Conservatives on Facebook, Cori Bush, and the NRA.
surely things will get better…?
Good morning friends, family, comrades, and the comrade-curious. First, we’d like to issue a quick correction. On Wednesday, we falsely claimed that Ilhan Omar had won her primary. Her primary doesn’t happen until August 11th. Sorry, we just got so darn whisked up in the excitement of Rashida Tlaib crushing it and Cori Bush pulling off an upset. Let’s get to it.
Facebook has a serious problem with how it treats conservative media and users: while they’ve recently taken down pages filled with fake people and QAnon peddling groups, they’re up to some nefarious nonsense, too.
Cori Bush won in Missouri: you may remember Bush as being the original Justice Democrat. She got crushed pretty bad by a dynasty incumbent two years ago but this time around, that spark grew just enough to nab the win.
The New York General Attorney is suing the NRA: on top of that, she’s trying to shut those goons down for good.
We’re sending this out late because we’ve had a busy week. Very sorry. Extreme fuckups. Now let’s get to it.
FACEBOOK
Facebook Has a Serious Issue With Handling Conservatives
Facebook doesn’t know how to handle conservatives on its platform. Perhaps this is because no matter what, they whine about being censored on the platform—and any other platform that doesn’t explicitly cater to them, really.
Perhaps it’s also because the company’s policies are defined by their ghoul-of-a-leader, Mark Zuckerberg, who for whatever reason doesn’t believe in the same principles that other billionaires who own media empires do (we’re alluding to the fact that a private company has the right to control the content and user behavior on its platforms but Facebook dislikes doing this).
Regardless, there is a serious problem over at Facebook.
Recent Revelations
According to a BuzzFeed News report, Facebook recently fired an employee who was collecting evidence of right-wing content getting preferential treatment regarding misinformation.
The senior engineer compiled the evidence within Facebook’s internal communication system, Workplace. The company responded to the engineer’s actions by removing the post and restricting his access to the information he cited.
On Wednesday, that engineer was fired, according to posts uncovered by BuzzFeed news.
Concerns were also raised over the inclusion of far-right news outlet Breitbart in Facebook’s news tab, especially after they shared a video that promoted coronavirus misinformation. Zuckerberg retreated to their policy: that Breitbart would need to accrue two strikes for posting misinformation to be removed and that this was only the first strike.
However, some Facebook employees have noted that other misinformation strikes against Breitbart, as well as other far-right conservative pages, had been cleared internally, seemingly on behalf of the pages.
Down the Line...
Most people who don’t have worms in their brains would agree that there is a difference between censoring opinions and censoring misinformation, the ladder of which certainly seems like it should be noncontroversial.
However, conservative opinions are rarely justifiable without the use of misinformation. Hence the conundrum where the two are often conflated.
Concerns over Facebook being able to handle this problem are growing. Facebook did recently remove a troll farm “posing as African-American support for Donald Trump,” as well as hundreds of fake accounts that were linked to The Epoch Times. The platform also removed one of the largest QAnon groups. Lastly, it removed a post from Trump where he claimed that children are “almost immune” to the coronavirus.
Still, employees and outsiders are concerned about conservatives pushing the envelope. What if the president himself starts posting more information? What if he uses their platform to contest the results of the election?
These are problems that even Facebook employees are looking to Zuckerberg for answers for but according to BuzzFeed’s report, it seems that he is yet to have answers, stating that “this is where we’re in unprecedented territory with the president saying some of the things that he’s saying that I find quite troubling. We’re thinking through what policy may be appropriate here. This is obviously going to be a sensitive thing to work through.”
Bottom line: is Zuckerberg just afraid of the Trump administration or does he really buy this bullshit about Facebook not being the “arbiters of truth?” Whatever the reasons behind it are, it’s clear that he has let the problem get out of hand already and will have a difficult time reigning it back in.
CONGRESS
Cori Bush Pulled Off a Very Important Win in MO
Cori Bush won her primary earlier this week. She was the original Justice Democrat and, truthfully, she got smoked by 20 points. In 2020, she ran against the same candidate, in the same district, for the same position. This time, she won. How’d we get here?
