theintercept--2020-10-15--Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line Far More Dangerous Than What They Censor

The two Silicon Valley giants saw that hostile climate and reacted .
Just two hours after the story was online , Facebook intervened .
The company dispatched a life-long Democratic Party operative who now works for Facebook — Andy Stone , previously a communications operative for Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee , among other DC Democratic jobs — to announce that Facebook was “ reducing [ the article ’ s ] distribution on our platform ” : in other words , tinkering with its own algorithms to suppress the ability of users to discuss or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic Party official did not try to hide his contempt for the article , beginning his censorship announcement by snidely noting : “ I will intentionally not link to the New York Post.
” ( That Haberman is a crypto-Trump supporter is preposterous for so many reasons , including the fact that she is responsible for countless front-page Times stories that reflect negatively on the president ; moreover , the 2016 Clinton campaign considered Haberman one of their most favorable reporters ) .
But the Post , for all its longevity , power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entities far more powerful than it : Facebook and Twitter .
Almost immediately upon publication , pro-Biden journalists created a climate of extreme hostility and suppression toward the Post story , making clear that any journalist even mentioning it would be roundly attacked .
For the crime of simply noting the story on Twitter ( while pointing out its flaws ) , New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman was instantly vilified to the point where her name , along with the phrase “ MAGA Haberman , ” were trending on Twitter .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through on any of Hunter ’ s promises to Burisma , there is no reason , at least thus far , to doubt that the emails are genuine .
And if they are genuine , they at least add to what is undeniably a relevant and newsworthy story involving influence-peddling relating to Hunter Biden ’ s work in Ukraine and his trading on the name and power of his father , now the front-runner in the 2020 presidential election .
The Post ’ s explanation of how these documents were obtained is bizarre @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden indefinitely left his laptop containing the emails at a repair store , and the store ’ s owner , alarmed by the corruption they revealed , gave the materials from the hard drive to the FBI and then to Rudy Giuliani .
Along with emails relating to Burisma , the New York Post also gratuitously published several photographs of Hunter , who has spoken openly and commendably of his past struggles with substance abuse , in what appeared to various states of drug use .
There was no conceivable public interest in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to .
The Post ’ s hyping of the story as some cataclysmic bombshell was overblown .
While these emails , if authenticated , provide some new details and corroboration , the broad outlines of this story have long been known : Hunter was paid a very large monthly sum by Burisma at the same time that his father was quite active in using the force of the U.S. Government to influence Ukraine ’ s internal affairs .
On Wednesday morning , the paper published on its cover what it heralded as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gun ” evidence , in its words , in the form of emails purportedly showing that Joe Biden ’ s son , Hunter , traded on his father ’ s position by securing favors from the then-Vice President to benefit the Ukranian energy company Burisma , which paid the supremely unqualified Hunter $ 50,000 each month to sit on its Board .
While the Biden campaign denies that any such meetings or favors ever occurred , neither the campaign nor Hunter , at least as of now , has denied the authenticity of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is one of the country ’ s oldest and largest newspapers .
Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton , only three U.S. newspapers are more widely circulated .
Ever since it was purchased in 1976 by media mogul Rupert Murdoch , it has been known — like most Murdoch-owned papers — for right-wing tabloid sensationalism , albeit one that has some real reporters and editors and is capable of reliable journalism .
While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post , I want be clear that this story is eligible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third-party fact checking partners .
In the meantime , we are reducing its distribution on our platform .
Early in the day , users who attempted to link to the New York Post story either publicly or privately received a cryptic message rejecting the attempt as an “ error.
” Later in the afternoon , Twitter changed the message , advising users that they could not post that link because the company judged its contents to be “ potentially harmful.
” Twitter ’ s suppression efforts went far beyond Facebook ’ s .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to share the Post article — not just on their public timeline but even using the platform ’ s private Direct Messaging feature .
Wow .
twitter going even further than FB and is no longer letting ppl tweet the NYPost story .
This is what pops up if you try .
https : //t.co/YVlOTeF1iX pic.twitter.com/66kzYdwq21 Even more astonishing still , Twitter locked the account of the New York Post , banning the paper from posting any content all day and , evidently , into Thursday morning .
The last tweet from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
ET on Wednesday .
And then , on Thursday morning , the Post published a follow up article using the same archive of materials , this one purporting to detail efforts by the Vice President ’ s son to pursue lucrative deals with a Chinese energy company by using his father ’ s name .
