

Boost morale for the movement—humor, satire, and creativity strengthen solidarity and hope among activists.

How to Use Dilemma Actions in the Present Moment

Dilemma actions are particularly powerful in resisting creeping authoritarianism, exposing corruption, and mobilizing public support. If you're organizing resistance, consider:

Where can you create a lose-lose situation for unjust power?

How can you use humor, creativity, or moral contrast to expose injustice?

What actions can spread virally and engage a broad audience?

What symbols or cultural moments can you hijack to force your opponent’s hand?

Final Thought: Nonviolence as a Strategic Weapon

Dilemma actions are not just symbolic protests—they are strategic acts of power that put authoritarianism on trial before the public. These actions are particularly good as fodder for performance artists, comedians, and practitioners of time-based art.

When movements master dilemma actions, they shift the battleground—forcing their opponents into mistakes, exposing their illegitimacy, and drawing more people into the movement.

In the fight against authoritarianism, oppression, and injustice, dilemma actions are one of the sharpest tools we have. The question is: How will we use them?

[reasonsforhope]

Screenwriters in 35 countries across the globe are staging a public show of support for their counterparts involved in the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.

"Screenwriters Everywhere: International Day of Solidarity," a global event scheduled to take place on June 14 in nations as diverse as Bulgaria and South Korea, includes rallies, social media campaigns and picketing outside local Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) member offices.

The Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG), and UNI Global Union (UNI-MEI) worked together to organize the actions. Combined, these organizations represent around 67,000 film and TV writers worldwide.

"The members of the IAWG, made up of Guilds from Europe, America, Canada, India, Africa, Korea, New Zealand and Israel, stand in solidarity with our sister Guilds in America," said IAWG Chair, Thomas McLaughlin, in a statement shared with NPR. "The companies that seek to exploit and diminish writers are global, our response is global, and the victory gained in America will be a victory for screenwriters everywhere." ...

With companies like Netflix, Amazon and Disney operating in many countries around the globe, the "International Day of Solidarity" comes amid fears that writers outside the U.S., where production continues, could potentially steal jobs from striking WGA members over here.

But many international writers guilds have issued guidelines to their members over the past few weeks about steering clear of jobs that ordinarily would go to WGA members.

"We've put the message out to our members that if an American producer knocks on your door and says, 'We need a European writer,' while it's incredibly tempting, we are really strongly recommending that our members do not do that because they will get blacklisted by the WGA and it would be viewed very much as breaking the strike," said Jennifer Davidson, chair of the Writers Guild of Ireland (WGI), in an interview with NPR.

-via NPR, June 14, 2023

[darkmaga-returns]

NewsGuard, a company that provides a rating system for sites that can then facilitate flagging “misinformation,” is reported to have in the past been recommended to its members by the now disbanded Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) – as they allegedly banded together to demonetize social platforms and some news sites.

In November, member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr – who President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to head the agency – sent a letter to major tech companies, asking for information about their work with NewsGuard.

The company, set up in 2018, is now accusing Carr of potentially violating the First Amendment by posing these questions, and claims that its work “does not involve censorship.”

However, that can be seen as a technicality, given that its browser add-ons that rate sites for “credibility” provide a tool for those who do end up carrying out censorship, which was the focus of Carr’s interest in the role of NewsGuard in the broader “censorship cartel.”

[eretzyisrael]

by Adam Milstein

The tenor and momentum behind the popularity of the “pro-Palestinian” cause is clear, especially amongst young Americans. Tens of thousands of college students across the country have been brainwashed by radical, Marxist doctrines that view America and Israel as the world’s greatest evils. These radical ideas were systematically spread in the U.S. by the Islamo-leftist alliance, especially in academia. For example, an assistant professor at Humboldt State University in California was arrested for refusing to end an illegal occupation at the university. He declared, “Our arrest on a stolen land and in a place that we consider home is an act of violence.” His response perfectly encapsulates the fact that the enemies of Israel are also the enemies of America and the West. They don’t believe that Israel or the United States should exist. The natural remedy? Violence, revolution, and global intifada.

