Bi-Partisan Senate report calls for sweeping effort to stop Russian trolls on social media platforms.

Democrats just had one of the strongest showings in the past century for a president’s party in midterm elections, while many of the candidates endorsed by former president Donald Trump lost. Those results are not only shaking up domestic politics — they will also reverberate abroad. Dictators and right-wing populists who were hoping that Trump would return to power are sure to be disappointed, while the United States’ democratic allies can breathe a little easier.

Both Kyiv and Moscow were watching the election results closely. Ukrainians were apprehensive that if Republicans won power, U.S. aid to their country would be cut off. That’s a legitimate concern, given that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who may be the next House speaker, said that Ukraine would no longer have a “blank check.”

In fact, given the Russian army’s dismal combat performance, a U.S. aid cutoff is Vladimir Putin’s best bet to win the war. That helps to explain why the Kremlin once again activated its trolls and bots before Election Day to help the MAGA movement. Russian propagandists even said that Putin avoided announcing the Russian withdrawal from Kherson until the day after the vote so as not to give a lift to Biden and Democrats. Democrats still did well — and Russia did badly.

Another country that might have benefited from a Democratic defeat is China. That’s not because Republicans are pro-China; while there is a lot of sympathy for Putin in MAGA world, there is none for Xi Jinping. But as the United States’ foremost geostrategic challenger, China benefits from a weak president and a divided America.

Xi just won another five years in power from the Chinese Communist Party conference. He would be in a stronger position meeting Biden on Monday, at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, if the U.S. president had just suffered repudiation at the polls. While Biden hasn’t had his term extended, he has been given a new lease on life: He won’t be a lame duck for the next two years. That enables him to parley with Xi from a position of greater strength — all the more so since inflation slowed in October, suggesting that the U.S. economy may avoid a recession.

The election was also being closely watched in the Middle East, where many of the United States’ illiberal allies have been pining for the days when Trump gave them a pass on their atrocious human rights records. I recently talked with a reporter from an Arab country who told me that her government is locking up more journalists while ignoring protests from the State Department because its rulers are counting on Trump to come back in two years. That seems less likely now, which adds to the pressure on Arab states to listen more carefully to what the Biden administration is telling them.

A test case will be in Egypt, where the administration is doing “everything we can” (in the words of national security adviser Jake Sullivan) to secure the release of British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a hunger strike in an Egyptian prison. Biden just met with Egyptian ruler Abdel Fatah El-Sisi at the climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. Sisi may still not do the right thing, but he at least has more incentive to listen to what the U.S. president says now than he might have had a week ago.

Another Middle Eastern regime that has been giving Biden the middle finger is Saudi Arabia. In July, Biden traveled to the kingdom to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite his role in ordering the murder of Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. Biden hoped to win agreement from Saudi Arabia to maintain high oil production to moderate inflationary pressure since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

MBS, as he’s widely known, refused to oblige in what was widely seen as an attempt to hurt Biden politically and usher in the return of his MAGA friends. The Wall Street Journal reported that MBS “mocks President Biden in private … has told advisers he hasn’t been impressed with Mr. Biden since his days as vice president, and much preferred former President Donald Trump.”

Well, as Omar Little said in “The Wire,” “You come at the king, you best not miss.” MBS missed — and now he will have to deal with an empowered Biden.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who is returning as Israel’s prime minister, is yet another Middle Eastern leader who preferred Trump to Biden. Now he will have to listen more carefully when Biden tells him not to annex parts of the West Bank as demanded by the right-wing members of his coalition.

I don’t want to exaggerate the impact of the election. The United States remains divided politically, and Republicans may still take over the House.
But the unexpectedly strong showing by Democrats leaves Biden in a stronger position not only at home but also abroad. U.S. democracy looks healthier today than it did a week ago — to the delight of fellow democracies and the dismay of dictatorships.

Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.” Twitter

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents believe a recent spate of threats and false reports of shooters at high schools and colleges across the U.S. may be coming from outside of the country, an FBI official said Monday.

So far, officials have identified calls to about 250 colleges, 100 high schools and several junior high schools since early June falsely reporting explosive devices being planted at the schools or saying that a shooting was imminent.

Based on the FBI’s investigation, those threats do not appear to be racially motivated, the official said, and investigators suspect the callers could be located outside of the U.S. The official said investigators have been running traces on the numbers and internet addresses, which led them to believe the calls may be generated overseas. The official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation.

