newyorker--2020-07-04--This Fourth of July, Consider Trump’s Lobster Fib

Today is the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of our declaration of independence from Britain , and we find ourselves living in a republic of mendacity .
The falsehoods never stop .
No occasion is too minor .
“ Pres .
Obama destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine .
Now it ’ s back , bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible .
Enjoy your ‘ lobstering ’ and fishing !
Make lots of money !
” So tweeted the President on June 24th .
As the Boston Globe and other news organizations have reported , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that President Obama needs to get credit for it—climate change , driving the lobsters north , was probably the reason—but , in 2016 , the last year of the Obama Administration , the Maine lobster catch was the biggest in history , a hundred and thirty-two million pounds .
Since then , it has fallen by thirty-two million pounds , largely because of the Trump Administration ’ s trade war with China , which caused certain American agricultural exports , including lobsters , to be hit with a thirty-five-per-cent tariff .
China is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , and Canadian lobster harvesters have stepped into the market .
Over all , the value of the fishing catch in Maine , all species included , has dropped from seven hundred and thirty-three million dollars in 2016 ( also a record ) to six hundred and seventy-three million in 2019 .
If lobstering is ( or may be ) “ back , ” it is because of a recent White House directive to extend funds from the CARES Act—the pandemic bailout—to the lobster industry , which had previously been left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Observers note that a Maine Senate race is under way .
The Republican standing for reëlection is Susan Collins .
Senator Collins has become the kind of senator the Republicans need .
She stages a mini-drama of conscience before every controversial vote , and then ends up voting , most of the time , with her party .
The Republicans want to keep her in office .
As always , the Administration is directing its attention and taxpayer-funded largesse to whatever pays politically .
How else would it operate ?
It has no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fishing is a niche industry .
About fifteen thousand people in Maine make their living harvesting lobsters .
And the lobster tweet is a relatively benign lie , more in the braggadocio category .
But why insist on lying ?
Why lie even when the truth— “ We looked strongly into extending the CARES Act to Maine ’ s beautiful lobstermen !
” —does the job perfectly well ?
Speculation about this began on January 21 , 2017 , and it has not abated .
One theory that has a certain elegance and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Most of the time , he has no idea what he is talking about , and so he does what he has done all his life : he says whatever makes him look best .
The kindest interpretation is that this is just good salesmanship .
You always hype the product , and , in this case , the product is him .
He is not exaggerating the truth—he is not even lying , technically—because he doesn ’ t know what the truth is .
He assumes that the biggest whopper is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clean up the mess .
And the thing is , there always is someone else .
It ’ s not hard to understand Trump .
It is hard to understand the people in his Administration who enable the blather and the misinformation , who spin-cycle it to bleach out the most offensive or dangerous implications , and who parrot it dutifully .
For the first two years of Trump ’ s Presidency , some of these people were known as “ the adults in the room.
” To an admittedly remote observer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to suppress their opinions in the hopes of becoming Presidential puppet masters .
They were dreaming .
All of them have departed with their reputations scarred .
No one will die because of Trump ’ s lobster tweet .
But the stuff he makes up about the coronavirus is killing people .
Those at risk are not limited to the small band who showed up in Tulsa .
They are people in nursing homes and veterans ’ hospitals ; people with diabetes and heart conditions ; people on Native American lands ; people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not show up for work in spite of the danger to their health ; people who may not think about Donald Trump from one end of the year to the next but who live in states whose governors , for fear of White House vilification , have adopted a policy of pandemic bravado , as though by putting on a big hat you can face down a pathogen .
Now those states are being ripped apart , and that is likely to restart the spread of the virus in states that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happens , the whole spring shutdown , with its economic pain unevenly distributed—as everything in the United States now is unevenly distributed—will have been wasted .
The United States has a higher coronavirus mortality rate than Brazil .
A quarter of the world ’ s COVID-19 deaths have already happened here , in a country that has 4.25 per cent of the world ’ s population .
And we are not nearly finished .
What is appalling is that this was predictable .
A man who is incapable of not making things up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not going to start suddenly caring about the science when he is confronted with a disease that he knows nothing about .
He ’ s going to do what he has always done .
When Trump said , on March 6th , that he did not want sick passengers on a cruise ship brought ashore because it would raise the number of cases in the U.S. , making him look bad , it was clear where this was headed .
Republican senators knew it ; Republican governors knew it ; Vice-President Mike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Services Alex Azar knew it .
But they let Trump dominate the Administration ’ s airtime on the pandemic and , when they finally talked him off the stage , they allowed him to put on a display of petulance that continues to suck up most of the coverage , and to undercut any governor who tried to shoulder a responsibility he has washed his hands of .
The federal government is not supposed to work this way .
Its officials are not supposed to punt because the head of state is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed to put aside political interests to attend to the public welfare .
It is not as though there has been much leadership on the Democratic side , either .
Congress gave the Administration a trillion dollars , with virtually no strings attached , to hand out as it saw fit , and it sent nearly $ 1.4 billion of it to dead people .
It is to the credit of the press that , even with silly tweets like the lobster fib , it holds Trump to account—not that this has the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crew that cleans up after him .
But the press can not set guidelines , or distribute face masks , or perform testing , or do contact tracing .
The public looks to government , Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration , to insure its “ Safety and Happiness.
” We can guess what he would make of the current one .

Today is the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of our declaration of independence from Britain, and we find ourselves living in a republic of mendacity. The falsehoods never stop. No occasion is too minor. “Pres. Obama destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine. Now it’s back, bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible. Enjoy your ‘lobstering’ and fishing! Make lots of money!” So tweeted the President on June 24th.
As the Boston Globe and other news organizations have reported, the tweet is a lobster fib. Not that President Obama needs to get credit for it—climate change, driving the lobsters north, was probably the reason—but, in 2016, the last year of the Obama Administration, the Maine lobster catch was the biggest in history, a hundred and thirty-two million pounds. Since then, it has fallen by thirty-two million pounds, largely because of the Trump Administration’s trade war with China, which caused certain American agricultural exports, including lobsters, to be hit with a thirty-five-per-cent tariff. China is not in a trade war with Canada, however, and Canadian lobster harvesters have stepped into the market. Over all, the value of the fishing catch in Maine, all species included, has dropped from seven hundred and thirty-three million dollars in 2016 (also a record) to six hundred and seventy-three million in 2019.
If lobstering is (or may be) “back,” it is because of a recent White House directive to extend funds from the CARES Act—the pandemic bailout—to the lobster industry, which had previously been left off the list of most-favored businesses. Observers note that a Maine Senate race is under way. The Republican standing for reëlection is Susan Collins. Senator Collins has become the kind of senator the Republicans need. She stages a mini-drama of conscience before every controversial vote, and then ends up voting, most of the time, with her party. The Republicans want to keep her in office. As always, the Administration is directing its attention and taxpayer-funded largesse to whatever pays politically. How else would it operate? It has no other principles to guide it.
Lobster fishing is a niche industry. About fifteen thousand people in Maine make their living harvesting lobsters. And the lobster tweet is a relatively benign lie, more in the braggadocio category. But why insist on lying? Why lie even when the truth—“We looked strongly into extending the CARES Act to Maine’s beautiful lobstermen!”—does the job perfectly well?
Speculation about this began on January 21, 2017, and it has not abated. One theory that has a certain elegance and simplicity is that Trump is a nitwit. Most of the time, he has no idea what he is talking about, and so he does what he has done all his life: he says whatever makes him look best. The kindest interpretation is that this is just good salesmanship. You always hype the product, and, in this case, the product is him. He is not exaggerating the truth—he is not even lying, technically—because he doesn’t know what the truth is. He assumes that the biggest whopper is the safest bet. Someone else can clean up the mess.
And the thing is, there always is someone else. It’s not hard to understand Trump. It is hard to understand the people in his Administration who enable the blather and the misinformation, who spin-cycle it to bleach out the most offensive or dangerous implications, and who parrot it dutifully. For the first two years of Trump’s Presidency, some of these people were known as “the adults in the room.” To an admittedly remote observer, those people looked indistinguishable from opportunists willing to suppress their opinions in the hopes of becoming Presidential puppet masters. They were dreaming. All of them have departed with their reputations scarred.
No one will die because of Trump’s lobster tweet. But the stuff he makes up about the coronavirus is killing people. Those at risk are not limited to the small band who showed up in Tulsa. They are people in nursing homes and veterans’ hospitals; people with diabetes and heart conditions; people on Native American lands; people who will lose their jobs if they do not show up for work in spite of the danger to their health; people who may not think about Donald Trump from one end of the year to the next but who live in states whose governors, for fear of White House vilification, have adopted a policy of pandemic bravado, as though by putting on a big hat you can face down a pathogen.
Now those states are being ripped apart, and that is likely to restart the spread of the virus in states that have successfully flattened their curves. If that happens, the whole spring shutdown, with its economic pain unevenly distributed—as everything in the United States now is unevenly distributed—will have been wasted. The United States has a higher coronavirus mortality rate than Brazil. A quarter of the world’s COVID-19 deaths have already happened here, in a country that has 4.25 per cent of the world’s population. And we are not nearly finished.
What is appalling is that this was predictable. A man who is incapable of not making things up about the crowd size at his Inauguration is not going to start suddenly caring about the science when he is confronted with a disease that he knows nothing about. He’s going to do what he has always done.
When Trump said, on March 6th, that he did not want sick passengers on a cruise ship brought ashore because it would raise the number of cases in the U.S., making him look bad, it was clear where this was headed. Republican senators knew it; Republican governors knew it; Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar knew it. But they let Trump dominate the Administration’s airtime on the pandemic and, when they finally talked him off the stage, they allowed him to put on a display of petulance that continues to suck up most of the coverage, and to undercut any governor who tried to shoulder a responsibility he has washed his hands of.
The federal government is not supposed to work this way. Its officials are not supposed to punt because the head of state is not up to the job. They are supposed to put aside political interests to attend to the public welfare. It is not as though there has been much leadership on the Democratic side, either. Congress gave the Administration a trillion dollars, with virtually no strings attached, to hand out as it saw fit, and it sent nearly $1.4 billion of it to dead people.
It is to the credit of the press that, even with silly tweets like the lobster fib, it holds Trump to account—not that this has the slightest effect on him or the sanitation crew that cleans up after him. But the press cannot set guidelines, or distribute face masks, or perform testing, or do contact tracing. The public looks to government, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, to insure its “Safety and Happiness.” We can guess what he would make of the current one.