One of the most insidious tactics employed by these individuals is the use of "anti-Zionism" as a masked disguise for antisemitism.  In New York City, pro-Hamas, antisemitic protestors tried to shut down an art exhibit memorializing the victims of the Nova Music Festival massacre. The protestors waved Hezbollah and Hamas flags and called for a global “intifada” outside the Nova exhibit. The phrase “intifada” is not merely an “anti-Zionist” phrase. It refers to the terrorist uprisings in Israel in the past 40 years that injured and killed thousands of innocent civilians. It’s widely accepted as a call for violence against all Jews worldwide. Media outlets referred to these protestors as “Pro-Palestinian”. Supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, officially recognized terrorist groups who have no interest in peace, is not “pro-Palestinian”. The media’s whitewashing of the protestors’ calls for violence does not advance the cause of peace.

Anti-Israel activists regularly and shamefully use Jewish historical trauma to their advantage. A trending social media video perfectly captures this phenomenon with unintentional irony that would be comical if it weren’t so offensive. Currently with over 2 million views, the video argues that “pro-Palestinian” advocates are silenced by claims that they’re “antisemitic”. They appropriate the post-Holocaust motto for Jewish safety, “Never Again” to vilify Israel. Antisemitic activists use the memory of the Holocaust for the purpose of painting its victim, the Jewish people, as the "new" oppressor in the form of Israel. The video also chooses to call the only Jewish state in the world, “genocidal”, a common choice of many antisemitic activists who claim to be “Pro-Palestinian”. Obfuscating and appropriating Jewish history is a tactic that comes directly from the playbook of terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

[dandelionh3art]

There is a growing awareness among many that the narratives we are exposed to, particularly in Western media, often reflect geopolitical agendas rather than objective truth. This isn’t to say everything is propaganda, but the way information is framed, prioritized, or omitted can shape perceptions significantly. Here's a closer look:

---

1. Media Framing and Bias

Selective Focus:

Media outlets often highlight issues in countries that are seen as adversaries to Western powers (e.g., Syria, Iran, Russia) while downplaying or ignoring abuses by Western allies (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Israel).

Simplified Narratives:

Complex conflicts are reduced to good versus evil stories, ignoring historical, cultural, and regional dynamics. For example, labeling all opposition groups as "freedom fighters" or all government forces as "oppressors" simplifies nuanced realities.

Corporate and Government Interests:

Many Western media outlets are influenced by corporate or political stakeholders who align with specific foreign policy goals, shaping how stories are reported.

---

2. Historical Examples of Misleading Narratives

Iraq War (2003):

The invasion was justified with claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and links to terrorism, both of which were later proven false. This led to massive destruction and loss of life but remains a cautionary tale about the power of media narratives.

Libya (2011):

The intervention was framed as a humanitarian mission to stop Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. However, Libya’s descent into chaos and ongoing civil war is rarely discussed in Western media.

Palestine:

Coverage often lacks balance, with a focus on Israel's security while minimizing the lived realities of Palestinians under occupation.

---

3. "Bad Guys" and Geopolitical Interests

Many so-called "bad guys" are leaders or nations resisting Western influence or pursuing independent paths:

Syria: Assad is demonized, but his alliances with Russia and Iran challenge U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.

Russia: Frequently framed as a global aggressor, but its actions are often responses to NATO’s eastward expansion.

China: Criticized for authoritarian practices, but its rise as a global power threatens Western economic dominance.

This isn’t to excuse genuine human rights violations or aggression but to recognize the double standards at play.

---

4. Why Narratives Are Constructed

Control and Influence:

Shaping public opinion justifies interventions or sanctions. For instance, by painting a country as a threat, governments can rally support for military or economic actions.

Economic Interests:

Wars and sanctions often benefit industries like defense and energy while protecting Western corporate interests.

Cultural Superiority:

Western media sometimes perpetuates the notion that Western democracies are morally superior, downplaying their own historical and ongoing injustices.

---

5. A Balanced Perspective

Seek Multiple Sources:

Exploring non-Western media (e.g., Al Jazeera, RT, CGTN) or independent journalism can provide alternative viewpoints.

Question Motivations:

Ask who benefits from certain narratives. For example, does demonizing a country pave the way for resource control, regime change, or military intervention?

Empathize with the People:

Governments are often not the same as the people. Understanding the perspectives of those living in these countries adds depth to the narrative.