Twitter is now also banning the sharing or posting of links to that article as well .
In sum , the two Silicon Valley giants , with little explanation , united to prevent the sharing and dissemination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Times reporter Matt Pearce put it , “ Facebook limiting distribution is a bit like if a company that owned newspaper delivery trucks decided not to drive because it didn ’ t like a story .
Does a truck company edit the newspaper ?
It does now , apparently.
” That the First Amendment right of free speech is inapplicable to these questions goes without saying .
That constitutional guarantee restricts the actions of governments , not private corporations such as Facebook and Twitter .
But glibly pointing this out does not come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actions by gigantic corporations are constitutional does not mean that they are benign .
State censorship is not the only kind of censorship .
Private-sector repression of speech and thought , particularly in the internet era , can be as dangerous and consequential .
Imagine , for instance , if these two Silicon Valley giants united with Google to declare : henceforth we will ban all content that is critical of President Trump and/or the Republican Party , but will actively promote criticisms of Joe Biden and the Democrats .
Would anyone encounter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constitute dangerous corporate censorship ?
Would Democrats respond to such a policy by simply shrugging it off on the radical libertarian ground that private corporations have the right to do whatever they want ?
To ask that question is to answer it .
To begin with , Twitter and particularly Facebook are no ordinary companies .
Facebook , as the owner not just of its massive social media platform but also other key communication services it has gobbled up such as Instagram and WhatsApp , is one of the most powerful companies ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powerful .
In June , the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust , Commercial , and Administrative Law launched an investigation into the consolidated power of Facebook and three other companies — Google , Amazon and Apple — and just last week issued a sweeping report which , as Ars Technica explained , found : In his New York Times op-ed last October , the left-wing expert on monopoly power Matt Stoller described Facebook and Google as “ global monopolies sitting astride public discourse , ” and recounted how bipartisan policy and legal changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bestowed the two tech giants with “ a radical centralization of power over the flow of information.
” And he warns that this unprecedented consolidation of control over our discourse is close to triggering “ the collapse of journalism and democracy.
” It has been astonishing to watch Democrats over the last twenty-four hours justify this censorship on the grounds that private corporations are entitled to do whatever they want .
Not even radical free-market libertarians espouse such a pro-corporate view .
Even the most ardent capitalist recognizes that companies that wield monopoly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ act in the public interest , and are answerable to the public regarding whether they are doing so .
That is why in both the EU and increasingly the U.S. , there are calls from across the political spectrum to either break up Facebook on antitrust and monopoly grounds or regulate it as a public utility , the way electric and water companies and AT & T have been .
Almost nobody in the democratic world believes that Facebook is just some ordinary company that should be permitted to exercise unfettered power and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indeed , Facebook ’ s monumental political and economic power — greater than most if not all the governments of nation-states — is the major impediment to such reforms .
Beyond that , both Facebook and Twitter receive substantial , unique legal benefits from federal law , further negating the claim that they are free to do whatever they want as private companies .
Just as is true of Major League Baseball — which is subject to regulation by Congress as a result of the antitrust exemption they enjoy under the law — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ valuable and particularized legal benefit in the form of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act , which shields them from any liability for content published on their platforms , including defamatory material or other legally proscribed communications .
No company can claim such massive , unique legal exemptions from the federal law and then simultaneously claim they owe no duties to the public interest and are not answerable to anyone .
To advocate that is a form of authoritarian corporatism : simultaneously allowing tech giants to claim legally conferred privileges and exemptions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constraints of any kind .
Then there is the practical impact of Twitter and Facebook uniting to block content published by a major newspaper .
It is true in theory that one can still read the suppressed article by visiting the New York Post website directly , but the stranglehold that these companies exert over our discourse is so dominant that their censorship amounts to effective suppression of the reporting .
In 2018 , Pew Research found that “ about two-thirds of U.S. adults ( 68 % ) get news on social media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The combination of Facebook , Google and Twitter controls the information received by huge numbers of Americans , Pew found .
“ Facebook is still far and away the site Americans most commonly use for news .
About four-in-ten Americans ( 43 % ) get news on Facebook .
The next most commonly used site for news is YouTube [ owned by Google ] , with 21 % getting news there , followed by Twitter at 12 % .
” While Twitter still falls short of Facebook in terms of number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Twitter remains the leading social network among journalists at 83 % .