newyorker--2020-07-03--Hasan Minhaj, Kenan Thompson, and Laura Marling Walk Into a Festival

The 2019 New Yorker Festival was the twentieth edition of the annual event—and it was particularly star-studded .
This program @ @ @ @ @ from that weekend : Kenan Thompson , the longest-running cast member on “ Saturday Night @ @ @ @ @ , the “ Daily Show ” veteran whose Netflix show , “ Patriot Act , @ @ @ @ @ and a Peabody Award ; and the British folk singer Laura Marling , who talks @ @ @ @ @ Los Angeles .
Hasan Minhaj on Being His Ancestors ’ Wildest Dreams The comedian discusses @ @ @ @ @ , and telling Ellen DeGeneres how to pronounce his name .
In seventeen years on @ @ @ @ @ has seen the cast diversify and adapt to “ these woke times.
” The British @ @ @ @ @ to a lot of Joni Mitchell growing up , and she went to California to @ @ @ @

Illustration by Golden Cosmos; Source Photograph by Rodin Eckenroth / FilmMagic / Getty
The 2019 New Yorker Festival was the twentieth edition of the annual event—and it was particularly star-studded. This program features three of the highlights from that weekend: Kenan Thompson, the longest-running cast member on “Saturday Night Live”; Hasan Minhaj, the “Daily Show” veteran whose Netflix show, “Patriot Act,” won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award; and the British folksinger Laura Marling, who talks about finding her voice in Los Angeles.
Hasan Minhaj on Being His Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams
The comedian discusses fatherhood, testifying before Congress, and telling Ellen DeGeneres how to pronounce his name.
Kenan Thompson, “S.N.L.” ’s Longest-Running Cast Member
In seventeen years on the program, the performer has seen the cast diversify and adapt to “these woke times.”
Laura Marling, a Briton in Los Angeles
The British folksinger Laura Marling listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell growing up, and she went to California to find herself musically.


newyorker--2020-07-05--Sunday Reading: The State of American Democracy

This year , the anniversary of American independence has arrived at a moment when more and more Americans are speaking out about injustice .
The protests across the country are of enormous significance .
They signal a real shift in thinking about racism , American history , and national institutions .
This week , we ’ re bringing you a selection of pieces about the state of our democracy .
In “ The Last Time Democracy Almost Died , ” Jill Lepore writes about the nineteen-thirties , when political leaders of all stripes raised concerns about the future of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Threat to Democracy ?
, ” Caleb Crain examines the link between our embrace of the free market and the ascendancy of authoritarianism .
In “ Stacey Abrams ’ s Fight for a Fair Vote , ” Jelani Cobb chronicles the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate ’ s battle against voter suppression and for electoral reform .
Finally , in “ Get Up and Go Vote , ” Roger Angell reflects on the excitement that he still feels , in his late nineties , when he goes to the polls .
We hope @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as we do on this holiday weekend .
Learning from the upheaval of the nineteen-thirties .
The idea that authoritarianism attracts workers harmed by the free market , which emerged when the Nazis were in power , has been making a comeback .
As the 2020 elections approach , Abrams is leading the battle against voter suppression .
At the age of ninety-eight , I ’ m not quite up to making phone calls or ringing doorbells .
But I can still vote .

Photograph by Brett Carlsen / Getty
This year, the anniversary of American independence has arrived at a moment when more and more Americans are speaking out about injustice. The protests across the country are of enormous significance. They signal a real shift in thinking about racism, American history, and national institutions. This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about the state of our democracy. In “The Last Time Democracy Almost Died,” Jill Lepore writes about the nineteen-thirties, when political leaders of all stripes raised concerns about the future of the American commonwealth. In “Is Capitalism a Threat to Democracy?,” Caleb Crain examines the link between our embrace of the free market and the ascendancy of authoritarianism. In “Stacey Abrams’s Fight for a Fair Vote,” Jelani Cobb chronicles the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate’s battle against voter suppression and for electoral reform. Finally, in “Get Up and Go Vote,” Roger Angell reflects on the excitement that he still feels, in his late nineties, when he goes to the polls. We hope that you find these pieces as enlightening as we do on this holiday weekend.
—David Remnick
Illustration by Joan Wong; photograph by Massimo Lama / Getty
Learning from the upheaval of the nineteen-thirties.
The idea that authoritarianism attracts workers harmed by the free market, which emerged when the Nazis were in power, has been making a comeback.
As the 2020 elections approach, Abrams is leading the battle against voter suppression.
Illustration by Jenny Kroik
At the age of ninety-eight, I’m not quite up to making phone calls or ringing doorbells. But I can still vote.


