October, 04 2021, 09:38am EDT
Whistleblower Revelations Demand Response to Make Facebook Accountable
On Sunday, CBS' 60 Minutes aired an interview with Frances Haugen, who revealed herself to be the whistleblower who shared internal Facebook documents with federal regulators showing the company lied repeatedly to the public and investors about its ability to combat hate, violence and misinformation on its platforms. In the 60 Minutes interview, Haugen revealed her identity, and explained why she released the documents. Her main concerns include Facebook executives' repeated choice of "profits over safety" in ways that caused violence around the world.
WASHINGTON
On Sunday, CBS' 60 Minutes aired an interview with Frances Haugen, who revealed herself to be the whistleblower who shared internal Facebook documents with federal regulators showing the company lied repeatedly to the public and investors about its ability to combat hate, violence and misinformation on its platforms. In the 60 Minutes interview, Haugen revealed her identity, and explained why she released the documents. Her main concerns include Facebook executives' repeated choice of "profits over safety" in ways that caused violence around the world.
Among the key findings of TheWall Street Journal's series "The Facebook Files" was evidence that: Facebook exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules; Instagram is harmful to millions of young users; Facebook's 2018 algorithm change promotes objectionable or harmful content; Facebook's tools were used to sow doubt about Covid-19 vaccines; and globally, Facebook is used to incite violence against ethnic minorities and facilitated action against political dissent.
Jessica J. Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press and co-founder of "Ya Basta Facebook" and the Change the Terms coalition, made the following statement:
"Facebook runs on a hate-and-lie-for-profit business model that amplifies all sorts of toxicity on its platforms. Thanks to this brave whistleblower, we now have further proof that Facebook's executives--all the way up to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg--routinely chose profits over public safety. They designed the company's algorithms to put engagement, growth and profits above all else, even allowing lies about the 2020 election results to spread to millions in advance of the white-nationalist assault on the U.S. Capitol.
"The Facebook whistleblower turned evidence of this gross negligence over to the government at great personal risk, and now we need the government to respond with decisive action to hold the company responsible for protecting public safety. The government must demand full transparency on how Facebook collects, processes and shares our data, and enact civil rights and privacy policies to protect the public from Facebook's toxic business model.
"Facebook must also act swiftly to remedy the harms it is continuing to inflict on the public at large. It must end special protections for powerful politicians, ban white supremacists and dangerous conspiracy theorists and institute wholesale changes to strengthen content moderation in English and other languages--and we need this all now."
Free Press activists are urging Congress to adopt a series of measures to hold Facebook to account.
Facebook has not responded to Free Press or Common Cause about its refusal to suspend Team Trump, a PAC established and controlled by Donald Trump, after the ex-president was suspended from Facebook's platforms. In July, more than 20 organizations urged Facebook to close a loophole that allowed dishonest and dangerous ads by groups controlled by banned public figures.
Facebook has also refused to answer members of Congress, Free Press, and other members of the "Ya Basta Facebook" coalition about how many staff and contractors the company employs to reduce Spanish-language disinformation on its platforms. It has also failed to release details on training or support for content moderators for non-English posts. Learn more here.
For years, Free Press, as a leader of the Change the Terms coalition, has pressured Facebook executives to strengthen their policy and enforcement mechanisms to curb hateful activity across the board on their platforms. Learn more here.
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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'Corporate Greed': Biden, Sanders Tell Big Pharma to Stop 'Ripping Off' Americans
Past administrations "have been intimidated and deterred from challenging Big Pharma's monopoly power," an expert said. "Today, however, President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders call Big Pharma's bullying bluff."
Jul 02, 2024
President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called for prescription drug companies to lower prices and stop "ripping off" Americans.
The message from Biden and Sanders (I-Vt.) came in a joint op-ed in USA Today in which they laid out the reforms they've already pushed through, called out two pharmaceutical companies in particular for the "unconscionably" high prices they charge to Americans, and vowed to take governmental action to end the "corporate greed."
"There is no rational reason why Americans, for decades, have been forced to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for the prescription drugs they need," Biden and Sanders wrote. "There is no rational reason why, for decades, 1 out of 4 Americans have been unable to afford the medicine their doctors prescribe.
