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Former Twitter Employee's Testimony Is an Urgent Call for Social-Media Platforms to 'Fix the Feed'
During today's House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, an anonymous former Twitter employee testified that they had attempted for weeks in 2020 to get the platform to do something about the calls to violence occurring on the network following a series of tweets from then-President Trump.
The Trump tweets -- and in particular one from Dec. 19, 2020, in which Trump called on people to come to Washington on Jan. 6 when things "will be wild" -- incited people to respond that they were "locked and loaded" and ready to answer the president's call.
WASHINGTON
During today's House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, an anonymous former Twitter employee testified that they had attempted for weeks in 2020 to get the platform to do something about the calls to violence occurring on the network following a series of tweets from then-President Trump.
The Trump tweets -- and in particular one from Dec. 19, 2020, in which Trump called on people to come to Washington on Jan. 6 when things "will be wild" -- incited people to respond that they were "locked and loaded" and ready to answer the president's call.
Trump "was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives. We had not seen that sort of direct communication before," the former employee testified in a recording shown during the hearing. "I came to the reality," the witness said, "... if [Twitter] made no intervention into what I saw, people are going to die, and on Jan. 5 I realized that no intervention is coming."
On Jan. 8, Twitter permanently suspended Trump's account. But according to the witness, the company knew for quite some time prior to the Jan. 6 attack that the former president's tweets had incited numerous calls for a violent insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power. The former Twitter employee testified that until Jan. 8 the company had used a light hand against Trump. "Twitter relished in the knowledge," they testified, "that they were also the favorite and most used service of the former president and enjoyed having that sort of power."
Nora Benavidez, Free Press senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights, said:
"Today's shocking whistleblower testimony confirms what many of us have known for years: Big Tech has repeatedly failed to rein in calls to violence on their platforms. We need to view the entire testimony from this former Twitter employee so we can fully understand the company's role in fomenting the kinds of violence that threatened to overthrow democracy in the United States and seat an authoritarian regime in its place.
"Twitter -- and other social-media companies -- must stop shirking responsibility, especially as the country prepares for another national election. Free Press and our allies in the Change the Terms coalition have outlined a series of steps Twitter and other platforms -- including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube -- must take to 'Fix the Feed' and stop amplifying the worst content on their platforms. Companies must fix their algorithms so they stop promoting calls to violence, staff up their moderating capacity so that such content is flagged and dealt with before it spreads, and be transparent with researchers and others about their content-moderation practices and algorithms.
"Until Twitter and other platforms take these demands seriously and fix their feeds, we will continue to see online calls to violence spill over into real-world bloodshed."
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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Georgia Fires Entire Maternal Mortality Panel After Reporting on Abortion Ban Deaths
"This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm," said one journalist. "Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Nov 21, 2024
Georgia officials fired everyone on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after ProPublicareported that the panel found the deaths of two women whose care was restricted by the state's abortion ban were preventable, the news outlet revealed Thursday.
ProPublica first exposed the committee's findings for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in September, sparking a flood of criticism directed at abortion care restrictions and the primarily Republican politicians who impose them. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for the White House, even traveled to Atlanta to pay tribute to the two women.
"They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
Thurman and Miller's stories, as the news outlet acknowledged Thursday, "became a central discussion" in not only the presidential contest—ultimately won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who has bragged about the role he played in reversing Roe v. Wade—but also ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in 10 states, seven of which succeeded.
In a November 8 letter obtained by ProPublica, Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey wrote that an "investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information" despite state law and confidential agreements signed by panel members barring such disclosures.
Toomey explained that the committee was immediately "disbanded," a replacement panel will be formed through a new application process, and additional procedures are under consideration regarding confidentiality, oversight, and organizational structure.
ProPublica reported that the office of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp—who appointed Toomey—declined to comment and referred questions to the health department, whose spokesperson also declined to comment, saying that the letter, "speaks for itself."
As the outlet detailed:
Reproductive rights advocates say Georgia's decision to dismiss and restructure its committee also could have a chilling effect on the committee's work, potentially dissuading its members from delving as deeply as they have into the circumstances of pregnant women's deaths if it could be politically sensitive.
"They did what they were supposed to do. This is why we need them," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, one of the groups challenging Georgia's abortion ban in court. "To have this abrupt disbandment, my concern is what we are going to lose in the process, in terms of time and data?"