The update comes as academic institutions across the nation have faced a surge of threats, including many targeting historically Black colleges and universities.

Earlier this year, dozens of historically Black colleges were targeted by calls or emails threatening to set off bombs on their campuses. In those incidents, which happened in January and February, more than 50 institutions received threats that contained racial slurs, the official said.

Federal investigators learned that three numbers were used to communicate those threats and authorities were able to identify several minors who may have been involved, the official said. As they investigated, federal agents discovered one juvenile who they believe was primarily responsible for making the threats. Those threats are believed to come from within this country.

The Justice Department worked with state prosecutors and brought a case against the juvenile in an unrelated threat case, the official said. The minor is now subject to monitoring, which officials believe has “disrupted his criminal behavior,” the official said.

Investigators believe another set of threats received in February and March by 19 historically Black colleges, universities and churches were made from outside of the U.S., the official said. Those calls do not appear to be connected to the threats made in January and February and the callers had different voices and accents, according to the official.

Federal agents tracked the phone numbers and email addresses used to foreign countries. The official provided no other specific details but said the investigation was continuing.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Chris Wray is raising national security concerns about TikTok, warning Friday that control of the popular video sharing app is in the hands of a Chinese government “that doesn’t share our values.”

Wray said the FBI was concerned that the Chinese had the ability to control the app’s recommendation algorithm, “which allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.” He also asserted that China could use the app to collect data on its users that could be used for traditional espionage operations.

“All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us,” Wray told an audience at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Those concerns are similar to ones he raised during congressional appearances last month when the issue came up. And they’re being voiced during ongoing dialogue in Washington about the app.

Concerned about China’s influence over TikTok, the Trump administration in 2020 threatened to ban the app within the U.S. and pressured ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. company. U.S. officials and the company are now in talks over a possible agreement that would resolve American security concerns, a process that Wray said was taking place across U.S. government agencies.

“As Director Wray has previously said, the FBI’s input is being considered as part of our ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Government,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in an emailed statement. “While we can’t comment on the specifics of those confidential discussions, we are confident that we are on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns and have already made significant strides toward implementing those solutions.”

TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. The TikTok statement Friday noted that ByteDance is a private company and that “TikTok Inc., which offers the TikTok service in the United States, is a U.S. company bound by U.S. laws.”

At a Senate hearing in September, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas responded to questions from members of both parties by saying that the company protects all data from American users and that Chinese government officials have no access to it.

“We will never share data, period,” Pappas said.

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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/technology-china-united-states-national-security-government-and-politics-ac5c29cafaa1fc6bee990ed7e1fe5afc
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–2019_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

Oh no...We would never try to influence Americans...Trust us to have your sensitive data and never use it, trust us to not interfere in your elections...Trust us to have the best interests of the American people as our prime motivation...
Fuck china, and fuck tik-tok, this shit has got to fucking stop. Biden should make a very public speech, aimed not really at Americans, but the rest of the world, that we WILL take any interference in our election process, or any other process, as a hostile act, and respond appropriately.
The shit has to fucking stop, if we have to stop it ourselves.

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hanimmal said:

As much as it sucks that the GQP are going to use the power of the house (that they gerrymandered their way into control of) to attack our economy once again in order to 'own the libs'. Every single troll they try to pull in house hearings are going to just get dismantled. I am curious to see how transparently trollific they end up going.

Not just the topics, which will be bullshit that gets used to push their advertising in the next election cycle (like Trump's use of the trigger phrases "Black Lives Matter" and "ANTIFA"), nor the paid propagandists like Candace Owens (who is full out spamming the 'both sides' narrative with the Ukrainian war) and PhD trolls cherry picked 'expert analysis' for the cameras. But the people who they call inside of the Biden Administration that are fully read in on what is going on and how they will just dismantle the idiots like Jim Jordan now that the curtain has been lifted on this con they are pulling thanks to the loser twice impeached ex-president.

Because now is the time to just rip the Republican propaganda talking points apart,

It really is something that needs to be done. And it is Biden's job to get it done. I am looking forward to the next couple years to see how this shakes out.

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With Republicans poised to take control of he U.S. House of Representatives in January, the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will likely be dissolved in the coming weeks.

But Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told constituents this week that the committee will issue a final report that draws damning conclusions about former President Trump’s efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 election.

“We are going to have a report that will state our findings, that will summarize the action. You will be able to access different parts of the hearings in order to make vivid what it is we’re talking about,” he declared. “And then we’re going to talk about the clear and continuing present danger of the forces that have been unleashed against us.”