newyorker--2020-07-05--The Present Belongs to Crowds

The Present Belongs to Crowds

The novelist Don DeLillo , in “ Mao II , ” published in 1991 , proposes that “ the future belongs to crowds.
” The novel offers a series of strong images of crowds , joined by a light , suggestive plot , and animated by oracular commentary .
The images are from 1989 : Chinese pro-democracy protesters dispersed by troops in Tiananmen Square ; several million mourners streaming through the streets of Tehran to the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini ; a “ tent city ” emerging in Tompkins Square Park ; hundreds of English soccer fans penned against a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stadium , in Sheffield , looking “ like a fresco in an old dark church , a crowded twisted vision of a rush to death as only a master of the age could paint it.
” The future that belongs to crowds is our present .
In April , you could have thought that “ crowds are over ” —as the American people were dispersed from public areas by stay-at-home orders , physical distancing , and a fear of infection .
Crowds were not over , of course .
The year 2020 in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowds to rival those of 1989 : people waiting in mile-long lines at food banks ; U.S. Park Police using tear gas to dispel protesters in Lafayette Square ; more than ten thousand people gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum in support of black trans rights ; President Trump onstage at a less-than-crowded arena in Tulsa .
Urgent questions of our public life involve crowds : their nature , their power , their perils , their inevitability .
So do questions of what forms our society ought to take in the near future , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shot through with a fresh awareness of the injustice that follows when police treat citizens not as individuals but as members of a group—a crowd .
In many respects , American society is less crowded than it once was .
A century ago , parts of the Lower East Side had a population density four times as great as today .
Subway ridership is measured against a proverbial peak of 2.1 billion riders , in 1946 .
The sellout crowd for a playoff game at Yankee Stadium last October—49,277—was twelve thousand fans smaller @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Series game in the first Yankee Stadium in 1928 .
Our streets are capacious compared with those of Lagos and Calcutta .
But the crowds have not thinned as much as shifted , through public policy that has amounted to crowd control on a large scale .
Postwar development in New York and other cities expressly invited white people out to the suburbs , and confined blacks to public-housing projects , largely segregated public schools , and neighborhoods where police applied stop-and-frisk strategies not used elsewhere .
Highways , irrigation , and air-conditioning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West , enabling large numbers of people to live in formerly remote places .
The sprawl of cities as “ metropolitan areas ” wound up concentrating the population as well as distributing it .
The maps of COVID-19 hotspots in the United States today show a country of crowded places from sea to shining sea .
There are fifty-three U.S. metropolitan areas of a million people or more ; behind New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago are another fifteen cities of three million people or more , including Minneapolis-St. Paul ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; and Phoenix —each a site of conflict in recent weeks .
It was through crowds , in particular , that COVID-19 spread , whether at Mardi Gras in New Orleans or through everyday life in New York , where the population is nearly twice as dense as in the next densest city , San Francisco .
As stay-at-home orders took effect , it became clear how fully our public life is constructed around crowds .
College campuses bring people together in a relatively small physical space , for reasons so deeply wound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with students dispersed , schools have been forced to rethink not just their business models but their pedagogy , their notions of community , and their practices of inclusion and exclusion .
Live sporting events are so intertwined with the presence of ticket-buying spectators that professional sports now appear neither sustainable nor enjoyable without them .
Whereas the English Premier League added recorded crowd noise to broadcasts of soccer matches played without fans , Major League Baseball ’ s owners and players negotiated for three months , to a standoff , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ receipts from ticket sales , an essential part of their revenue ; America ’ s national pastime nearly collapsed .
So did air travel .
Operating passenger flights pre-pandemic involved attracting crowds of people who would pay for the convenience of travelling by plane from one place to another , at a cost reduced by their willingness to sit in very close proximity to a hundred or more strangers for a few hours .
As people stayed home , leery of the crowds inside the planes and loath to quarantine for two weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warned of financial collapse , because the cost structures that they have put in place depend on every aspect of their operation running at full capacity all the time .
Those structures no longer apply .
Air travel this week is down seventy-five per cent from this time in 2019 ; the Washington Post reports that “ a majority of people say they will not fly until at least two months after all COVID-19-related restrictions end.
” Even then , knee-to-knee seating in coach may be a thing of the past .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of crowds , which the pandemic put a halt to , was swiftly reclaimed as political power through the Black Lives Matter movement .
The protests of the past month have shown that , now as ever , the most immediate and dramatic way for people in a free society to register discontent and call for change is by massing in the streets .
Those people , most wearing masks , gathered in frank and perilous defiance of social-distancing guidelines .
( The protests do not seem to have resulted in a noticeable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowds were outside , and because the streets where they assembled were otherwise largely empty—or it may simply be too early to tell . )
The sheer size and civility of the protests created crowd images that stand in majestic contrast to the cell-phone video of George Floyd ’ s death .
That video captures four officers of the law slowly and indifferently killing a man—a man all alone—and doing so as if they were out of public view ; the images of the protests , seen by tens of millions of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and peaceably , as Homeland Security agents surveil them from helicopters .
The crowds are what made the moment feel transformative—at once new and a successor to the summer of 1968 , a moment when , in the historian James Miller ’ s formulation , a generation felt that “ democracy is in the streets.
” The protesters in Lafayette Square on June 1st had outsized significance , not just because they were outside the White House but also because the man inside it has staked his claim as a populist who derives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowds and speak for them as well as to them .
During the pandemic , Donald Trump , deprived of the rallies that stoke his ego and suggest that he has popular support , has withdrawn like a general in his labyrinth .
When the crowd massed outside the White House , he sought to oppose it with a hastily mustered palace guard .
On Twitter , he urged his supporters to rush to Lafayette Square in counter-demonstration .
That crowd didn ’ t materialize .
So he contrived to take his brand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a campaign rally , set for North Carolina and then moved to Oklahoma , where the participants would not be subject to physical distancing .
Again , the crowd didn ’ t materialize .
The six thousand people who did attend were just about the number who would have been there if the organizers had enforced distancing measures .
In any case , it was an indoor gathering of exactly the wrong size : large enough to risk the transmission of COVID-19 but not large enough to give the campaign the image of @ @ @ @ @ @ @

The novelist Don DeLillo, in “Mao II,” published in 1991, proposes that “the future belongs to crowds.” The novel offers a series of strong images of crowds, joined by a light, suggestive plot, and animated by oracular commentary. The images are from 1989: Chinese pro-democracy protesters dispersed by troops in Tiananmen Square; several million mourners streaming through the streets of Tehran to the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini; a “tent city” emerging in Tompkins Square Park; hundreds of English soccer fans penned against a chain-link fence during a match at Hillsborough Stadium, in Sheffield, looking “like a fresco in an old dark church, a crowded twisted vision of a rush to death as only a master of the age could paint it.”
The future that belongs to crowds is our present. In April, you could have thought that “crowds are over”—as the American people were dispersed from public areas by stay-at-home orders, physical distancing, and a fear of infection. Crowds were not over, of course. The year 2020 in America is now defined by images of crowds to rival those of 1989: people waiting in mile-long lines at food banks; U.S. Park Police using tear gas to dispel protesters in Lafayette Square; more than ten thousand people gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum in support of black trans rights; President Trump onstage at a less than crowded arena in Tulsa. Urgent questions of our public life involve crowds: their nature, their power, their perils, their inevitability. So do questions of what forms our society ought to take in the near future, a future overshadowed by a pandemic and shot through with a fresh awareness of the injustice that follows when police treat citizens not as individuals but as members of a group—a crowd.
In many respects, American society is less crowded than it once was. A century ago, parts of the Lower East Side had a population density four times as great as today. Subway ridership is measured against a peak of 2.1 billion riders, in 1946. The sellout crowd for a playoff game at Yankee Stadium last October—49,277—was twelve thousand fans smaller than the sellout crowd at a World Series game in the first Yankee Stadium in 1928. Our streets are capacious compared with those of Lagos and Calcutta. But the crowds have not thinned as much as shifted, through public policy that has amounted to crowd control on a large scale. Postwar development in New York and other cities expressly invited white people out to the suburbs, and confined blacks to public-housing projects, largely segregated public schools, and neighborhoods where police applied stop-and-frisk strategies not used elsewhere. Highways, irrigation, and air-conditioning hastened the settlement of the South and West, enabling large numbers of people to live in formerly remote places. The sprawl of cities as “metropolitan areas” wound up concentrating the population as well as distributing it. The maps of COVID-19 hotspots in the United States today show a country of crowded places from sea to shining sea. There are fifty-three U.S. metropolitan areas of a million people or more; behind New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are another fifteen cities of three million people or more, including Minneapolis-St. Paul; Atlanta; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; and Phoenix —each a site of conflict in recent weeks.
It was through crowds, in particular, that COVID-19 spread, whether at Mardi Gras in New Orleans or through everyday life in New York, where the population is nearly twice as dense as in the next densest city, San Francisco. As stay-at-home orders took effect, it became clear how fully our public life is constructed around crowds. College campuses bring people together in a relatively small physical space, for reasons so deeply wound into our notions of higher education that, with students dispersed, schools have been forced to rethink not just their business models but their pedagogy, their notions of community, and their practices of inclusion and exclusion. Live sporting events are so intertwined with the presence of ticket-buying spectators that professional sports now appear neither sustainable nor enjoyable without them. Whereas the English Premier League added recorded crowd noise to broadcasts of soccer matches played without fans, Major League Baseball’s owners and players negotiated for three months, to a standoff, because of the owners’ loss of gate receipts from ticket sales, an essential part of their revenue; America’s national pastime nearly collapsed.
So did air travel. Operating passenger flights pre-pandemic involved attracting crowds of people who would pay for the convenience of travelling by plane from one place to another, at a cost reduced by their willingness to sit in very close proximity to a hundred or more strangers for a few hours. As people stayed home, leery of the crowds inside the planes and loath to quarantine for two weeks once on the ground, the airlines warned of financial collapse, because the cost structures that they have put in place depend on every aspect of their operation running at full capacity all the time. Those structures no longer apply. Air travel this week is down seventy-five per cent from this time in 2019; the Washington Post reports that “a majority of people say they will not fly until at least two months after all COVID-19-related restrictions end.” Even then, knee-to-knee seating in coach may be a thing of the past.
With almost Marxian symmetry, the profit-making power of crowds, which the pandemic put a halt to, was swiftly reclaimed as political power through the Black Lives Matter movement. The protests of the past month have shown that, now as ever, the most immediate and dramatic way for people in a free society to register discontent and call for change is by massing in the streets. Those people, most wearing masks, gathered in frank and perilous defiance of social-distancing guidelines. (The protests do not seem to have resulted in a noticeable increase in cases, perhaps because the crowds were outside, and because the streets where they assembled were otherwise largely empty—or it may simply be too early to tell.)
The sheer size and civility of the protests created crowd images that stand in majestic contrast to the cell-phone video of George Floyd’s death. That video captures four officers of the law slowly and indifferently killing a man—a man all alone—and doing so as if they were out of public view; the images of the protests, seen by tens of millions of people, show tens of thousands assembled lawfully and peaceably, as Homeland Security agents surveil them from helicopters. The crowds are what made the moment feel transformative—at once new and a successor to the summer of 1968, a moment when, in the historian James Miller’s formulation, a generation felt that “democracy is in the streets.”
The protesters in Lafayette Square on June 1st had outsized significance, not just because they were outside the White House but also because the man inside it has staked his claim as a populist who derives his mandate from his ability to draw crowds and speak for them as well as to them. During the pandemic, Donald Trump, deprived of the rallies that stoke his ego and suggest that he has popular support, has withdrawn like a general in his labyrinth. When the crowd massed outside the White House, he sought to oppose it with a hastily mustered palace guard. On Twitter, he urged his supporters to rush to Lafayette Square in counter-demonstration. That crowd didn’t materialize. So he contrived to take his brand of populism to the populace, through a campaign rally, set for North Carolina and then moved to Oklahoma, where the participants would not be subject to physical distancing. Again, the crowd didn’t materialize. The six thousand people who did attend were just about the number who would have been there if the organizers had enforced distancing measures. In any case, it was an indoor gathering of exactly the wrong size: large enough to risk the transmission of COVID-19 but not large enough to give the campaign the image of a crowd that the President craved.