” Censoring a story from Twitter thus has disproportionate impact by hiding it from the people who determine and shape the news .
posed by the censorship actions of yesterday should be self-evident .
Just over two weeks before a presidential election , Silicon Valley giants — whose industry leaders and workforce overwhelmingly favor the Democratic candidate — took extraordinary steps to block millions , perhaps tens of millions , of American voters from being exposed to what purports to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country ’ s oldest and largest newspapers .
As the New York Times put it in an article in March about the political preferences of tech leaders : “ Silicon Valley has long leaned blue.
” Large numbers of tech executives , including Facebook ’ s second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg , were also vocally supportive of Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
At the very least , the perception , if not the reality , has been created that these tech giants are using their unprecedented power over political and election-related information to prevent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential candidate they favor .
Whatever that is , it is not democratic or something to cheer .
The rationale offered by both Twitter and Facebook to justify this censorship makes it more alarming , not less .
Twitter claimed that the Post article violates its so-called “ Hacked Materials Policy , ” which it says permits “ commentary on or discussion about hacked materials , such as articles that cover them but do not include or link to the materials themselves ” ; in other words , Twitter allows links to articles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to or images of hacked material themselves.
” The company added that their policy “ prohibits the use of our service to distribute content obtained without authorization ” because , they said , they “ don ’ t want to incentivize hacking by allowing Twitter to be used as distribution for possibly illegally obtained materials.
” But that standard , if taken seriously and applied consistently , would result in the banning from the platform of huge amounts of the most important and consequential journalism .
After all , a large bulk of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content obtained without authorization ” to journalists , who then publish it .
Indeed , many of the most celebrated and significant stories of the last several decades — the Pentagon Papers , the WikiLeaks ’ Collateral Murder video and war logs , the Snowden reporting , the Panama Papers , the exposés from the Brazil Archive we reported over the last year — relied upon publication of various forms of “ hacked materials ” provided by sources .
The same is true of the DNC and Podesta emails that exposed corruption and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five officials of the Democratic National Committee .
Does anyone think it would be justifiable or politically healthy for tech giants to bar access to those documents of historic importance in journalism and politics ?
That is what the Twitter policy , taken on its face , would require .
For that matter , why is Twitter not blocking access to the ongoing New York Times articles that disclose the contents of President Trump ’ s tax returns , the unauthorized disclosure of which is a crime ?
Why did those platforms not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ segment where she revealed details about one of Trump ’ s old tax returns on the ground that it was “ content obtained without authorization ” ?
Or what about the virtually daily articles in the New York Times , Washington Post , NBC News and others that explicitly state they are publishing information that the source is unauthorized to disclose : how does that not fall squarely within the banning policy as Twitter defined it yesterday ?
Worse still , why does Twitter ’ s “ hacking ” policy apply to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While the Post ’ s claims about how these emails were obtained are dubious at best , there is no evidence — unlike the award-winning journalism scoops referenced above — that they were obtained by virtue of “ hacking ” by a source .
Facebook ’ s rationale for suppression — that it needs to have its “ fact checking ” partners verify the story before allowing it to be spread — poses different but equally alarming dangers .
What makes Mark Zuckerberg ’ s social media company competent to “ fact check @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why did Facebook block none of the endless orgy of Russiagate conspiracy theories from major media outlets that were completely unproven if not outright false ?
Do we really want Facebook serving as some sort of uber-editor for U.S. media and journalism , deciding what information is suitable for the American public to read and which should be hidden from it after teams of journalists and editors at real media outlets have approved its publication ?
And can anyone claim that Facebook ’ s alleged “ fact-checking ” process is applied with any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to suppress sketchily sourced or facially unreliable stories — such as , say , the Steele Dossier and endless articles based on it ?
Can you even envision the day when an unproven conspiracy theory — leaked by the CIA or FBI to the Washington Post or NBC News — is suppressed pending “ fact-checking ” by Facebook ?
Twitter is not opposed to hacked materials and Facebook is not opposed to dubiously sourced stories .
They are opposed to such things only when such stories anger powerful factions .
When those power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they will continue to have free rein to do so .
that always lies at the heart of pro-censorship sentiments is the gullible , delusional belief that censorship powers will be deployed only to suppress views one dislikes , but never one ’ s own views .
The most cursory review of history , and the most minimal understanding of how these tech giants function , instantly reveals the folly of that pipe dream .
Facebook is not some benevolent , kind , compassionate parent or a subversive , radical actor who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order to protect the weak and marginalized or serve as a noble check on mischief by the powerful .
They are almost always going to do exactly the opposite : protect the powerful from those who seek to undermine elite institutions and reject their orthodoxies .
Tech giants , like all corporations , are required by law to have one overriding objective : maximizing shareholder value .
They are always going to use their power to appease those they perceive wield the greatest political and economic power .
That is why Facebook accepts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to remove the pages of Palestinian journalists and activists on the grounds of “ incitement , ” but almost never accepts Palestinians ’ requests to remove Israeli content .
It is the same reason Facebook blocks and censors governments adverse to the U.S. , but not the other way around .
They are going to heed the interests of the powerful at the expense of those who lack it .
It is utter madness to want to augment their censorship powers or to expect they will use it for any other ends .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ censored the content or removed the accounts of far-right voices .
They have done the same to left-wing voices .
That is always how it will work : it is exclusively the voices on the fringes and the margins , the dissidents , those who reside outside of the factions of power who will be subjected to this silencing .
Mainstream political and media voices , and the U.S. Government and its allies , will be fully free to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation without ever being subjected to these illusory “ rules.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ giants who now wield it , is an instrument of status quo preservation .
The promise of the internet from the start was that it would be a tool of liberation , of egalitarianism , by permitting those without money and power to compete on fair terms in the information war with the most powerful governments and corporations .
But just as is true of allowing the internet to be converted into a tool of coercion and mass surveillance , nothing guts that promise , that potential , like empowering corporate overloads and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be heard .
To observe that those who are cheering for this today because they happen to like this particular outcome are being short-sighted and myopic is to woefully understate the case .
The only people who should want to live in a world where Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos have a stranglehold on what can be said and heard are those whose actions are devoted to the perpetuation of their power and who benefit from their hegemony .
Everyone else will eventually be faced with the choice of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressing prohibited views as the cost for maintaining access to crucial social media platforms .
The only thing more authoritarian than the acts of Facebook and Twitter yesterday is the mentality that causes ordinary people to cheer it , to be grateful for the power and control they have long wielded and yesterday finally unleashed .

The New York Post is one of the country’s oldest and largest newspapers. Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, only three U.S. newspapers are more widely circulated. Ever since it was purchased in 1976 by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, it has been known — like most Murdoch-owned papers — for right-wing tabloid sensationalism, albeit one that has some real reporters and editors and is capable of reliable journalism.
On Wednesday morning, the paper published on its cover what it heralded as a “blockbuster” scoop: “smoking gun” evidence, in its words, in the form of emails purportedly showing that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, traded on his father’s position by securing favors from the then-vice president to benefit the Ukranian energy company Burisma, which paid the supremely unqualified Hunter $50,000 each month to sit on its Board. While the Biden campaign denies that any such meetings or favors ever occurred, neither the campaign nor Hunter, at least as of now, has denied the authenticity of the emails.
The Post’s hyping of the story as some cataclysmic bombshell was overblown. While these emails, if authenticated, provide some new details and corroboration, the broad outlines of this story have long been known: Hunter was paid a very large monthly sum by Burisma at the same time that his father was quite active in using the force of the U.S. Government to influence Ukraine’s internal affairs.
Along with emails relating to Burisma, the New York Post also gratuitously published several photographs of Hunter, who has spoken openly and commendably of his past struggles with substance abuse, in what appeared to various states of drug use. There was no conceivable public interest in publishing those, and every reason not to.
The Post’s explanation of how these documents were obtained is bizarre at best: They claim that Hunter Biden indefinitely left his laptop containing the emails at a repair store, and the store’s owner, alarmed by the corruption they revealed, gave the materials from the hard drive to the FBI and then to Rudy Giuliani.
While there is no proof that Biden followed through on any of Hunter’s promises to Burisma, there is no reason, at least thus far, to doubt that the emails are genuine. And if they are genuine, they at least add to what is undeniably a relevant and newsworthy story involving influence-peddling relating to Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine and his trading on the name and power of his father, now the front-runner in the 2020 presidential election.
