POLITICO Nightly: How Washington killed the fact check

 

By Calder McHugh Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the Meta Connect conference on Sept. 25, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. | Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP PANTS ON FIRE — It’s the end of an era for professional fact checking. Mark Zuckerberg announced today that Meta would be changing its policy surrounding combating misinformation — adopting a much higher standard for removing content, ending the tech giant’s third-party fact checking program and relying instead on a community note system similar to the social media platform X. The move had the tenor and telltale signs of genuflecting before the new governing majority in Washington. “The fact checkers have just been too politically biased, and they’ve destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.,” said Zuckerberg in a video statement, echoing long standing Republican complaints about the fact checking industry. In his five-minute address this morning, the billionaire co-founder of Meta explicitly noted that he would work with the Trump administration to combat stronger misinformation and censorship laws around the world. But he also used the opportunity to signal to Washington that Meta recognizes there’s a new sheriff in town. In a not-so-subtle dig at the outgoing Biden administration, Zuckerberg argued that Meta’s efforts to counter the global trend toward misinformation and restrictions on speech “[has] been so difficult over the past four years when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship.” He spoke of being in “a new era now” and nodded to themes only recently litigated on the campaign trail. “[We’re] going to get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far,” Zuckerberg said. And that wasn’t all. He pointedly announced Meta would move its content moderation teams from California to Texas — the proxies for the blue state-red state ideological divide — where he argued “there’s less concern about the bias of our teams.” But Meta’s decision to ditch professional fact checking organizations and scale back its content moderation isn’t simply about power politics. It’s the result of a much broader cultural shift in the tech world that preceded Trump’s victory. Disinformation reporting and broader moderation is out of vogue in America, dismissed as another form of censorship by elites and an enemy to free speech. In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s first victory in 2016, the fact checking industry entered a boom time. Outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post hired dedicated fact checkers — and the Times’ public editor (another relic of the past) noted that the organization was late to the fact checking business . Facebook, in the aftermath of misinformation on its platform during the 2016 election and the ultimate Cambridge Analytica scandal , created the third party fact checking program that the company just disbanded, relying on sites like Snopes and PolitiFact to add context to their posts. Those same sites, around since well before the Trump era, saw an explosion in traffic back then. In response, conservatives — and ardent Trump supporters in particular — groused increasingly loudly about the partisan lean of fact checkers and a new class of “misinformation reporters.” Those frustrations went nuclear after Facebook and Twitter removed information about Hunter Biden’s laptop — much of which turned out to be correct — in the direct leadup to the 2020 election and after the Biden administration announced a short-lived “Disinformation Governance Board” in 2022 that commentators on the right and on the left painted as an Orwellian organ meant to regulate speech. After Trump proved his political staying power even after he himself was banned from Facebook and Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, the idea that he won the first time because of pervasive misinformation started to look increasingly specious. While “checking facts” sounds like a straightforward endeavor, the truth is that broader content decisions based on fact checking are always politically charged. As such, almost no one was completely happy with how social media platforms, in particular, handled fact checking. Liberals believed the Trump administration was consistently getting away with blatant lies, conservatives were convinced that all fact checkers were hopelessly biased, and even those who were further left or right complained of random, unfair censorship of their views. Consequently, X and now Meta have insisted that they are returning power to the people. Fewer posts will be flagged or deleted. Political opinions of all sorts will be welcome. If they include incorrect facts, other users can self-police, the thinking goes. Only it’s not so simple. Deleting fewer posts and banning fewer accounts might help social media companies argue that they’re re-committing to free speech, but as POLITICO’s Digital Future Daily pointed out today , they’re still operating with complex, shadowy algorithms that prioritize certain kinds of content over others. The presence or absence of Censorship has little to do with what people are actually seeing when they log onto Facebook, where the algorithm remains king. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh . What'd I Miss? INVADING SOVEREIGN NATIONS? — Trump refuses to rule out using military force to take Greenland and Panama Canal: President-elect Donald Trump today refused to rule out invading Greenland or Panama when asked if the U.S. could use military force to acquire the Arctic island or the canal in the Central American country. Asked if he would rule out economic or military coercion to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, Trump said, “I’m not gonna commit to that. No. It might be that you’ll have to do something.” — Cannon temporarily blocks release of Jack Smith report: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his two criminal investigations into Donald Trump. The extraordinary move, coming just days before Smith’s office is expected to shut down, scrambles the final stage of the special counsel’s work. Smith is expected to wrap up and deliver to Attorney General Merrick Garland a final report laying out the results of his probes into Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office in 2021 and his attempt to subvert the 2020 election. Garland has said he would release the report publicly in some form. But Cannon’s order, issued at the request of two Trump allies who were co-defendants in the classified documents case, bars the Justice Department from releasing the report or any portion of it until three days after a federal appeals court rules on the issue. — Appeals court judge rejects Trump effort to cancel hush money sentencing on Friday: An appeals court judge today rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s last-ditch bid to halt his Friday sentencing for his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush money case. In a one-page decision, Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer wrote that Trump’s effort was “denied.” Trump has asked the New York appeals court to toss out the jury’s May verdict, which found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents. In his appeal, he argued that he is protected by presidential immunity — arguments that the trial judge, Justice Juan Merchan, rejected. Trump also sought to have the sentencing canceled while he appeals. THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION ACROSS THE AISLE — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead HHS, will meet with Senate Democrats on key health committees this week as he makes his case for why he should lead the sprawling department. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and also has a seat on the Finance Committee that would vote to approve Kennedy, will meet with Kennedy. So will Finance Democrats Michael Bennet of Colorado, Catherine Cortez-Mastro of Nevada, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Mark Warner of Virginia, per a Kennedy spokesperson. THE NOISY NEIGHBOR — President-elect Donald Trump today repeated his threat to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods from Mexico and Canada to pressure both countries to stop the flow of illegal immigration and cross-border fentanyl shipments. “We’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada,” Trump said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, a little less than two weeks before he is sworn into office for a second term as president. THIS THREATENS THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION! TRUMP WILL NOT BE SWORN IN UNTIL JAN 20.  CHINA IS LEADING THE WORLD WITH CHEAP CLEAN SOLAR & THEIR ECONOMY IS PROSPERING AS A CONSEQUNCE! CONFIRMATION HEARINGS SET — The trio of nominees tapped to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s energy and environment team will get confirmation hearings next week before the Senate, demonstrating the high priority his new administration is putting on implementing its “drill, baby, drill” agenda. North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s Interior secretary nominee, will go before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 14, according to Democratic staff with knowledge of the process. The Energy Committee will hold a hearing for Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, nominated to be secretary of Energy, on Jan. 15, the people said. And the Environment and Public Works Committee is holding a hearing for former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. AROUND THE WORLD Edmundo González Urrutia during an interview at the Hay-Adams hotel in Washington on Jan. 6, 2025. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO DUELING LEADERS — In the eyes of President Joe Biden and much of the world, Edmundo González Urrutia is the rightful next president of Venezuela. Yet he’s in Washington this week seeking America’s help making that a reality. Venezuela holds its inauguration on Friday, and strongman ruler Nicolás Maduro is planning to be sworn in. González says he, too, intends to be there to take the oath of office — if he can reach Venezuela’s shores, avoid the $100,000 bounty on his head, and convince Maduro to step aside. The odds are against González, but he’s doing his best to convince Biden, aides to President-elect Donald Trump and other American leaders to support his cause. In an interview with POLITICO , the 75-year-old González was upbeat about his prospects. He stressed that he wants a peaceful transfer of power in Venezuela, and is not requesting outside military intervention, but he also pointed to some not-quite-analogous examples of transitions that at times felt impossible. ‘NOT A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL’ — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau struck back today at more than a month of social media taunting from President-elect Donald Trump , saying there wasn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” of Canada becoming America’s 51st state. Trump has used the “51st State” jab repeatedly since Trudeau and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc dined with his team at his Florida compound in late November during the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend. Trudeau accepted an invitation from Trump after the president-elect threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian imports from the U.S. unless it did more to stop the flow of illegal drugs and migrants across their shared border. Trudeau’s team has regularly dismissed Trump’s comments — which regularly include referring to the prime minister as “Governor Trudeau” — as good-natured joking. The joke apparently wore off on