newyorker--2020-07-05--The Stunning Second Life of “Avatar: The Last Airbender”

A fifteen-year-old cartoon is an unlikely contender for most-watched show in America .
And yet when “ Avatar : The Last Airbender ” arrived on Netflix , in May , it rose through the ranks to become the platform ’ s No .
1 offering , and even now it remains a fixture in the Top Ten for the U.S .
The series first ran from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon , and swiftly made a name for itself as a politically resonant , emotionally sophisticated work—one with a sprawling but meticulously plotted mythos that destined the show for cult-classic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Game of Thrones ” flubbed its finale , fans and critics held up “ Avatar ” as a counterexample : a fantasy series that knew what it wanted to be from the beginning .
Like all such stories , “ Avatar ” ( created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino , and no relation to the James Cameron blockbuster ) demands some exposition .
In a world where nations are defined by their connection to one of the four elements—water , earth , fire , and air—maintaining the peace falls to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ achieve mastery of them all .
Just as the Fire Nation launches an attack , he vanishes .
The series begins a century later , when a twelve-year-old boy named Aang is discovered and revived by a pair of Water Tribe teen-agers—and the Fire Nation is well on its way to global conquest .
The first two episodes are largely what you ’ d expect : world-building punctuated by moments of whimsy .
In the third , Aang returns to the temple where he was born to find the aftermath of a genocide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both the Avatar and the last of the Air Nomads .
Where earlier shows might have hinted at such an atrocity for adult viewers ’ benefit , “ Avatar ” is overt , taking seriously its young audience ’ s capacity to confront the consequences of endless war .
Moral ambiguity abounds , and people from all nations see the conflict as , variously , an opportunity or a tragedy ; there are Earth Kingdom citizens who have become cynical or apathetic after generations of fighting , and those from the Fire Nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Aang , like the monks who raised him , is a pacifist at heart , but the series makes it clear that his is not the only way of bringing balance to the world .
On the eve of his confrontation with the Fire Lord , one of his past lives—a warrior named Kyoshi , who has killed would-be conquerors before—counsels that “ only justice will bring peace.
” While that larger conflict looms , the series is less interested in dramatic clashes between armies than in relationships and realities on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much of their time in villages ravaged by the war , and among the refugees displaced by it .
As they venture farther into the world , Konietzko and DiMartino marry the more traditional “ monster of the week ” format with longer-term story arcs and character development .
Early episodes are largely self-contained , but the heroes ’ relationships and emotional states don ’ t simply reset at the end of those twenty-two minutes .
The protagonists change the course of the war and are changed by it in turn , accruing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as they go .
They ’ re allowed to fail—sometimes catastrophically—and to atone in ways that take multiple seasons to come to fruition .
Zuko , the prince of the Fire Nation , is introduced as a storm cloud of teen-age angst and unresolved trauma , blinded by the need for his father ’ s approval and the Fire Nation ’ s distortion of its history .
Under the guidance of his uncle , who challenges his preconceptions , Zuko makes slow , painful progress toward redemption , and is eventually forced to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s exceptionalism .
As a child , he says , he had been taught that “ the war was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world.
” After travelling the globe in pursuit of the Avatar , he has seen enough to recognize the “ amazing lie ” for what it was : “ They don ’ t see our greatness .
They hate us—and we deserve it.
” When “ Avatar ” won a Peabody Award , in 2008 , the judges praised , among other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the consequences of warfare.
” Despite these themes , it never mistakes darkness for depth of meaning .
It ’ s often funny , and sometimes silly , tempering weighty material with humor befitting its twelve-year-old hero .
In 2020 , that balance allows it to function as both a comfort watch and a means of catharsis .
“ Avatar ” engages directly with the perils of encroaching authoritarianism , and the inaction , inadequacy , and abuses of the bureaucrats and military leaders tasked with fighting it .
It also offers a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The show is beloved by political commentators ranging from the Times ’ Jamelle Bouie to The Atlantic ’ s Adam Serwer , who pledged , following its arrival on Netflix , to “ just do tweets about Avatar until November.
” A subsequent exchange captured the series ’ quasi-escapist appeal : “ Tired : Tweeting about American politics / Wired : Tweeting about Ba Sing Se politics , ” Grace Segers , a reporter at CBS , wrote , referring to the Earth Kingdom capital , where a ruthless police force operates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Could be nice to cover a less oppressive gov ’ t , ” another user replied .
Since its première , in 2005 , “ Avatar ” has spawned graphic novels , video games , and a sequel series , “ Avatar : The Legend of Korra , ” which broke new ground with a same-gender romance between two central characters , Korra and Asami .
Last year , Netflix announced a new live-action adaptation .
( The less said about “ The Last Airbender , ” M. Night Shyamalan ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better . )
“ Avatar ” has also cast a long shadow in animation , where its influence can still be felt : writers and directors who made their names through the series have gone on to play key roles in “ Star Wars : The Clone Wars , ” “ Voltron : Legendary Defender , ” and “ The Dragon Prince.
” Perhaps the clearest successor comes not from a former writer but from an early fan .
Nine years ago , Noelle Stevenson was a college student posting fan art of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blog .
When Korra and Asami officially became a couple , in the series finale , Nickelodeon ruled that the two were allowed only to hold hands—but the hard-fought moment made bigger strides seem possible to those watching , Stevenson among them .
This year , as a showrunner in her own right , she succeeded in advocating for a more demonstrative queer relationship in “ She-Ra and the Princesses of Power , ” which now sits alongside “ Avatar ” on Netflix .
“ There was not anything like this on TV @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slow-burn lesbian love story at the heart of the series .
“ And then Korra starts happening , and Steven Universe starts happening and that wall starts getting chipped away.
” “ She-Ra , ” too , embraced subject matter once deemed unsuitable for its demographic , and has been rapturously received by children and adults alike as a result .
The fresh proof of concept is heartening—now that “ Avatar , ” like its protagonist , has returned after too many years away , it seems likely that the next generation of @ @ @ @ @ @