But the Post, for all its longevity, power and influence, ran smack into two entities far more powerful than it: Facebook and Twitter. Almost immediately upon publication, pro-Biden journalists created a climate of extreme hostility and suppression toward the Post story, making clear that any journalist even mentioning it would be roundly attacked. For the crime of simply noting the story on Twitter (while pointing out its flaws), New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman was instantly vilified to the point where her name, along with the phrase “MAGA Haberman,” were trending on Twitter.
(That Haberman is a crypto-Trump supporter is preposterous for so many reasons, including the fact that she is responsible for countless front-page Times stories that reflect negatively on the president; moreover, the 2016 Clinton campaign considered Haberman one of their most favorable reporters).
The two Silicon Valley giants saw that hostile climate and reacted. Just two hours after the story was online, Facebook intervened. The company dispatched a life-long Democratic Party operative who now works for Facebook — Andy Stone, previously a communications operative for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, among other D.C. Democratic jobs — to announce that Facebook was “reducing [the article’s] distribution on our platform”: in other words, tinkering with its own algorithms to suppress the ability of users to discuss or share the news article. The long-time Democratic Party official did not try to hide his contempt for the article, beginning his censorship announcement by snidely noting: “I will intentionally not link to the New York Post.”
While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform. — Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 14, 2020
Twitter’s suppression efforts went far beyond Facebook’s. They banned entirely all users’ ability to share the Post article — not just on their public timeline but even using the platform’s private Direct Messaging feature.
Early in the day, users who attempted to link to the New York Post story either publicly or privately received a cryptic message rejecting the attempt as an “error.” Later in the afternoon, Twitter changed the message, advising users that they could not post that link because the company judged its contents to be “potentially harmful.”
Wow. twitter going even further than FB and is no longer letting ppl tweet the NYPost story. This is what pops up if you try. https://t.co/YVlOTeF1iX pic.twitter.com/66kzYdwq21 — Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 14, 2020
Even more astonishing still, Twitter locked the account of the New York Post, banning the paper from posting any content all day and, evidently, into Thursday morning. The last tweet from the paper was posted at roughly 2:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
And then, on Thursday morning, the Post published a follow-up article using the same archive of materials, this one purporting to detail efforts by the former vice president’s son to pursue lucrative deals with a Chinese energy company by using his father’s name. Twitter is now also banning the sharing or posting of links to that article as well.
In sum, the two Silicon Valley giants, with little explanation, united to prevent the sharing and dissemination of this article. As Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce put it, “Facebook limiting distribution is a bit like if a company that owned newspaper delivery trucks decided not to drive because it didn’t like a story. Does a truck company edit the newspaper? It does now, apparently.”
That the First Amendment right of free speech is inapplicable to these questions goes without saying. That constitutional guarantee restricts the actions of governments, not private corporations such as Facebook and Twitter.
But glibly pointing this out does not come close to resolving this controversy. That actions by gigantic corporations are constitutional does not mean that they are benign.
State censorship is not the only kind of censorship. Private-sector repression of speech and thought, particularly in the internet era, can be as dangerous and consequential. Imagine, for instance, if these two Silicon Valley giants united with Google to declare: henceforth we will ban all content that is critical of President Trump and/or the Republican Party, but will actively promote criticisms of Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Would anyone encounter difficultly understanding why such a decree would constitute dangerous corporate censorship? Would Democrats respond to such a policy by simply shrugging it off on the radical libertarian ground that private corporations have the right to do whatever they want? To ask that question is to answer it.
To begin with, Twitter and particularly Facebook are no ordinary companies. Facebook, as the owner not just of its massive social media platform but also other key communication services it has gobbled up such as Instagram and WhatsApp, is one of the most powerful companies ever to exist, if not the most powerful. In June, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law launched an investigation into the consolidated power of Facebook and three other companies — Google, Amazon and Apple — and just last week issued a sweeping report which, as Ars Technica explained, found:
Facebook outright “has monopoly power in the market for social networking,” and that power is “firmly entrenched and unlikely to be eroded by competitive pressure” from anyone at all due to “high entry barriers—including strong network effects, high switching costs, and Facebook’s significant data advantage—that discourage direct competition by other firms to offer new products and services.”
In his New York Times op-ed last October, the left-wing expert on monopoly power Matt Stoller described Facebook and Google as “global monopolies sitting astride public discourse,” and recounted how bipartisan policy and legal changes designed to whittle away antitrust protections have bestowed the two tech giants with “a radical centralization of power over the flow of information.” And he warns that this unprecedented consolidation of control over our discourse is close to triggering “the collapse of journalism and democracy.”