Other reproductive rights advocates and journalists were similarly critical in response to the new reporting from ProPublica—which has also covered the deaths of two women in Texas: Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.
"Women died because they received no life-saving care as they were having miscarriages in Georgia and the state responded by simply eradicating the committee that investigated deaths of pregnant women," declared writer and organizer Hannah Riley.
The National Institute for Reproductive Health, an advocacy group, asserted that "when anti-abortion politicians find FACTS inconvenient, they dismantle the systems meant to hold them accountable."
New York magazine senior correspondent Irin Carmon, whose forthcoming book is about pregnancy in the United States, similarly said: "This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletterAbortion, Every Day and the bookAbortion, also argued that Georgia officials fired the panel members because "they didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
"I wrote about this in my book—this is how they cover up our deaths," Valenti continued. "In Idaho, they disbanded the Maternal Mortality Review Committee altogether; in Texas, they put a well-known anti-abortion activist on there to skew the data."
"I guarantee you that when Georgia replaces those seats on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, they're going to put anti-abortion activists on there," she added. "Just watch."
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Bolsonaro and 36 Others Indicted in Brazil Over Right-Wing Coup Attempt
"Well, look at this thing called 'accountability,'" said one MSNBC host.
Nov 21, 2024
The Brazilian Federal Police on Thursday indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others for allegedly plotting the "violent overthrow of the democratic state" after the country's current leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, defeated the right-wing leader in 2022.
"The final report has been sent to the Supreme Court with the request that 37 individuals be indicted for the crimes of the violent overthrow of the democratic state, coup d' etat, and criminal organization," police said in a statement about the conclusion of the two-year investigation.
As The New York Timesexplained: "Although the police in Brazil can make recommendations about criminal prosecutions, they do not have the power to formally charge Mr. Bolsonaro. The country's top federal prosecutor, Paulo Gonet, must now... decide whether to pursue charges against Mr. Bolsonaro and compel him to stand trial before the nation's Supreme Court."
The recommendations for charges came after the arrest of four members of the military and a federal police officer earlier this week over an alleged plot to kill Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin before they were sworn in, as well as Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Police said that "a detailed operational plan called 'Green and Yellow Dagger' was identified, which would be executed on December 15, 2022, aimed at the murder of the elected candidates for president and vice president."
According toCNN, "Police reportedly allege that Bolsonaro had 'full knowledge' of a plan to prevent Lula and his government from taking office after his election victory."
Summarizing a conversation with a columnist, Bolsonaro said on social media Thursday that "we have to see what is in this indictment by the Federal Police. I will wait for the lawyer." He also said that Moraes "does everything that the law does not say" and "I cannot expect anything from a team that uses creativity to denounce me."
Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including with two other pending cases: In March he was indicted for allegedly falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination data and in July he was indicted for crimes including embezzlement related to alleged misappropriation of diamond jewelry and other state property. Those indictments came after Brazil's highest election authority last year barred him from running for any public office for eight years over his lies about the 2022 contest.
In addition to Bolsonaro, the other three dozen people indicted on Thursday include "some of the most important members of his far-right administration," The Guardianreported. As the newspaper detailed:
They included Bolsonaro's former spy chief, the far-right Congressman Alexandre Ramagem; the former defense ministers, Gen. Walter Braga Netto and Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; the former minister of justice and public security, Anderson Torres; the former minister of institutional security, Gen. Augusto Heleno; the former navy commander Adm. Almir Garnier Santos; the president of Bolsonaro's political party, Valdemar Costa Neto; and Filipe Martins, one of Bolsonaro's top foreign policy advisers.
Also named is the right-wing blogger grandson of Gen. João Baptista Figueiredo, one of the military rulers who governed Brazil during its 1964-85 dictatorship.
The list contains one non-Brazilian name: that of Fernando Cerimedo, an Argentinian digital marketing guru who was in charge of communications for Argentina's president, Javier Milei, during that country's 2023 presidential campaign. Buenos Aires-based Cerimedo is close to Bolsonaro and his politician sons.
Given that Bolsonaro previously traveled to the United States when faced with legal trouble shortly after his loss two years ago, in this case, "precautionary measures have been issued, including a ban on international travel, which led to the confiscation of Bolsonaro's passport months ago," EL Paísnoted Thursday.