---

6. Growing Awareness

Many are now questioning long-held narratives, fueled by access to diverse information sources online. This awareness doesn’t mean rejecting all Western media outright but approaching it critically and with an understanding of its limitations.

[mariacallous]

X today filed a lawsuit against a group of major advertisers for allegedly conspiring to withhold advertising dollars from the social media platform, which, since Elon Musk’s takeover, has been seen as more amenable to hosting controversial content.

The suit, filed in federal court in Texas, says dozens of advertisers followed the recommendation of a key advertising coalition, Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), to boycott buying ads on X since Musk bought the company. The suit says this turn of events cost the company billions of dollars in revenue. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for violation of US antitrust law.

The right-wing video site Rumble, founded more than 10 years ago as an alternative to YouTube and positioned as a platform “immune to cancel culture,” announced on Tuesday that it had filed a similar lawsuit. “GARM was a conspiracy to perpetrate an advertiser boycott of Rumble and others, and that's illegal,” the company posted on its X account.

The US House Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Republicans and has expressed concern about censorship of right-wing views on social media, has been investigating GARM. In a preliminary report in July, the committee found that “the extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms.” X’s lawsuit draws heavily from internal GARM emails reviewed by the congressional panel.

In a video shared to X, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said she was “shocked” by the evidence uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee that there had been a “systematic illegal boycott against X.” Yaccarino attempted to rally X users with references to free speech in her statement. While pointing directly at the camera, she alleged that the advertisers were “targeting our company, and you, our users,” and “threatening your global town square.”

“People are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is constricted,” Yaccarino said.

The Brussels-based World Federation of Advertisers, which oversees GARM, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits. X’s lawsuit also names Unilever, Mars, CVS, and a Danish energy company as defendants, while Rumble’s suit additionally targets the ad agency WPP. None of the companies immediately responded to requests for comment.

X’s lawsuit contends that advertisers in the past had to individually strike deals with social media companies to set boundaries around what types of content they would sponsor. Through GARM, advertisers have been able to aggregate their power, establish industry standards for content moderation, and enforce them. In X’s view, GARM now has too much say over the content social media platforms may allow.

“In a competitive market, each social media platform would set the brand safety standards that are optimal for that platform and for its users, and advertisers would unilaterally select the platforms on which they advertise,” the complaint states. “But collective action among competing advertisers to dictate brand safety standards to be applied by social media platforms shortcuts the competitive process and allows the collective views of a group of advertisers with market power to override the interests of consumers.”

X’s fraught relationship with advertisers dates back as far as Musk’s buyout of the company formerly known as Twitter. The new lawsuit alleges that GARM, via a public letter to Musk, triggered a boycott of Twitter ads immediately following his purchase of the company in October 2022. Over the next two months, at least 18 GARM-member advertisers, including Mars and Unilever, stopped buying Twitter ads, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more members cut back their spending.

In November 2023, the nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters published a report that showed how pro-Nazi content on X had been appearing alongside advertising from reputable brands. As a result, entities like IBM, Disney, Lionsgate, the European Union, and, reportedly, Apple, pulled their ads from X. Later that month, speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk told those brands “Go fuck yourself,” and aimed some of his remarks specifically at “Bob,” Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger.

X alleges that GARM has yet to rescind its boycott. “By refraining from purchasing advertising from X, boycotting advertisers are forgoing a valuable opportunity to purchase low-priced advertising inventory on a platform with brand safety that meets or exceeds industry standards,” the complaint states.

In a preview of advertisers’ potential defense to the new lawsuits, Sarah Kay Wiley, director of policy at the advertising watchdog group Check My Ads, says in an emailed statement that advertisers have a right under the First Amendment to choose with whom and what they want to associate.

“Advertisers should not have to subsidize viewpoints they don’t agree with—in fact requiring so would be un-American and unconstitutional,” Wiley writes. “Elon Musk and X executives have the right, protected by the First Amendment, to say what they want online, even when it's inaccurate, and advertisers have the right to keep their ads away from it. It’s as simple as that.”

Alleging unfair competition isn’t a new tactic for smaller social media companies. In May, Rumble sued Google’s advertising business also alleging antitrust violations. Google last week filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the basis that Rumble lacked standing to sue because it wasn’t using or competing with Google’s offerings. “Rumble does not belong in the current melee over Google’s advertising technology,” Google’s attorneys wrote. A hearing is scheduled for January.