A Major Win
Bush has her background as a registered nurse as well as a pastor. She also spent a lot of time organizing in Ferguson. During her campaign this year, she even ended up in the hospital with a COVID-19 diagnosis. That didn’t stop her from running an amazing campaign.
Since Bush has a similar working class background and lack of political experience, her huge loss compared to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ win over Crowley led a lot of people to one conclusion: that AOC was an outlier, that far-left candidates could only win in progressive strongholds like New York City, and that the policies prioritized by the Justice Democrats just weren’t popular in middle America.
Cori Bush was up against Lacy Clay, a 10-term incumbent whose father was a 16-term Congressman himself. That means that a member of the Clay family has held that seat since 1969. Clay’s family has roots in the Civil Rights Movement. And Clay’s campaign, unlike other Justice Democrat challengers, did not take her for granted—they launched a full-scale negative campaign that failed.
Bush did all of this with the backing of the Justice Democrats and the support of Bernie Sanders, which worked together to create a huge fundraising push for Bush. She also benefited from the name recognition of being featured in the Netflix documentary “Knock Down the House.”
Still, AOC didn’t endorse Bush this time around and neither did any other member of the Squad. Many prominent left-wing organizations failed to organize Bush. Even for many in the movement, it felt like this race was just out of reach.
Bottom line: This is evidence that initiatives like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All are popular, that Bernie Sanders and his influence can be transformative to the Democratic party, and that this is a fight worth having, not a flash in the pan.
The NRA
New York’s Attorney General is Trying to Take Down the NRA
The NRA is a terrible organization. Even if you’re a pro-gun leftist (and there are arguments for that kinda thing, if ya didn’t know), the NRA still sucks ass. That’s why the New York attorney general is trying to take them down.
Brick by Brick
First off, let’s defuse some of your excitement: this is a legal battle that will last years. We don’t know how it will turn out. The NRA has a lot of power. That said, any challenge to their existence is a good thing.
New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is arguing that the National Rifle Association has a long history of corruption. That corruption makes it impossible for the NRA to function as a nonprofit like it is meant to. She also sued four current or former NRA leaders, including Wayne LaPierre, John Frazier, Josh Powell, and Wilson Phillips. Check out this New York Times article if you want the rundown on what they’re being accused of.
The NRA struck back with their own suit, of course, claiming that this is politically motivated and a violation of First Amendment Rights.
In another suit, though, the attorney general of Washington D.C. also filed against the NRA and its charitable foundation, alleging that they “misused millions of dollars of the foundation’s funds.”
Letitia James has special jurisdiction over the NRA though, thanks to the fact that the organization was originally chartered as a nonprofit in New York. That was 148 years ago.
This is a civil suit but there may end up being a criminal referral as well if criminal activity is uncovered. That would result in the case being referred to the Manhattan district attorney.
Bottom line: it’s bonkers that the NRA is even considered a nonprofit. If they are forced to dissolve, that means they have to start from scratch in another state. We can only hope.
BREADCRUMBS
Where the News Gets “Fun!”
“Even Asymptomatic People Carry the Coronavirus in High Amounts.” According to a study in South Korea, roughly 30% of infected individuals never develop symptoms. More confirmation of what we feared to be true.
“Two Students Say They Were Suspended From Their Georgia High School For Posting Photos of Crowded Hallways.” Oops, we created a massive public health risk and now children are photographing it—looks like we gotta punish them!
“Larry Summers Rules Out Taking a Job in a Biden Administration.” Thank God, we have enough to worry about as is.
“How the DHS Can Still Arrest Journalists in Portland.” Oof, ah, we hate it. Make it stop.
“There’s Been a Major Increase in The Use of Force Against Immigrants at ICE Detention Centers During The Pandemic.” There are also numerous coronavirus outbreaks happening in ICE facilities.
“Informant on NYPD Payroll Drove Protester to Attack.” Of course NYPD is doing shit like this. Why wouldn’t they be?
END OF THE LINE...
That’s it for today.
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Have a good one,
The Bread Line
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