"And it is most certainly not Americans' patriotic duty to pay high drug prices at home so others abroad can enjoy the fair prices that every American is entitled to," they added.
Consumer rights groups celebrated the strong position that the president and the senator took.
"For decades, presidential administrations on a bipartisan basis have been intimidated and deterred from challenging Big Pharma's monopoly power," Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, an advocacy group, said in a statement. "Today, however, President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders call Big Pharma's bullying bluff."
Pharmaceutical companies can make whatever excuses they want for their sky-high drug prices — we know it’s bullshit. And Biden and Bernie just called them on it.
If Big Pharma won’t quell its own greed, it’s up to the government to do it for them.https://t.co/YiodsDIoQI
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) July 2, 2024
Some progress has been made on prescription drug prices in the last four years, Biden and Sanders noted in their op-ed.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which they helped enact, established a price ceiling of $35 per month for insulin for senior citizens. And, starting in 2025, no senior citizen will have to pay more than $2,000 in prescription drug prices in a given year—a reform Biden and Sanders said they'd like to see apply to all Americans. Medicare can now also negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower prices, as other countries do.
Yet the problem of high drug prices remains, and Sanders has made solving it a priority, focusing on it as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Last year, he wrote an op-ed in Fox News, calling the opposition to pharmaceutical company profiteering an issue on which Americans of all political stripes "could not be more united." He also released a report showing that medications made using publicly funded research were then being priced exorbitantly by private firms.
The Vermont Independent has also repeatedly grilled pharmaceutical executives in hearings over the last two years, but they have generally not committed to lowering prices, though some companies did institute caps on out-of-pocket expenses on inhalers.
In April, Sanders and Biden teamed up for an event at the White House to discuss the need to lower prescription drug prices.
"I'm proud that my administration is taking on Big Pharma in the most significant ways ever," Biden said at the event. "And I wouldn't have done it without Bernie... Bernie was the one who was leading the way for decades."
Tuesday's op-ed marks the continuation of their partnership on the issue, with Biden effectively endorsing Sanders' drug pricing agenda, particularly for obesity and diabetes medications. HELP launched an investigation into Novo Nordisk's pricing of Ozempic and Wegovy in April, and the Danish multinational was the primary example of wrongdoing chosen by Biden and Sanders in their op-ed.
Ozempic and Wegovy are up to six times more expensive in the U.S. than in peer countries, Biden and Sanders wrote.
"In 2023, for example, Novo Nordisk made over $12 billion in profits, in part by charging Americans over $1,000 a month for a prescription drug that can be profitably manufactured for less than $5. That is not making a reasonable return on investment. That is price gouging. That is corporate greed."
Sanders recently succeeded in pressuring Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen to agree to testify in front of HELP in September.
Biden and Sanders noted that even just within obesity and diabetes care, the problem goes beyond Novo Nordisk: Eli Lilly's Mounjaro, a comparable weight-loss drug, is also overpriced. They argued that if the prices of such drugs are not lowered, they could bankrupt the U.S. healthcare system.
Biden then repeated the message through his own channels.
"If Big Pharma refuses to lower prescription drug prices and end their greed, we will do everything within our power to end it for them," Biden wrote on social media following the publication of the op-ed. "Bernie Sanders and I will not rest until every American can afford the prescriptions they need to lead healthy, happy, and productive lives."
Though the timing may be incidental, Biden's cooperation with Sanders, a leading progressive, comes during a week in which he needs to rally his base—a task Sanders is known to excel at. Biden faces widespread pressure to step aside from the presidential race following a subpar debate performance on Thursday night.
While progressives have been sharply critical of Biden on a range of issues, it's not clear whether his potential replacements at the top of the Democratic ticket would be so willing to team up with Sanders and call out corporate greed.
"Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden just co-authored a piece laying into big pharmaceutical companies for overcharging Americans on obesity drugs," Matt Stoller, a progressive commentator and research director of the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote on social media. "I realize Biden is senile, but would his replacements do anything like this? Most wouldn't."
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'Too Much Is At Stake': First House Democrat Calls On Biden to Step Aside
"President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2021," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett. "He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."
Jul 02, 2024
Crediting U.S. President Joe Biden with spearheading "transformational" changes since taking office three-and-a-half years ago, Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first federal lawmaker to call on the president to withdraw from the 2024 electoral race, warning that a potential victory by former President Donald Trump would "usher America into a long, dark, authoritarian era."