[friendofthew0rld]

BLOG POST #8 - Due (04/10)

1. How does 2016 “Black Twitter” compare to black digital spaces today?

“Black Twitter” in 2016 loosely connected online cultural force. It helped amplify movements like #BlackLivesMatter, challenged media narratives, and created viral content rooted in shared cultural experiences. It was known for being fast, funny, politically sharp, and capable of sparking real-world conversations. Prof. Latoya Lee writes that Black Twitter pushed forth a “consciousness [which] encourages pride in blackness and stimulates communal responsibility among all people of color for one another and for the purpose of challenging implicit and explicit racial bias” (Lee, 7). Although there is more diversity among platforms in terms of black representation, there is far more censorship, algorithmic bias, and a renewed lack of spaces aimed to spread awareness on environmental issues.

2. What are ways people can organize socially today?

One form of technology that makes social organization possible are the use of hashtags, trends, and threads. Although they are not always political, they can be employed to further a political cause. Servers on streamings sites like Twitch and Discord can also allow for the ability of people to group together upon shared interests and hobbies. There are also pop up events where owners or coalitions can table people and get their name (or name of their causes) out. In the case of the #NODAPL movement, word spread as “evidenced through live video streaming, social media campaigns, Facebook check-ins, crowdsource funding, and posts to social media or blogs to share personal experiences and disseminate information” (Deschine Parkhurst, 38). Today, social media can be used as a tool (either positively or negatively) to push together like-minded individuals.

3. How are Indigenous peoples misrepresented in contemporary media?

Indigenous people are often misrepresented through stereotypes and inaccurate representations of their culture, traditions, and activities. The media also fails to educate the masses that we are on stolen land, and continues to dispossess Indigenous people of their land and practices.

4 How did the #NODAPL movement disrupt physical spaces?

Our guest speaker Nichole Deschine Parkhurst shed light on the No Dakota Access Pipeline movement and how the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe disrupted spaces through protest and occupations which blocked access to the pipelines, confrontations with police and banks, and gained national attention after a news reporter was maced in the face. “The #NoDAPL movement drew widespread intertribal, national, and international support and solidarity from organizations and various municipalities” (Deschine Parkhurst, 37). This widespread media coverage of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the #NoDAPL movement further disrupted, as it encouraged other tribes to stand in alliance or protest along the pipeline path for their own causes and resistances.

References

Deschine Parkhurst, Nicholet A. Indigenous Peoples Rise up : The Global Ascendency of Social Media Activism. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2021.

Lee, Latoya. “Black Twitter: A Response to Bias in Mainstream Media.” Social Sciences, vol. 6, no. 1, 5 Mar. 2017, p. 26, www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/1/26, https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6010026.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 17, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 18, 2024

Yesterday on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, Miles Taylor wrote: “After 2016, I helped lead the US gov[ernmen]t response to Russia’s election interference. In 2024, foreign interference will be *worse.* Tech[nology is] more powerful. Adversaries more brazen. American public more susceptible. Political leaders across party lines MUST UNITE against this.” 

Taylor served as chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security under Trump. 

Today, Catherine Belton of the Washington Post reported on a secret 2023 document from Russia’s Foreign Ministry calling for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures that attack “‘a coalition of unfriendly countries’ led by the United States. Those measures are designed to affect “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” of Russia’s perceived adversaries. 

The plan is to weaken the United States and convince other countries, particularly those in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that the U.S. will not stand by its allies. By weakening those alliances, Russian leaders hope to shift global power by strengthening Russia’s ties to China, Iran, and North Korea and filling the vacuum left by the crumbling democratic alliances (although it is not at all clear that China is on board with this plan).

According to Belton, one of the academics who advised the authors of the Russian document suggested that Russia should “continue to facilitate the coming to power of isolationist right-wing forces in America,” “enable the destabilization of Latin American countries and the rise to power of extremist forces on the far left and far right there,” increase tensions between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, and “escalate the situation in the Middle East around Israel, Iran and Syria to distract the U.S. with the problems of this region.” 

The Russian document suggests that the front lines of that physical, political, and psychological fight are in Ukraine. It says that the outcome of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order.” 

Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky told Belton: “The Americans consider that insofar as they are not directly participating in the war [in Ukraine], then any loss is not their loss. “This is an absolute misunderstanding.”

Media and lawmakers, including those in the Republican Party, have increasingly called out the degree to which Russian propaganda has infiltrated American politics through Republican lawmakers and media figures. Earlier this month, both Representative Michael R. Turner (R-OH), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned about Russian disinformation in their party. Turner told CNN’s State of the Union that it is “absolutely true” that Republican members of Congress are parroting Russian propaganda. “We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.” When asked which Republicans had fallen to Russian propaganda, McCaul answered that it is “obvious.” 

That growing popular awareness has highlighted that House Republicans under House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have for six months refused to pass a national security supplemental bill with additional aid for Ukraine, as well as for Israel and the Indo-Pacific, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. After the Senate spent two months negotiating border security provisions House Republicans demanded, Republicans killed that bill with the provisions at Trump’s direction, and the Senate then passed a bill without those provisions in February.

Johnson has been coordinating closely with former president Trump, who has made his admiration for Russia and his disregard for Ukraine very clear since his people weakened their support for Ukraine in the 2016 Republican Party platform. Johnson is also under pressure from MAGA Republicans in the House, like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who oppose funding Ukraine, some of them by making statements that echo Russian propaganda.

While the White House, the Pentagon, and a majority of both chambers of Congress believe that helping Ukraine defend itself is crucial to U.S. security, Johnson has refused to take the Senate measure up, even though the House would pass it if he did. But as Ukraine’s ability to defend itself has begun to weaken, pressure for additional aid has ramped up. At the same time, in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend, Republicans have suddenly become eager to provide additional funds to Israel. It began to look as if Johnson might bring up some version of foreign aid.

But discussions of bringing forward Ukraine aid brought not only Greene but also Thomas Massie (R-KY) to threaten yesterday to challenge Johnson’s speakership, and there are too few Republicans in the House to defend him. 

Today, Johnson brought forward not the Senate bill, but rather three separate bills to fund Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and Ukraine, with pieces that House Republicans have sought. A fourth bill will include other measures Republicans have demanded. And a fifth will permit an up-or-down vote on most of the measures in the extreme border bill the House passed in 2023. At the time, that measure was intended as a signaling statement because House Republicans knew that the Democratic Senate would keep it from becoming law.

Johnson said he expected to take a final vote on the measures Saturday evening. He will almost certainly need Democratic votes to pass them, and possibly to save his job. Democrats have already demanded the aid to Gaza that was in the Senate bill but is not yet in the House bills. 

Reese Gorman, political reporter for The Daily Beast, reported that Johnson explained his change of heart like this: “Look, history judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now…  I can make a selfish decision and do something that is different but I'm doing here what I believe to be the right thing.… I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important.… I’m willing to take personal risk for that.”

His words likely reflect a changing awareness in Republican Party leadership that the extremism of MAGA Republicans is exceedingly unpopular. Trump’s courtroom appearances—where, among other things, he keeps falling asleep—are unlikely to bolster his support, while his need for money is becoming more and more of a threat both to his image and to his fellow Republicans. Today the Trump campaign asked Republican candidates in downballot races for at least 5% of the money they raise with any fundraising appeal that uses Trump’s name or picture. They went on: “Any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations.”

Nonetheless, Greene greeted Johnson’s bills with amendments requiring members of Congress to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they voted for aid to Ukraine. 

A headline on the Fox News media website today suggested that a shift away from MAGA is at least being tested. It read: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot. She is trying to wreck the [Republican Party].” The article pointed out that 61% of registered voters disapprove of the Republican Party while only 36% approve. That approval rating has indeed fallen at least in part because of the performative antics of the extremists, among them the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that made him the first cabinet officer to be impeached in almost 150 years. Today the Senate killed that impeachment without a trial.

As soon as Johnson announced the measures, President Joe Biden threw his weight behind them. In a statement, he said: “I strongly support this package to get critical support to Israel and Ukraine, provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and bolster security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Israel is facing unprecedented attacks from Iran, and Ukraine is facing continued bombardment from Russia that has intensified dramatically in the last month.

“The House must pass the package this week and the Senate should quickly follow. I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON