Elections and Media

Although it is not much to look at now, as of the week of Sept 24 the "War Room" will be Facebook’s headquarters for safeguarding elections.

Advocacy groups pouring money into independent campaigns to impact the Fall 2018 midterm races must disclose many of their political donors beginning the week of Sept 17 after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in a long-running case. The high court did not grant an emergency request to stay a ruling by a federal judge in Washington who had thrown out a decades-old Federal Election Commission regulation allowing nonprofit groups to keep their donors secret unless they had earmarked their money for certain purposes.

In the roughly 21 months since he took the oath of office, President Donald Trump has sunk far below the already-low bar he set for himself in his ugly campaign. As I see it, there are five main fronts of this assault on our democracy. First, there is Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law. Second, the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt. Third, the president is waging war on truth and reason. Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes reporter, asked Trump during his campaign why he’s always attacking the press.

Progressive candidates have laid out a series of sweeping policy proposals in their 2018 campaigns, including plans for the tech sector. With breakout Democratic candidates like New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez coming out in favor of aggressive measures to curb tech, we surveyed the landscape to gauge where other progressives stand on key issues like data privacy and antitrust. 

A leaked video of Google executives trying to console employees who were upset after the election of President Trump has infuriated conservatives, who say the remarks illustrate the search giant's political bias and should prompt regulators to take a close look at the company.

According to a Quinnipiac University National Poll, American voters trust the news media more than President Donald Trump 54 - 30 percent to tell the truth about important issues. Republicans trust Trump more than the media 72 - 12 percent, the only group that trusts Trump more. White voters with no college degree are divided as 45 percent trust Trump more and 43 percent trust the media more. The news media is an important part of democracy, 69 percent of voters say, as 21 percent say the media is the enemy of the people.

President Donald Trump issued a new order authorizing additional sanctions against countries or individuals for interfering in upcoming US elections, but lawmakers of both parties immediately said the effort does not go far enough. The order would allow President Trump to sanction foreigners who interfere in the midterm elections to be held in less than two months.

Several potential presidential candidates for the 2020 election have expressed an interest in policies that would battle monopolies in the US, including in the tech industry, said Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Open Markets Institute. “Well more than six of the likely presidential candidates this next time around, we’ve had extensive conservations with about these issues,” he said.

Rebuilding Facebook’s content enforcement mechanisms to weed out harmful content could take 3 years or longer, said the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The good news is we started this in 2017, so even though this work will extend through 2019, I do expect us to end this year on a significantly better trajectory than when we entered it,” he added. Zuckerberg said that he would reveal more about the company’s plans to fight abuse in the near future in a series of posts.

Voters are quickly becoming accustomed to the barrage of conversational, sometimes annoying and mostly unregulated text messages sent by political campaigns, often asking whether they can “count on your vote” while offering quick reminders on elections and initiatives. Peer-to-peer texting platforms can be a useful political tactic. They allow campaigns to get in touch with tens of millions of people, and the method was partially pioneered by Sen Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) campaign.