The Nickelodeon cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender”—now on Netflix, and more popular than ever—functions as both a comfort watch and a means of catharsis. Photograph from Nickelodeon Network / Everett
A fifteen-year-old cartoon is an unlikely contender for most-watched show in America. And yet when “Avatar: The Last Airbender” arrived on Netflix, in May, it rose through the ranks to become the platform’s No. 1 offering, and even now it remains a fixture in the Top Ten for the U.S. The series first ran from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon, and swiftly made a name for itself as a politically resonant, emotionally sophisticated work—one with a sprawling but meticulously plotted mythos that destined the show for cult-classic status. Last summer, after “Game of Thrones” flubbed its finale, fans and critics held up “Avatar” as a counterexample: a fantasy series that knew what it wanted to be from the beginning.
Like all such stories, “Avatar” (created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, and no relation to the James Cameron blockbuster) demands some exposition. In a world where nations are defined by their connection to one of the four elements—water, earth, fire, and air—maintaining the peace falls to the Avatar, the only person who can achieve mastery of them all. Just as the Fire Nation launches an attack, he vanishes. The series begins a century later, when a twelve-year-old boy named Aang is discovered and revived by a pair of Water Tribe teen-agers—and the Fire Nation is well on its way to global conquest. The first two episodes are largely what you’d expect: world-building punctuated by moments of whimsy. In the third, Aang returns to the temple where he was born to find the aftermath of a genocide. He is, he discovers, both the Avatar and the last of the Air Nomads.
Where earlier shows might have hinted at such an atrocity for adult viewers’ benefit, “Avatar” is overt, taking seriously its young audience’s capacity to confront the consequences of endless war. Moral ambiguity abounds, and people from all nations see the conflict as, variously, an opportunity or a tragedy; there are Earth Kingdom citizens who have become cynical or apathetic after generations of fighting, and those from the Fire Nation who are fully capable of doing good. Aang, like the monks who raised him, is a pacifist at heart, but the series makes it clear that his is not the only way of bringing balance to the world. On the eve of his confrontation with the Fire Lord, one of his past lives—a warrior named Kyoshi, who has killed would-be conquerors before—counsels that “only justice will bring peace.”
While that larger conflict looms, the series is less interested in dramatic clashes between armies than in relationships and realities on the ground. Aang and his companions spend much of their time in villages ravaged by the war, and among the refugees displaced by it. As they venture farther into the world, Konietzko and DiMartino marry the more traditional “monster of the week” format with longer-term story arcs and character development. Early episodes are largely self-contained, but the heroes’ relationships and emotional states don’t simply reset at the end of those twenty-two minutes. The protagonists change the course of the war and are changed by it in turn, accruing new abilities, beliefs, and anxieties as they go. They’re allowed to fail—sometimes catastrophically—and to atone in ways that take multiple seasons to come to fruition. Zuko, the prince of the Fire Nation, is introduced as a storm cloud of teen-age angst and unresolved trauma, blinded by the need for his father’s approval and the Fire Nation’s distortion of its history. Under the guidance of his uncle, who challenges his preconceptions, Zuko makes slow, painful progress toward redemption, and is eventually forced to reckon with the cost of his country’s exceptionalism. As a child, he says, he had been taught that “the war was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world.” After travelling the globe in pursuit of the Avatar, he has seen enough to recognize the “amazing lie” for what it was: “They don’t see our greatness. They hate us—and we deserve it.”
When “Avatar” won a Peabody Award, in 2008, the judges praised, among other qualities, its “healthy respect for the consequences of warfare.” Despite these themes, it never mistakes darkness for depth of meaning. It’s often funny, and sometimes silly, tempering weighty material with humor befitting its twelve-year-old hero. In 2020, that balance allows it to function as both a comfort watch and a means of catharsis. “Avatar” engages directly with the perils of encroaching authoritarianism, and the inaction, inadequacy, and abuses of the bureaucrats and military leaders tasked with fighting it. It also offers a universe in which such crises feel surmountable. The show is beloved by political commentators ranging from the Times’ Jamelle Bouie to The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer, who pledged, following its arrival on Netflix, to “just do tweets about Avatar until November.” A subsequent exchange captured the series’ quasi-escapist appeal: “Tired: Tweeting about American politics / Wired: Tweeting about Ba Sing Se politics,” Grace Segers, a reporter at CBS, wrote, referring to the Earth Kingdom capital, where a ruthless police force operates with impunity under an incompetent king. “Could be nice to cover a less oppressive gov’t,” another user replied.
Since its première, in 2005, “Avatar” has spawned graphic novels, video games, and a sequel series, “Avatar: The Legend of Korra,” which broke new ground with a same-gender romance between two central characters, Korra and Asami. Last year, Netflix announced a new live-action adaptation. (The less said about “The Last Airbender,” M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 attempt at the same, the better.) “Avatar” has also cast a long shadow in animation, where its influence can still be felt: writers and directors who made their names through the series have gone on to play key roles in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Voltron: Legendary Defender,” and “The Dragon Prince.”
Perhaps the clearest successor comes not from a former writer but from an early fan. Nine years ago, Noelle Stevenson was a college student posting fan art of characters like Zuko and Korra on her blog. When Korra and Asami officially became a couple, in the series finale, Nickelodeon ruled that the two were allowed only to hold hands—but the hard-fought moment made bigger strides seem possible to those watching, Stevenson among them. This year, as a showrunner in her own right, she succeeded in advocating for a more demonstrative queer relationship in “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power,” which now sits alongside “Avatar” on Netflix. “There was not anything like this on TV,” she said, of the slow-burn lesbian love story at the heart of the series. “And then Korra starts happening, and Steven Universe starts happening and that wall starts getting chipped away.”
“She-Ra,” too, embraced subject matter once deemed unsuitable for its demographic, and has been rapturously received by children and adults alike as a result. The fresh proof of concept is heartening—now that “Avatar,” like its protagonist, has returned after too many years away, it seems likely that the next generation of showrunners is once again watching.