Bolsonaro was among the right-wing leaders around the world who celebrated U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's victory earlier this month. The Brazilian—who is sometimes called the "Trump of the Tropics" and like the American incited an insurrection after his last electoral loss—said that the impact of Trump's win "will resonate across the globe... empowering the rise of the right and conservative movements in countless other nations."
Trump's return to office is expected to at least stall if not end his various legal issues, including for trying to overturn his 2020 loss.
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'Unacceptable': Campaigners Decry Climate Finance Failures as COP29 Enters Final Hours
"By the end of the UN climate talks, we must see at least a trillion dollars in public finance on the table," said one campaigner.
Nov 21, 2024
As the clock winds down at the UN climate summit taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, green groups are sounding the alarm Thursday following the release of a draft climate finance deal that they say falls short of what's needed to support climate-vulnerable countries and adequately address the planetary crisis.
"The clock is ticking. COP29 is now down to the wire," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday, just a day before the two-week conference is set to conclude.
Finance has been a major focus of this year's summit. Under the 20125 Paris Agreement, countries are supposed to come up with a "new collective quantified goal"—or NCQG in COP jargon—that will govern how much money from rich countries will be transferred to developing countries in order to help the latter cut their emissions and adapt to climate change.
No equivalent climate finance arrangement has been agreed to before, though countries at the summit broadly agree that richer countries, who are responsible for much of historic CO2 emissions, should help poorer and more climate-vulnerable nations deal with natural disasters and their transition to green energy.
The draft text that dropped early Thursday, however, was received poorly.
Oxfam International's climate justice lead, Safa’ Al Jayoussi, said "COP29 must do more than simply repeat the same threadbare promises. Rich countries have spent decades now stalling and blocking genuine progress on climate finance. This has left the Global South suffering the most catastrophic consequences of a climate crisis they did not create. The draft text scandalously misses the crucial element of declaring a clear public commitment to a new climate finance goal."
Instead of specifying how much annually should be funneled towards developing countries via climate finance, the NCQG draft text displayed "X" in place of any actual figures or monetary commitments.
Oscar Soria, a director at the Common Initiative think tank, told the Guardian: "The negotiating placeholder 'X' for climate finance is a testament of the ineptitude from rich nations and emerging economies that are failing to find a workable solution for everyone."
"By the end of the UN climate talks, we must see at least a trillion dollars in public finance on the table," added Andreas Sieber, 350.org associate director of policy and campaigns. Economists told the summit attendees last week that developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by 2030 to deal with climate change.
A specific and shared concern from campaigners was the draft text's inclusion of carbon market schemes as a way "to scale up" climate finance. While the draft promotes "high-integrity voluntary carbon markets" and other "instruments that mobilize new sources of climate finance and private finance" as part of the equation, critics have long warned that these market-based approaches are nothing but false solutions designed to benefit corporate investors, wealthier nations, and the fossil fuel industry itself.
"Labelling carbon credits as climate finance—which they are unreservedly not—should be axed from the text or risk creating a dangerous escape route for polluters. The same goes for explicitly allowing investments in fossil fuel infrastructure. This is fundamentally incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement," said Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International's global public finance manager, in response to the draft text.
While Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allows for the international transfer of carbon credits, groups warned the changes in the COP29 draft would dramatically strengthen the foothold of such schemes.
"Shockingly, COP29 is set to agree to carbon markets that are even worse than the voluntary carbon markets," said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth International. "We know these markets have failed. They are riddled with fraud and they do not reduce emissions or provide finance. Communities everywhere and, in fact, the planet itself is on the line."
Without addressing these concerns, advocates of a meaningful deal at the conference say COP29 is headed for failure.
As 350.org's Sieber argued, paying the "historic debt that rich countries owe will enable all nations to take action on climate at home and meet the collective goal agreed last year at COP28—to triple renewable energy, and transition away from fossil fuels. Right now, we only see cowardice and a void in leadership, ignoring the undeniable science that we can't keep polluting our planet with dirty oil, gas and coal."
"The time to course correct is now—the European Union and other rich countries must stop playing poker with the planet and humankind's future at stake," Sieber added. "It's time to put their cards on the table and commit real, transformative funding—no more excuses, no more delays, it's time."
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