Trudeau after Trump expanded on why Canada ought to become a state during his Mar-a-Lago press conference, a typically free-flowing event in which Trump said he would use “economic force” on Canada. In an afternoon post on X, Trudeau wrote: “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States. Workers in communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.” Nightly Number 42 The percentage of U.S. oil executives responding to a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas survey last week who said their spending on new projects in 2025 would be the same or lower compared with last year, while another 43 percent said it would “increase slightly.” RADAR SWEEP MY YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING — It’s the new year, and resolutions — online and offline — remain common. But another, related trend is surging on the internet, in particular on TikTok: manifestation. Popularized in particular among young women, the idea is that our internal thoughts and feelings can influence external events or our lives . Dream big, and good things will happen to you. But the wellness flavor of manifestation can also take a dark turn, especially when bad things happen to people who are manifestation devotees. Just like you’re responsible for all of the good that happens to you, so too are you responsible for all of the bad, the thinking goes. Lucy Jones writes about the trend for Refinery29. Parting Image On this date in 1980: Soviet heavy armor rolls on the snowy foothills in Afghanistan at a small encampment near Kabul after elements of the Soviet armed forces made their entry into Afghanistan territory. | Michel Lipchitz/AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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Trump Promotes Convicted Drug Trafficker as Face of Greenland Deal Danish press reports Timmy Zeeb served prison time for drug smuggling and violent crimes Jan 7 Written by J.D. Wolf On Truth Social, Donald Trump posted a video of a man from Greenland urging him to purchase the Danish territory. Trump’s post included the following text: I am hearing that the people of Greenland are "MAGA." My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights. Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” In turns out the man featured in the video, Timmy Zeeb, is a convicted drug dealer, violent criminal, and serial offender, according to Danish media outlets DR News  and B.T. In the video shared by Trump, Zeeb criticized Denmark for allegedly exploiting Greenland’s natural resources, expressing support for the island becoming part of the United States. Zeeb also appeared to insult Americans, calling them “too fat,” which Trump may have missed due to Zeeb’s accent. When questioned, Zeeb confirmed the comment. However, Zeeb's appearance as a representative voice for Greenland has drawn scrutiny due to his criminal past. DR News reported on Zeeb’s history of drug dealing, highlighting a 2019 conviction in one of Greenland's largest cannabis smuggling cases. Zeeb was sentenced to four years in prison and has been described by Greenlandic police as a figure involved in “crimes dangerous to people.” In 2009, he even escaped from prison, prompting a police search, according to DR News. B.T. revealed further details about Zeeb’s troubled history with Danish authorities in Greenland. The outlet reported that Zeeb’s criminal record includes convictions for violent crimes, threats, and drug smuggling. In 2018, he was identified as the ringleader of a significant hashish smuggling operation, for which the police confiscated four million kroner from him. In addition, Zeeb has publicly criticized prison conditions in Greenland, claiming inmates were mistreated, though his allegations were refuted by the Greenland Prison and Probation Service. Zeeb has also expressed frustration with Greenlandic authorities through petitions, including one titled “Stop the police in Greenland for their abuse of power!!!” on the site Skrivunder.net. Despite his vocal criticisms of Danish oversight, Zeeb downplayed any connection between his legal troubles and his advocacy for Greenland’s secession, telling B.T.: “This has nothing to do with the authorities. I have Danish family myself; everyone has opinions on the subject.” After Trump posted the video to his millions of followers, Zeeb's criminal past quickly came to light, raising questions about Trump’s judgment in promoting him as a voice for Greenlandic independence. DR News confirmed that the Trump transition team has not responded to inquiries about Zeeb’s background. In an unexpected twist, Trump allies Don Jr. and Charlie Kirk are currently touring Greenland to promote Trump’s purchase idea, further complicating the optics of the situation. One could attribute this fiasco to Trump’s apparent lack of vetting for those he elevates in his campaigns, with Timmy Zeeb—a convicted drug dealer and violent offender—now becoming the face of his latest territorial ambition. But then again, what’s more MAGA than a criminal being the face of your movement? Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Trump 2025 HEALTH EVENT fear goes viral

 

David Pakman Show

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🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman -- Fears of a Donald Trump health event in 2025 start to gain momentum --- Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership Become a Patron:   / davidpakmanshow   Book David Pakman: https://www.cameo.com/davidpakman --- David on Instagram:   / david.pakman   David on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/davidpakman.... David on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@david.pakman TDPS Subreddit:   / thedavidpakmanshow   Pakman Discord: https://www.davidpakman.com/discord Facebook:   / davidpakmanshow   --- David's tech:

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