It has been astonishing to watch Democrats over the last twenty-four hours justify this censorship on the grounds that private corporations are entitled to do whatever they want. Not even radical free-market libertarians espouse such a pro-corporate view. Even the most ardent capitalist recognizes that companies that wield monopoly or quasi-monopoly power have an obligation to act in the public interest, and are answerable to the public regarding whether they are doing so.
That is why in both the EU and increasingly the U.S., there are calls from across the political spectrum to either break up Facebook on antitrust and monopoly grounds or regulate it as a public utility, the way electric and water companies and AT&T have been. Almost nobody in the democratic world believes that Facebook is just some ordinary company that should be permitted to exercise unfettered power and act without constraints of any kind. Indeed, Facebook’s monumental political and economic power — greater than most if not all the governments of nation-states — is the major impediment to such reforms.
Beyond that, both Facebook and Twitter receive substantial, unique legal benefits from federal law, further negating the claim that they are free to do whatever they want as private companies. Just as is true of Major League Baseball — which is subject to regulation by Congress as a result of the antitrust exemption they enjoy under the law — these social media companies receive a very valuable and particularized legal benefit in the form of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from any liability for content published on their platforms, including defamatory material or other legally proscribed communications.
No company can claim such massive, unique legal exemptions from the federal law and then simultaneously claim they owe no duties to the public interest and are not answerable to anyone. To advocate that is a form of authoritarian corporatism: simultaneously allowing tech giants to claim legally conferred privileges and exemptions while insisting that they can act without constraints of any kind.
Then there is the practical impact of Twitter and Facebook uniting to block content published by a major newspaper. It is true in theory that one can still read the suppressed article by visiting the New York Post website directly, but the stranglehold that these companies exert over our discourse is so dominant that their censorship amounts to effective suppression of the reporting.
In 2018, Pew Research found that “about two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) get news on social media sites. One-in-five get news there often.“ The combination of Facebook, Google and Twitter controls the information received by huge numbers of Americans, Pew found. “Facebook is still far and away the site Americans most commonly use for news. About four-in-ten Americans (43%) get news on Facebook. The next most commonly used site for news is YouTube [owned by Google], with 21% getting news there, followed by Twitter at 12%.”
While Twitter still falls short of Facebook in terms of number of users, a 2019 report found that “Twitter remains the leading social network among journalists at 83%.” Censoring a story from Twitter thus has disproportionate impact by hiding it from the people who determine and shape the news.
The grave dangers posed by the censorship actions of yesterday should be self-evident. Just over two weeks before a presidential election, Silicon Valley giants — whose industry leaders and workforce overwhelmingly favor the Democratic candidate — took extraordinary steps to block millions, perhaps tens of millions, of American voters from being exposed to what purports to be a major exposé by one of the country’s oldest and largest newspapers.
As the New York Times put it in an article in March about the political preferences of tech leaders: “Silicon Valley has long leaned blue.” Large numbers of tech executives, including Facebook’s second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg, were also vocally supportive of Hillary Clinton in 2016. At the very least, the perception, if not the reality, has been created that these tech giants are using their unprecedented power over political and election-related information to prevent the dissemination of negative reporting about the presidential candidate they favor. Whatever that is, it is not democratic or something to cheer.
The rationale offered by both Twitter and Facebook to justify this censorship makes it more alarming, not less. Twitter claimed that the Post article violates its so-called “Hacked Materials Policy,” which it says permits “commentary on or discussion about hacked materials, such as articles that cover them but do not include or link to the materials themselves”; in other words, Twitter allows links to articles about hacked materials but bans “links to or images of hacked material themselves.”
The company added that their policy “prohibits the use of our service to distribute content obtained without authorization” because, they said, they “don’t want to incentivize hacking by allowing Twitter to be used as distribution for possibly illegally obtained materials.”
But that standard, if taken seriously and applied consistently, would result in the banning from the platform of huge amounts of the most important and consequential journalism. After all, a large bulk of journalism is enabled by sources providing “content obtained without authorization” to journalists, who then publish it.
Indeed, many of the most celebrated and significant stories of the last several decades — the Pentagon Papers, the WikiLeaks’ Collateral Murder video and war logs, the Snowden reporting, the Panama Papers, the exposés from the Brazil Archive we reported over the last year — relied upon publication of various forms of “hacked materials” provided by sources. The same is true of the DNC and Podesta emails that exposed corruption and forced the 2016 resignation of the top five officials of the Democratic National Committee.