newyorker--2020-07-06--Trump, Twitter, Facebook, and the Future of Online Speech

On March 7th , Dan Scavino , Donald Trump ’ s director of social media , posted a video to Twitter .
It depicted Joe Biden endorsing his opponent : “ We can only reëlect Donald Trump , ” Biden seemed to say .
The tweet went viral , and users , who noticed that the video had been selectively edited , reported it to Twitter ’ s moderators ; they , in turn , determined that Scavino ’ s tweet had violated the company ’ s new policy on “ synthetic and manipulated video , ” which had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoided taking a stance on incendiary and factually inaccurate communiqués from political figures , including the President .
This time , though , they footnoted the tweet with a warning label .
It ran alongside a small error symbol , rendered in the service ’ s signature blue .
A few days later , Twitter announced that its warning system would be expanded to cover misinformation about COVID-19 .
Around two weeks after that , as coronavirus deaths in the United States approached six figures , Trump went on Twitter to sound an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ erroneously , that they were “ substantially fraudulent ” and that their use would lead to a “ Rigged Election.
” Twitter , explaining that the tweets violated the “ suppression and intimidation ” section of its civic-integrity policy , appended fact-checking notes to them .
The notes urged readers to “ get the facts about mail-in ballots , ” and linked to a Twitter “ Events ” page on the topic , with the headline “ Trump Makes Unsubstantiated Claim That Mail-In Ballots Will Lead to Voter Fraud.
” A war had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump issued an “ Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship.
” Ostensibly , the order took aim at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a crucial snippet of legislation that grants Internet companies immunity from liability for the content posted by their users .
In reality , it was a pointed hit .
“ Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse , ” it read .
“ Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems never to have placed such a label on another politician ’ s tweet.
” Legal scholars were quick to explain that the executive order fundamentally misinterpreted Section 230 , and therefore had little legal basis ; in any case , changes to the law would need to go through Congress .
Many pointed out that , if it were implemented , the order would stifle speech rather than allow it to flourish : without Section 230 , many of the President ’ s tweets—such as those suggesting that the MSNBC host Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be removed for liability reasons .
To some , the document was so incoherent that it read like a highly specific form of trolling .
Daphne Keller , the director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford ’ s Cyber Policy Center , posted an annotated , color-coded copy of the order to Google Docs , with red highlights signifying “ atmospherics , ” orange ones indicating “ legally dubious ” arguments , and yellow ones identifying assertions about which “ reasonable minds can differ ” ; the document looked like it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In a blog post , Eric Goldman , a professor at Santa Clara University Law School , deemed the order “ largely performative and not substantive.
” Its real goals , he argued , were to scare Internet companies into deference to the Trump Administration , rally donor support for the President ’ s reëlection campaign , and distract from the government ’ s gross mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic .
Still , there ’ s a reason the order focussed on Section 230 .
The law is considered foundational to Silicon Valley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Created the Internet , ” a “ biography ” of the legislation , Jeff Kosseff , a professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S .
Naval Academy , writes that “ it is impossible to divorce the success of the U.S. technology sector from the significant benefits of Section 230.
” Meanwhile , despite being an exceptionally short piece of text , the law has been a source of debate and confusion for nearly twenty-five years .
Since the 2016 Presidential election , as awareness of Silicon Valley ’ s largely unregulated power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intensified scrutiny and attack from both major political parties .
“ All the people in power have fallen out of love with Section 230 , ” Goldman told me , in a phone call .
“ I think Section 230 is doomed.
” The law is a point of vulnerability for an industry that appears invulnerable .
If it changes , the Internet does , too .
The Communications Decency Act was passed in 1996 .
It is sometimes confused with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , passed in 1998 ; the D.M.C.A.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ digital platforms from lawsuits as long as they follow notice and takedown procedures for copyrighted work .
The C.D.A.
, which was devised at a moment of moral panic about the salacious dimensions of the early Web , has a different focus : content moderation .
Prior to the law ’ s passage , a Web site that moderated content could be interpreted as assuming editorial—and therefore legal—responsibility for it .
Section 230 , which affirms that “ no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another information content provider , ” prevents platforms from being sued over what their users post ; it was also meant to make it easier for those platforms to censor or moderate user-generated content .
When the legislation was passed , it suited a world in which Internet companies , being various and great in number , would create and enforce unique moderation policies .
It hardly anticipated our reality , in which online discourse unfolds largely on a handful of globally scaled platforms owned by monopolistic corporations based in Northern California .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ liable if units are listed for rent illegally ; Dropbox , similarly , is not liable if revenge porn is circulated using its service .
Section 230 does not preclude federal criminal prosecution , but authorities are reluctant to pursue such cases : if a user commits a federal crime by posting criminal content , such as child pornography , Section 230 shields the platform from liability as long as it was unaware that a crime was being committed .
( Although a platform that discovers such content is legally required to report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to search it out . )
If a Web site ’ s software amplifies illegal content , making it go viral , it is still immune .
In 2017 , Carrie Goldberg , a prominent attorney who specializes in sexual-privacy violations such as revenge porn , online impersonation , and digital abuse , challenged Section 230 in a case against the dating app Grindr .
Goldberg represented Matthew Herrick , a thirtysomething actor whose ex-boyfriend had used the app to impersonate him , arranging hookups with twelve hundred men and directing them to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Grindr invoked immunity under Section 230 , confining responsibility to Herrick ’ s ex-boyfriend .
( Internet companies and platforms remain liable for content they publish themselves : while the comments on articles on the New York Times ’ Web site fall under the protections of C.D.A .
230 , the articles themselves , though they are protected by the First Amendment , do not . )
There are compelling arguments against the blanket protections of Section 230 .
Many such arguments are put forward by attorneys and legal scholars who think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their content , the law has enabled them to do nothing and be accountable to no one .
Goldberg ’ s vision for reform is not to force companies to thoroughly vet every piece of user-generated content but to hold them accountable for the foreseeable human and computational actions that their software enables , including amplification , replication , and retention .
“ We ’ re talking about victims of nonconsensual pornography when the site has been notified about the content , ” her law firm explains , in an F.A.Q .
on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also apply to “ families who lost loved ones in the Myanmar genocide that Facebook propaganda enabled ” and “ politicians who lose elections because social media companies run ads spreading lies .
”