A constitutional scholar and a leading member of the panel, Raskin made his remarks during an appearance before the Democratic Club of Leisure World in Silver Spring Thursday night. The Montgomery Democrat was greeted as something of a hero by members of the club.

In addition to cataloguing the efforts Trump and his allies made to block Joe Biden from taking office, the Jan. 6 committee will lay out the role played by leading social media sites. Those sites, Raskin said, “were perfectly aware, from their own employees, that danger was coming, that there were ultra-right-wing forces calling for race war, calling for civil war, calling for revolution against the American government, and yet did nothing.”

The lawmaker said the committee’s upcoming report “will make a bunch of recommendations” for the country and its leaders to consider, but he conceded that “we’re not going to be able to get all of them — or even most of them — done before the end of the Congress” because of Republican gains in November.

The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was formed six months after a violent mob breached the U.S. Capitol, delaying by hours the certification of Biden’s win. Five people lost their lives in the melee.

The panel interviewed more than a thousand people and reviewed more than a million pages of documents. The public hearings that the panel held riveted the American people, drawing them deep inside the bloody siege, including the former president’s steadfast refusal to get his supporters to leave the Capitol complex.

Although many Republicans and conservative opinion leaders accused the panel of engaging in partisanship, Raskin noted that two GOP lawmakers serve on the committee. Nearly all of the panel’s most dramatic moments came during testimony from former Trump loyalists.

Raskin predicted that Republican voters “will continue to follow the Big Lie” about the 2020 election, which Biden won, “and they will continue to follow every form of propaganda and disinformation against us.”

“The political scientists tell us that the signs of an authoritarian political party are this: 1) they don’t accept the results of democratic elections if they don’t go their way; 2) they embrace political violence or refuse to disavow it…; and 3) they are organized around a charismatic or allegedly charismatic political figure.”

Raskin said the report would be released in the coming days, though he didn’t say when. He answered several question from the audience, but when he was asked if the Jan. 6 committee will recommend “criminal action” against the former president, he declined to say.

“This is probably the first time I’ve ever had to say ‘no comment’ at Leisure World,” the lawmaker said to laughter.

Several published reports this week have suggested that the committee may make a handful of criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

“We’re going to put this [report] to the American people and it will be a challenge for everybody across the political spectrum, across the country, to stand up for democratic institutions,” he said.

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hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6-report-will-lay-out-the-continuing-danger-facing-the-u-s/
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cannabineer said:

monetizing civil unrest sounds like a RICO case, a big one

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hanimmal said:

I am not holding my breath on that one since most the sites are not really going to be held accountable for anything.

But it will be a lot of very important information about the attack on our society that the Democrats can bang the drum on as the Republicans try to use it with their propaganda filled house hearings.

I see a couple years of very little getting done from the federal government unfortunately. It looks like the Democrats are trying to stop government shutdowns for a year out, and are not getting much pushback from MacCarthy, so who knows, the real drag on those 2 million employees (I think, not looking it up atm to be sure) in the federal government not getting paid for as long as they think they are 'owning the libs'.

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hanimmal said:

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

Biden should make a very public speech, aimed not really at Americans, but the rest of the world, that we WILL take any interference in our election process, or any other process, as a hostile act, and respond appropriately.

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Rob Roy said:

Didn't he ALREADY give his thoughts in that area though?

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hanimmal said:

Nice regurgitation of a Republican cherry picked propaganda video. Good example for the thread. Thank you.

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Rob Roy said:

There are more than two flavors, so when it comes to getting a kick out of Biden's gaffes...

...An apolitical person could be amused by his gaffes and not be in favor of promoting Republican propaganda points or be a Republican.


My thoughts are "internet truthiness" has a kind of ministry of truth aspect to it and gives me concerns about free speech being abridged.

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

a kick out of Biden's gaffes...that's just a really cowardly way of saying you hate him...don't be a fucking pussy rob...say what you fucking mean, we're all used to it.
an apolitical asshole who makes fun of people with a speech inpediment can be amused by his "gaffes", and use them to try to back up a fake claim of senility, but anyone with any compassion would recognize them for what they are, and ignore them. guess we knows where that leaves you, in the compassion field.
as far as "internet truthiness" how about just calling it what it is? stopping people from spreading harmful lies and misinformation.
if people stay in the realm of supposition, of offering alternative theories that they clearly label as such, then say what the fuck ever you want, but the second you start to claim truth, then you're open for legal and ethical problems, unless you can prove it's the truth, which not one single fucking qtard will ever be able to do, which not one fucking republicunt who is howling about locking Hunter up will ever be able to do.
the second you start to advocate for violence against anyone, for any reason, is when you should be shut the fuck down, permanently. no more internet for hate mongers. i know they can make new accounts, but ban them too, every time they spew hateful shit. they'll only get on tirade per account...how persistent are they? you've certainly stuck around for an impressive amount of time in a clearly hostile to your views environment.

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cannabineer said:

he never once directs his vitriol at maga.

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CAL State San Bernadino design major Nohemi Gonzalez saved enough money to live her dream of studying in Paris for a semester.

On November 13, 2015, the college senior met friends for dinner in the 11th arrondissement — a neighborhood known for edgy art and racial and religious diversity. As diners applauded the staff at La Belle Équipe, who brought a birthday cake to a waitress at 9:30 p.m., a dark car stopped nearby. Soon after, two heavily armed men emerged and blasted the candlelit tables with gunfire. In less than three minutes, 19 were dead. One of those killed was Nohemi.

Across Paris, ISIS shooters and a suicide bomber attacked a popular bar, a Cambodian restaurant, a nightclub concert, a sports stadium and La Belle Équipe. The terrorists killed 130 people.

Investigators later learned that some attackers were recruited by an ISIS video posted on YouTube. Noemi's family sued Google, which owns YouTube, after learning from investigators that the men clicked on a link to the video after YouTube recommended it as content they might enjoy. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Gonzalez v Google on February 21.

But Twitter, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media giants have powerful protection from such liability thanks to Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act.

Created in 1996, Section 230 states that social media are neutral tools offering recommendations based on an online visitor's usage, not distinguishing between moral and immoral content.

"Platforms are encouraged to voluntarily block and screen objectionable content; however, they are granted immunity if they do not," explains Bipartisan Policy Center analyst Sabrina Neschke.

But Section 230 was crafted in the internet's infancy, long before Artificial Intelligence and other revolutionary tech advances enabled algorithms to guide users into the darkest corners of the web. Soon, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether Section 230 still fits the sophisticated, AI-enhanced algorithm that social media uses in 2023.

Interestingly, Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife became well-known for posting debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, urged SCOTUS to tackle the question.

"Thomas has previously voiced skepticism toward Section 230," Neschke wrote. "Thomas expressed dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court’s decision to not further review (last year's) Jane Doe v. Facebook, Inc., stating, “Assuming Congress does not step in to clarify 230’s scope, we should do so in an appropriate case."

Jane Doe v Facebook Inc. resulted when an adult male predator befriended a girl, 15, via Facebook and convinced her to meet him. He raped, beat and sexually trafficked her. Jane Doe argued that Facebook was liable for violating anti-sex trafficking laws.

People for the American Way's Supreme Court analyst is attorney Elliot Mincberg — a former House Judiciary Committee chief counsel for oversight and investigations. He told Raw Story this is a possible landmark case for social media platforms.

"This case is nuanced and complex," Mincberg said, adding that it's also more unpredictable since it won't trigger "the break along conservative and moderate justices that you see with cases involving LGBTQ rights or guns."

There has been surprisingly broad bipartisan support for getting Gonzalez v. Google heard in America's highest court. Trump loyalist Sen. Josh Hawley and the Biden Justice Department filed briefs urging SCOTUS to consider Gonzalez's position.

The Justices' decision could dramatically alter the social media landscape.

Section 230 allowed a new form of communication to evolve by shielding social media platforms from endless lawsuits from online visitors who disliked some content. Mincberg condenses Section 230’s protective message: “Don’t blame Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc., because they are only messengers.”

Gonzalez family attorney, Keith Altman, argues that today's robust tech giants are obliged to take more responsibility for the content they recommend and showcase.

"By their terms of service...on YouTube, you have to submit your articles for monetization to Google," Altman told NBC News. "Then they start putting ads on our pages and sharing revenue with you."

The National Association of Attorneys General's Dan Schweitzer explains that the Gonzalez family's lawsuit argues that algorithms are no longer neutral tools but more like the human book or film reviewers who analyze then recommend content.

"They argue that Google’s allowing the content to be posted on its website and recommending the content are two separate acts, and only a lawsuit based on the former would seek to treat Google as a publisher and thus entitle it to immunity," he wrote. "Petitioners also point out that the recommendations are not themselves a communication from a third party but rather are from the interactive service itself."

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