Elections and Media

House Republicans withdrew from negotiations with Democrats over a pact that would have effectively barred both parties from using hacked or stolen material on the campaign trail in the fall of 2018.

When you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you’re going to see all of the good that humanity can do, and you’re also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible.

A volunteer member of the advance team for President Donald Trump blocked a photojournalist's camera as he tried to take a photo of a protester during a campaign rally in Indiana. A photo taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vuccishows the volunteer stretching out his hand over the lens of a news photographer's camera after a protester disrupted Trump's campaign event. President Trump paced on stage at the Ford Center as the protester was led out.

At his rally on Aug 30 in Indiana, President Donald Trump unleashed his usual attacks on the news media, but he also added a refrain that should set off loud, clanging alarm bells. President Trump didn’t simply castigate “fake news.” He also suggested the media is allied with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe — an alliance, he claimed, that is conspiring not just against Trump but also against his supporters. “Today’s Democrat Party is held hostage by left-wing haters, angry mobs, deep-state radicals, establishment cronies and their fake-news allies,” President Trump railed.

Twitter said that it would begin requiring some organizations that purchase political ads on topics such as abortion, health-care reform and immigration to disclose more information about themselves to users, part of the tech giant’s attempt to thwart bad actors, including Russia, from spreading propaganda ahead of the 2018 election. The new policy targets promoted tweets that mention candidates or advocate on “legislative issues of national importance,” Twitter executives said. To purchase these ads, individuals and groups must verify their identities.

One of the key ingredients in Ron DeSantis’ victory in the Florida GOP governor’s race turned out to be makeup. The once little-known congressman spent so much time broadcasting Fox News TV hits from Washington in 2018 that he learned to apply his own powder so he could look as polished as he sounded. In his primary election campaign against Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, DeSantis’ cultivation of his Fox relationship made all the difference.

The Facebook/Google/Twitter trio are better prepared for this upcoming round of Congressional testimony on Sept. 5. Almost a year after the three companies first testified together in front of Congress for Russian meddling, the three social media giants will be returning to Capitol Hill to talk about censorship and election interference. Many recall CEO Mark Zuckerberg's positive performance during televised Facebook hearings in April following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but the last time these three companies faced Congress together, the reviews were brutal.

Technology giants increasingly are casting themselves as defenders of online integrity as American democracy, yet again, comes under attack. A recent string of revelations from companies including Facebook, Microsoft and Google about foreign hacking and disinformation amount to a public answer to charges that the technology industry should have done more to thwart Russia’s online attacks in 2016.

Apparently, the tabloid executive David J. Pecker has been granted immunity by federal prosecutors investigating payments during the 2016 campaign to two women who said they had affairs with Donald J. Trump. Pecker is chief executive and chairman of American Media Inc., the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher, best known for its flagship, The National Enquirer. He is close to President Trump and the president’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael D.