On March 7th, Dan Scavino, Donald Trump’s director of social media, posted a video to Twitter. It depicted Joe Biden endorsing his opponent: “We can only reëlect Donald Trump,” Biden seemed to say. The tweet went viral, and users, who noticed that the video had been selectively edited, reported it to Twitter’s moderators; they, in turn, determined that Scavino’s tweet had violated the company’s new policy on “synthetic and manipulated video,” which had been introduced in February. Twitter has long avoided taking a stance on incendiary and factually inaccurate communiqués from political figures, including the President. This time, though, they footnoted the tweet with a warning label. It ran alongside a small error symbol, rendered in the service’s signature blue.
On May 11th, Twitter announced that its warning system would be expanded to cover misinformation about COVID-19. Around two weeks after that, as coronavirus deaths in the United States approached six figures, Trump went on Twitter to sound an alarm about mail-in ballots, claiming, erroneously, that they were “substantially fraudulent” and that their use would lead to a “Rigged Election.” Twitter, explaining that the tweets violated the “suppression and intimidation” section of its civic-integrity policy, appended fact-checking notes to them. The notes urged readers to “get the facts about mail-in ballots,” and linked to a Twitter “Events” page on the topic, with the headline “Trump Makes Unsubstantiated Claim That Mail-In Ballots Will Lead to Voter Fraud.”
A war had been declared. Two days later, Trump issued an “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship.” Ostensibly, the order took aim at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a crucial snippet of legislation that grants Internet companies immunity from liability for the content posted by their users. In reality, it was a pointed hit. “Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse,” it read. “Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician’s tweet.”
Legal scholars were quick to explain that the executive order fundamentally misinterpreted Section 230, and therefore had little legal basis; in any case, changes to the law would need to go through Congress. Many pointed out that, if it were implemented, the order would stifle speech rather than allow it to flourish: without Section 230, many of the President’s tweets—such as those suggesting that the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough had murdered a staff member—would likely be removed for liability reasons. To some, the document was so incoherent that it read like a highly specific form of trolling. Daphne Keller, the director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, posted an annotated, color-coded copy of the order to Google Docs, with red highlights signifying “atmospherics,” orange ones indicating “legally dubious” arguments, and yellow ones identifying assertions about which “reasonable minds can differ”; the document looked like it had been soaked in fruit punch. In a blog post, Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School, deemed the order “largely performative and not substantive.” Its real goals, he argued, were to scare Internet companies into deference to the Trump Administration, rally donor support for the President’s reëlection campaign, and distract from the government’s gross mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Still, there’s a reason the order focussed on Section 230. The law is considered foundational to Silicon Valley. In “The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet,” a “biography” of the legislation, Jeff Kosseff, a professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy, writes that “it is impossible to divorce the success of the U.S. technology sector from the significant benefits of Section 230.” Meanwhile, despite being an exceptionally short piece of text, the law has been a source of debate and confusion for nearly twenty-five years. Since the 2016 Presidential election, as awareness of Silicon Valley’s largely unregulated power has grown, it has come under intensified scrutiny and attack from both major political parties. “All the people in power have fallen out of love with Section 230,” Goldman told me, in a phone call. “I think Section 230 is doomed.” The law is a point of vulnerability for an industry that appears invulnerable. If it changes, the Internet does, too.
The Communications Decency Act was passed in 1996. It is sometimes confused with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998; the D.M.C.A., which addresses intellectual property, protects digital platforms from lawsuits as long as they follow notice and takedown procedures for copyrighted work. The C.D.A., which was devised at a moment of moral panic about the salacious dimensions of the early Web, has a different focus: content moderation. Prior to the law’s passage, a Web site that moderated content could be interpreted as assuming editorial—and therefore legal—responsibility for it. Section 230, which affirms that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” prevents platforms from being sued over what their users post; it was also meant to make it easier for those platforms to censor or moderate user-generated content. When the legislation was passed, it suited a world in which Internet companies, being various and great in number, would create and enforce unique moderation policies. It hardly anticipated our reality, in which online discourse unfolds largely on a handful of globally scaled platforms owned by monopolistic corporations based in Northern California.
Under Section 230, Airbnb is not liable if units are listed for rent illegally; Dropbox, similarly, is not liable if revenge porn is circulated using its service. Section 230 does not preclude federal criminal prosecution, but authorities are reluctant to pursue such cases: if a user commits a federal crime by posting criminal content, such as child pornography, Section 230 shields the platform from liability as long as it was unaware that a crime was being committed. (Although a platform that discovers such content is legally required to report it, platforms aren’t required to search it out.) If a Web site’s software amplifies illegal content, making it go viral, it is still immune. In 2017, Carrie Goldberg, a prominent attorney who specializes in sexual-privacy violations such as revenge porn, online impersonation, and digital abuse, challenged Section 230 in a case against the dating app Grindr. Goldberg represented Matthew Herrick, a thirtysomething actor whose ex-boyfriend had used the app to impersonate him, arranging hookups with twelve hundred men and directing them to Herrick’s apartment and workplace; Grindr invoked immunity under Section 230, confining responsibility to Herrick’s ex-boyfriend. (Internet companies and platforms remain liable for content they publish themselves: while the comments on articles on the New York Times’ Web site fall under the protections of C.D.A. 230, the articles themselves, though they are protected by the First Amendment, do not.)
There are compelling arguments against the blanket protections of Section 230. Many such arguments are put forward by attorneys and legal scholars who think that, rather than freeing companies to moderate their content, the law has enabled them to do nothing and be accountable to no one. Goldberg’s vision for reform is not to force companies to thoroughly vet every piece of user-generated content but to hold them accountable for the foreseeable human and computational actions that their software enables, including amplification, replication, and retention. “We’re talking about victims of nonconsensual pornography when the site has been notified about the content,” her law firm explains, in an F.A.Q. on its Web site. This approach would also apply to “families who lost loved ones in the Myanmar genocide that Facebook propaganda enabled” and “politicians who lose elections because social media companies run ads spreading lies.”
Danielle Citron, a professor at the Boston University School of Law and a 2019 MacArthur Fellow, has argued that the immunity afforded by Section 230 is too broad. In a recent article for the Michigan Law Review, she writes that the law would apply even to platforms that have “urged users to engage in tortious and illegal activity” or designed their sites to enhance the reach of such activities. In 2017, Citron and Benjamin Wittes, a legal scholar and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, argued that a better version of the law would grant a platform immunity only if it had taken “reasonable steps to prevent or address unlawful uses of its services.” A reasonableness standard, they note, would allow for different companies to take different approaches, and for those approaches to evolve as technology changes.
It’s possible to keep Section 230 in place while carving out exceptions to it, but at the cost of significant legal complexity. In 2018, Congress passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), a bill intended to curtail sex trafficking. Under FOSTA, Internet platforms no longer receive immunity for civil and criminal charges of sex trafficking, and posts that might “promote and facilitate prostitution” no longer enjoy a liability shield. Kosseff, testifying before a House subcommittee, acknowledged the gravity and urgency of the sex-trafficking issue but cautioned that there were strong arguments against the bill. Rather than allowing states to get around Section 230’s immunity shield—a move that could force platforms to comply with many different state laws concerning sex trafficking and prostitution—Kosseff suggested that Congress enhance the federal criminal laws on sex trafficking, to which platforms are already subject. Two years in, it’s not clear that FOSTA has had any material effect on sex trafficking; meanwhile, sex workers and advocates say that, by pushing them off of mainstream platforms, the legislation has made their work markedly more dangerous. After the law was passed, Craigslist removed its personals section. “Any tool or service can be misused,” a banner on the site read. “We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services.”
There is a strong case for keeping Section 230’s protections as they are. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-civil-liberties nonprofit, frames Section 230 as “one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet.” Kosseff, with some reservations, comes to a similar conclusion. “Section 230 has become so intertwined with our fundamental conceptions of the Internet that any wholesale reductions” to the immunity it offers “could irreparably destroy the free speech that has shaped our society in the twenty-first century,” he writes. He compares Section 230 to the foundation of a house: the modern Internet “isn’t the nicest house on the block, but it’s the house where we all live,” and it’s too late to rebuild it from the ground up. Some legal scholars argue that repealing or altering the law could create an even smaller landscape of Internet companies. Without Section 230, only platforms with the resources for constant litigation would survive; even there, user-generated content would be heavily restricted in service of diminished liability. Social-media startups might fade away, along with niche political sites, birding message boards, classifieds, restaurant reviews, support-group forums, and comments sections. In their place would be a desiccated, sanitized, corporate Internet—less like an electronic frontier than a well-patrolled office park.
The house built atop Section 230 is distinctive. It’s furnished with terms-of-service agreements, community-standards documents, and content guidelines—the artifacts through which platforms express their rules about speech. The rules vary from company to company, often developing on the tailwinds of technology and in the shadow of corporate culture. Twitter began as a service for trading errant thoughts and inanities within small communities—“Bird chirps sound meaningless to us, but meaning is applied by other birds,” Jack Dorsey, its C.E.O., once told the Los Angeles Times—and so, initially, its terms of service were sparse. The document, which was modelled off Flickr’s terms, contained little guidance on content standards, save for one clause warning against abuse and another, under “General Conditions,” stating that Twitter was entitled to remove, at its discretion, anything it deemed “unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable.”
In 2009, Twitter’s terms changed slightly—“What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly,” a Clippy-esque annotation warned—and expanded to include a secondary document, the Twitter Rules. These rules, in turn, contained a new section on spam and abuse. At that point, apart from a clause addressing “violence and threats,” “abuse” referred mainly to misuse of Twitter: username sales, bulk creation of new accounts, automated replies, and the like. In her history of the Twitter Rules, the writer Sarah Jeong identifies the summer of 2013 as an inflection point: following several high-profile instances of abuse on the platform—including a harassment campaign against the British politician Stella Creasy—Twitter introduced a “report abuse” button and added language to the rules addressing targeted harassment. That November, the company went public. “Changes in the Rules over time reflect the pragmatic reality of running a business,” Jeong concludes. “Twitter talked some big talk” about free speech, she writes, but it ended up “tweaking and changing the Rules around speech whenever something threatened its bottom line.”