With just four months until Election Day, and weeks until the Democratic Party formally nominates its presidential candidate, Doggett (D-Texas) said in a statement that the party's "overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang."
Doggett spoke out five days after Biden faced Trump in the first debate of the presidential campaign and alarmed viewers, Democratic strategists, and aides with his performance. The president, speaking in a raspy voice and appearing to lose his train of thought several times, struggled to make the case for his achievements and to call out Trump's repeated lies.
The debate reportedly sent a wave of panic through the Democratic Caucus, with one party insider telling Politico that names of potential replacements for Biden were being floated.
In his statement, Doggett noted that Biden's poll numbers compared to Trump's were cause for concern for several months before the debate.
"Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory—too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what could not be turned around in the debate, can be turned around now," said Doggett. "President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2021. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."
Doggett's comments came as CNN released a poll showing that Trump is leading Biden by 49% v. 43%, while his lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in a potential matchup is smaller. Trump leads the vice president by two points.
Among Independent voters, Harris has a three-point edge over the former president, while Trump leads Biden by 10 points.
A separate poll released Tuesday by the progressive grassroots group Our Revolution showed that 67% of respondents supported Biden suspending his reelection campaign.
Doggett noted that the days following the debate have made increasingly clear the danger of a potential second Trump term, as the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" regarding "official acts" he committed while he was in office—casting doubt on whether he can be held accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and rendering any U.S. president, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "a king above the law."
"Newly empowered with immunity," said Doggett, Trump would be "unchecked by either the courts or a submissive Republican Congress."
The congressman noted that while Biden has spearheaded some far-reaching legislative reforms, the president signaled earlier in his term that he planned to serve only one term.
"He has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process," said Doggett. "Recognizing that, unlike Trump, his first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so."
Doggett told Matthew Choi of The Texas Tribune that he had notified the White House of his decision to speak out in favor of Biden stepping aside last Friday, the day after the debate.
"After the debate, the risk of a Trump presidency has grown so much that I felt forced to take this action," Doggett said.
Another survey released Tuesday by Puck News showed alternative candidates including Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer polling ahead of Biden in a potential matchup with Trump.
In light of the the new polling numbers, said former Rhode Island lawmaker and lawyer Aaron Regunberg, Democratic leaders who are "trying to shut down this debate are actively helping Trump."
Regunberg called Doggett's statement "courageous."
"Biden cannot beat Trump," he said. "But another Democrat absolutely can! Whether it's a handoff to VP Harris or an open convention, we don't have to resign ourselves to fascism. It's time for Biden to do the honorable thing and pass the torch."
Also on Tuesday, longtime Democratic National Committee (DNC) member James Zogby wrote to Chairman Jamie Harrison outlining a process through which the party could select its presidential nominee over the next month, ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Potential candidates could work to secure the endorsements of at least 40 current DNC members and the party could then host two televised events in which the candidates would "make their cases before Democratic voters across the country" before the formal nomination process at the convention starting August 19.
"The excitement generated by this process and the attention it will be given will be a plus for our eventual nominee," said Zogby.
In an interview with The Nation national affairs correspondent John Nichols, Zogby concurred with Doggett's suggestion that Biden's ability to continue serving as president is not what has caused growing concern.
"The focus of this election shouldn't be on the president's age, on his capacity to campaign, on his capacity to govern," said Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute. "It should be on the danger that Donald Trump presents to the country, on the threat that Donald Trump poses."
"We have to face reality here," he said. "Do I think that Joe Biden is capable of governing? I would say 'yes.' Is he capable of forming a team that can govern? Yes. But can he win an election under these circumstances, when these questions about his abilities will be the constant focus? When the Republicans and the media are looking for the next gaffe, waiting for the next time he forgets something, watching his every step to see if he will stumble? This is not what the election should focus on. And, yet, that's where it's headed."
"I would trust Joe Biden on his worst day more than Donald Trump on his best day. But I don't want his last campaign to be one where all people talk about are his weaknesses," Zogby added. "To go out as the gracious warrior, who fought the great battle to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, served four years and then decided to pass the torch, would absolutely solidify his place in history as somebody who thought more about the good of the country than himself."