newyorker--2020-07-06--How to Confront a Racist National History

In her 2019 book , “ Learning from the Germans : Race and the Memory of Evil , ” the philosopher Susan Neiman examines the different ways in which Germany and the United States have confronted their past sins .
Neiman , who grew up in the American South and now lives in Potsdam , describes how Germany has reckoned with the Nazi era , through memorials , official acts of remembrance , and various forms of reparations .
Indeed , just as the Nazi period has become the ultimate example of unadulterated cruelty , postwar Germany has become the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fully considered its past .
Could something similar be possible in the United States ?
As Neiman ’ s book seeks to answer this question , it also serves as a conscious attempt to “ safeguard ” Germany ’ s confrontation with history , at a time when the far right is on the rise there , as it is in many countries .
I recently spoke by phone with Neiman , amid renewed discussions in the U.S.—sparked in part by the killing of George Floyd—about how to remember slavery and segregation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have any place in modern-day America .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed why it took the Germans longer than many people think to come to grips with Nazism , the different ways East and West Germany approached the legacy of the Third Reich , and what the German experience with reparations can teach the United States .
Your book is generally admiring of Germany ’ s efforts , but you present the country as taking several decades to get where it did .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ The pressure came in West Germany from civil society .
In East Germany , it came from the leadership , who were Communists , and who recognized that the Communists had been the first group that the Nazis attacked .
You had a top-down process on one side of Germany , and a bottom-up process in the other side .
I don ’ t idealize the process that the Germans went through in facing up to their criminal past .
It was long , it was reluctant , and they faced an enormous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Germany have come to think the Nazi times were so awful that , the minute the war was over , the German nation got down on its knees and begged for atonement .
And that ’ s just not the case .
In fact , the few people who did get down on their knees , like Willy Brandt , in 1970 , were vilified by the majority of their compatriots .
You are referring to the West German Chancellor who fell to his knees as a gesture of atonement , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is a very famous picture that went around the world , and I think that for most non-Germans it is the iconic picture of postwar Germany .
But that ’ s not reliable .
Think about Brandt himself , who , as a Social Democrat , went into exile as soon as the Nazis took power .
So , personally , he had nothing to atone for .
But he still felt that , as the leader of a nation , he ought to make a gesture .
What we don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t know , is that the majority of the country thought it was wrong for him to get on his knees and atone , and particularly to be submissive before Slavic people .
So the change was from seeing themselves as the war ’ s worst victims—and I ’ ve seen mouths drop open when I tell this to an American audience , but they really did see themselves as the war ’ s worst victims .
It ’ s not something that Germans tend to talk about .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or their Nazi teachers , but they won ’ t say that their parents not only went along with Nazis but thought of themselves as the worst victims of the war .
And I realized it was the same trope that you hear among supporters of the Lost Cause .
“ Our cities were burned , our men were wounded or put in prisoner-of-war camps .
Our women were violated , our children were hungry , and , on top of that , the damn Yankees blamed us for the war.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would hear in West Germany .
I think it is very natural for everyone to want to see their ancestors and their nation as heroic .
And if you can ’ t do heroic , then the move is to see yourself and your nation as a victim .
But the move from seeing oneself as a nation of victims to a nation of perpetrators is one that the Germans finally and with great difficulty made .
And that ’ s a historical precedent .
I suppose another thing that complicates the story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in the sense that their cities were burned , civilians were killed , a lot of German women were raped by Russian soldiers , there were huge population expulsions of German-speaking peoples from other European countries— Can I just interrupt you ?
We always hear about the Red Army rapes .
All the armies raped civilian women .
If you go down to the Deep South , the sense of victimization is still very strong .
And it ’ s not entirely unjustified .
I think the North has always wanted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our problems .
In 2018 , I was driving on the Turnpike and trying to keep myself awake by singing along to the radio , and a song came on .
It was Joan Baez singing “ The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down , ” and I suddenly realized I can not sing along to that song anymore .
It would be like singing a beautiful melody to the night they drove the Wehrmacht out .
And Joan Baez , she not only sang at the March on Washington , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were being killed .
So her civil-rights creds are as good as they come , and yet she could nevertheless record this huge hit that is an elegy for the Lost Cause .
So I think it ’ s really important that we see that as an American problem .
The South magnifies it , but it ’ s an American ignorance of our history .
You talked about it being a bottom-up process in West Germany , and I think the way that ’ s normally talked about is that it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ generation started putting pressure on their parents to tell them what happened and why .
Generational change definitely played a role .
But it started much earlier .
It was not a huge movement .
There were clergypeople who were quite involved in setting up organizations that sent young people to work in kibbutzim , or other places where help for victims of the Nazis was needed .
I think one really important thing that happened was the beginning of the publication of memoirs of survivors .
That presented a picture , particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t available .
In East Germany , by the way , there were over a thousand books and a thousand films made about the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes .
I think art has an enormous function here , as it should , in simply helping us to see things from another perspective .
And I think it is playing a big role in the renewed civil-rights movement in America .
I think that the work of our greatest writers , like Toni Morrison , but also many , many others , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to be an American , and what black Americans have been through .

In her 2019 book, “Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil,” the philosopher Susan Neiman examines the different ways in which Germany and the United States have confronted their past sins. Neiman, who grew up in the American South and now lives in Berlin, describes how Germany has reckoned with the Nazi era, through memorials, official acts of remembrance, and various forms of reparations. Indeed, just as the Nazi period has become the ultimate example of unadulterated cruelty, postwar Germany has become the paradigmatic example of a country that has fully considered its past. Could something similar be possible in the United States? As Neiman’s book seeks to answer this question, it also serves as a conscious attempt to “safeguard” Germany’s confrontation with history, at a time when the far right is on the rise there, as it is in many countries.
I recently spoke by phone with Neiman, amid renewed discussions in the U.S.—sparked in part by the killing of George Floyd—about how to remember slavery and segregation, and increasing controversy over whether Confederate memorials have any place in modern-day America. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why it took the Germans longer than many people think to come to grips with Nazism, the different ways East and West Germany approached the legacy of the Third Reich, and what the German experience with reparations can teach the United States.
Your book is generally admiring of Germany’s efforts, but you present the country as taking several decades to get where it did. What changed?
Time and pressure. The pressure came in West Germany from civil society. In East Germany, it came from the leadership, who were Communists, and who recognized that the Communists had been the first group that the Nazis attacked. You had a top-down process on one side of Germany, and a bottom-up process in the other side.
I don’t idealize the process that the Germans went through in facing up to their criminal past. It was long, it was reluctant, and they faced an enormous amount of backlash. Most people outside of Germany have come to think the Nazi times were so awful that, the minute the war was over, the German nation got down on its knees and begged for atonement. And that’s just not the case. In fact, the few people who did get down on their knees, like Willy Brandt, in 1970, were vilified by the majority of their compatriots.
You are referring to the West German Chancellor who fell to his knees as a gesture of atonement, in Warsaw, in 1970.
Precisely. There is a very famous picture that went around the world, and I think that for most non-Germans it is the iconic picture of postwar Germany. But that’s not reliable. Think about Brandt himself, who, as a Social Democrat, went into exile as soon as the Nazis took power. So, personally, he had nothing to atone for. But he still felt that, as the leader of a nation, he ought to make a gesture. What we don’t know, or what most people don’t know, is that the majority of the country thought it was wrong for him to get on his knees and atone, and particularly to be submissive before Slavic people.
So the change was from seeing themselves as the war’s worst victims—and I’ve seen mouths drop open when I tell this to an American audience, but they really did see themselves as the war’s worst victims. It’s not something that Germans tend to talk about. They’ll tell you about their Nazi parents, or their Nazi teachers, but they won’t say that their parents not only went along with Nazis but thought of themselves as the worst victims of the war. And I realized it was the same trope that you hear among supporters of the Lost Cause. “Our cities were burned, our men were wounded or put in prisoner-of-war camps. Our women were violated, our children were hungry, and, on top of that, the damn Yankees blamed us for the war.” These are exactly the sentiments that you would hear in West Germany.
I think it is very natural for everyone to want to see their ancestors and their nation as heroic. And if you can’t do heroic, then the move is to see yourself and your nation as a victim. But the move from seeing oneself as a nation of victims to a nation of perpetrators is one that the Germans finally and with great difficulty made. And that’s a historical precedent.
I suppose another thing that complicates the story is that the Germans did become victims, in the sense that their cities were burned, civilians were killed, a lot of German women were raped by Russian soldiers, there were huge population expulsions of German-speaking peoples from other European countries—
Can I just interrupt you? We always hear about the Red Army rapes. All the armies raped civilian women. If you go down to the Deep South, the sense of victimization is still very strong. And it’s not entirely unjustified. I think the North has always wanted to look at the South as the locus of our problems.
In 2018, I was driving on the Turnpike and trying to keep myself awake by singing along to the radio, and a song came on. It was Joan Baez singing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and I suddenly realized I cannot sing along to that song anymore. It would be like singing a beautiful melody to the night they drove the Wehrmacht out. And Joan Baez, she not only sang at the March on Washington, she sang in Selma, when white people were being killed. So her civil-rights creds are as good as they come, and yet she could nevertheless record this huge hit that is an elegy for the Lost Cause. So I think it’s really important that we see that as an American problem. The South magnifies it, but it’s an American ignorance of our history.
You talked about it being a bottom-up process in West Germany, and I think the way that’s normally talked about is that it was generational. That kids in the 1968 generation started putting pressure on their parents to tell them what happened and why.
Generational change definitely played a role. But it started much earlier. It was not a huge movement. There were clergypeople who were quite involved in setting up organizations that sent young people to work in kibbutzim, or other places where help for victims of the Nazis was needed. I think one really important thing that happened was the beginning of the publication of memoirs of survivors. That presented a picture, particularly in West Germany, that wasn’t available. In East Germany, by the way, there were over a thousand books and a thousand films made about the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. I think art has an enormous function here, as it should, in simply helping us to see things from another perspective. And I think it is playing a big role in the renewed civil-rights movement in America. I think that the work of our greatest writers, like Toni Morrison, but also many, many others, has really changed our view of what it is to be an American, and what black Americans have been through.
You also had people demanding to excavate the rotting concentration camps, and turn them into memorials—or the torture chambers of the Gestapo, which were unearthed by a group of civil-society activists in Berlin, who are now funded by the state, but at the time they weren’t. The state was not too happy about any of this.
I think travel also played a role: the fact that, within Europe, people began to realize that there are very different versions of history that they weren’t talking about. For a generation of Germans who were born either during or just after the war, history basically stopped in 1933. You just didn’t learn about it in West Germany. But it became important to develop curricula that actually show both the rise of the Nazis and what they did to their victims. Again, it’s not complete; it’s not perfect. But it was a combination of forces, which were all very important.