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'Screaming the Quiet Part': Trump Advisers Say He's Ready to Embrace King-Like Powers
The U.S. Supreme Court's immunity decision has reportedly emboldened the presumptive GOP nominee to pursue his far-right agenda and authoritarian aims "without fear of punishment or restraint."
Jul 02, 2024
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump—who has pledged to be a dictator on "day one" if elected to another four years in the White House—is reportedly preparing to exploit the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday that current and former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution.
Citing unnamed advisers to the former president, Axiosreported Tuesday that if Trump is reelected in November, he "plans to immediately test the boundaries of presidential and governing power, knowing the restraints of Congress and the courts are dramatically looser than during his first term."
"They're screaming the quiet part, and yet Democrats are mostly focused on renominating a sundowning 81-year-old losing to him in key swing state polls," The Lever's David Sirota wrote in response to Axios' reporting, referring to President Joe Biden.
Facing mounting calls to drop his reelection campaign following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week, Biden said in an address following the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States that the ruling means "there are virtually no limits on what a president can do."
"I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power, as I have for three and a half years," said Biden. "But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law."
Among the steps Trump—who celebrated the ruling—intends to take swiftly upon assuming office following a possible November victory, according to Axios, are setting up "vast camps" to "deport millions of people," moving to "fire potentially tens of thousands of civil servants" and replace them with "pre-vetted loyalists," and centralizing "power over the Justice Department," which the former president has repeatedly threatened to wield against his political opponents.
Trump has also pledged to gut environmental rules—which the Supreme Court also targeted in recent rulings—and ram through climate-wrecking drilling projects, moves backed by the powerful oil and gas industry that's helping finance his campaign.
"Thanks to Monday's Supreme Court ruling, Trump could pursue his plans without fear of punishment or restraint," Axios reported.
“It's coming, fast and furious, if he's elected.”
Being a dictator on Day One. Swapping civil servants for “pre-vetted loyalists.” Threatening to “target and even imprison critics.” Pardoning insurrectionists. Jacking up prices with new tariffs. And more: https://t.co/sEiORyvMOt
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 2, 2024
While Trump made his support for such actions clear well before the U.S. Supreme Court's Monday ruling, the decision is likely to embolden the twice-impeached former president who, since leaving office, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on election-subversion charges and convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The high court's ideologically divided 6-3 decision in the immunity case has already impacted both legal proceedings, with Manhattan prosecutors agreeing Tuesday with the former president's request to delay his criminal sentencing on the 34 felony charges as the judge on the case examines whether the Supreme Court's ruling has any bearing on the conviction.
In the separate election-subversion case, the Supreme Court's ruling further pushes back a trial as the judge now has to determine which of the actions described in the indictment qualify as "official" duties that—according to the high court's right-wing supermajority—are entitled to "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution.
"So, yes, all this will delay Trump's trial. In that sense, he gets what he craved," Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote Monday. "But the implications are far worse for the structure of American self-government."
"We read sonorous language in the majority opinion that 'the president is not above the law,'" Waldman added. "But just in time for Independence Day, the Supreme Court brings us closer to having a king again."
"The Framers of the Constitution, wary of reestablishing the monarchy they overthrew, carefully limited the chief executive's powers. And six justices just crowned him king."
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent against Monday's decision that the Supreme Court's majority has effectively endorsed assassinations of political rivals, orchestration of a military coup to remain in power, and the acceptance of bribes in exchange for pardons as legitimate and unprosecutable uses of presidential authority.
"The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably," Sotomayor wrote. "In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law."
Slate legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern echoed Sotomayor, writing that "it is unclear, after Monday's decision, what constitutional checks remain to stop any president from assuming dangerous and monarchical powers that are anathema to representative government."
"The immediate impact of the court's sweeping decision will be devastating enough, allowing Donald Trump to evade accountability for the most destructive and criminal efforts he took to overturn the 2020 election. But the long-term impact is even more harrowing," Stern wrote. "All future presidents will enter office with the knowledge that they are protected from prosecution for even the most appalling and dangerous abuses of power so long as they insist they were seeking to carry out their duties, as they understood them."
"The Framers of the Constitution, wary of reestablishing the monarchy they overthrew, carefully limited the chief executive's powers," he added. "And six justices just crowned him king."
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