Does anyone think it would be justifiable or politically healthy for tech giants to bar access to those documents of historic importance in journalism and politics? That is what the Twitter policy, taken on its face, would require.
For that matter, why is Twitter not blocking access to the ongoing New York Times articles that disclose the contents of President Trump’s tax returns, the unauthorized disclosure of which is a crime? Why did those platforms not block links to the now-notorious Rachel Maddow segment where she revealed details about one of Trump’s old tax returns on the ground that it was “content obtained without authorization”? Or what about the virtually daily articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News and others that explicitly state they are publishing information that the source is unauthorized to disclose: how does that not fall squarely within the banning policy as Twitter defined it yesterday?
Worse still, why does Twitter’s “hacking” policy apply to the New York Post story at all? While the Post’s claims about how these emails were obtained are dubious at best, there is no evidence — unlike the award-winning journalism scoops referenced above — that they were obtained by virtue of “hacking” by a source.
Facebook’s rationale for suppression — that it needs to have its “fact checking” partners verify the story before allowing it to be spread — poses different but equally alarming dangers. What makes Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company competent to “fact check” the work of other journalists? Why did Facebook block none of the endless orgy of Russiagate conspiracy theories from major media outlets that were completely unproven if not outright false?
Do we really want Facebook serving as some sort of uber-editor for U.S. media and journalism, deciding what information is suitable for the American public to read and which should be hidden from it after teams of journalists and editors at real media outlets have approved its publication? And can anyone claim that Facebook’s alleged “fact-checking” process is applied with any remote consistency given how often they failed to suppress sketchily sourced or facially unreliable stories — such as, say, the Steele Dossier and endless articles based on it? Can you even envision the day when an unproven conspiracy theory — leaked by the CIA or FBI to the Washington Post or NBC News — is suppressed pending “fact-checking” by Facebook?
Twitter is not opposed to hacked materials and Facebook is not opposed to dubiously sourced stories. They are opposed to such things only when such stories anger powerful factions. When those power centers are the ones disseminating such stories, they will continue to have free rein to do so.
The glaring fallacy that always lies at the heart of pro-censorship sentiments is the gullible, delusional belief that censorship powers will be deployed only to suppress views one dislikes, but never one’s own views. The most cursory review of history, and the most minimal understanding of how these tech giants function, instantly reveals the folly of that pipe dream.
Facebook is not some benevolent, kind, compassionate parent or a subversive, radical actor who is going to police our discourse in order to protect the weak and marginalized or serve as a noble check on mischief by the powerful. They are almost always going to do exactly the opposite: protect the powerful from those who seek to undermine elite institutions and reject their orthodoxies.
Tech giants, like all corporations, are required by law to have one overriding objective: maximizing shareholder value. They are always going to use their power to appease those they perceive wield the greatest political and economic power.
That is why Facebook accepts virtually every request from the Israeli Government to remove the pages of Palestinian journalists and activists on the grounds of “incitement,” but almost never accepts Palestinians’ requests to remove Israeli content. It is the same reason Facebook blocks and censors governments adverse to the U.S., but not the other way around. They are going to heed the interests of the powerful at the expense of those who lack it. It is utter madness to want to augment their censorship powers or to expect they will use it for any other ends.
Facebook and Twitter have in the past censored the content or removed the accounts of far-right voices. They have done the same to left-wing voices. That is always how it will work: it is exclusively the voices on the fringes and the margins, the dissidents, those who reside outside of the factions of power who will be subjected to this silencing. Mainstream political and media voices, and the U.S. Government and its allies, will be fully free to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation without ever being subjected to these illusory “rules.”
Censorship power, like the tech giants who now wield it, is an instrument of status quo preservation. The promise of the internet from the start was that it would be a tool of liberation, of egalitarianism, by permitting those without money and power to compete on fair terms in the information war with the most powerful governments and corporations.
But just as is true of allowing the internet to be converted into a tool of coercion and mass surveillance, nothing guts that promise, that potential, like empowering corporate overlords and unaccountable monopolists to regulate and suppress what can be heard.
To observe that those who are cheering for this today because they happen to like this particular outcome are being short-sighted and myopic is to woefully understate the case. The only people who should want to live in a world where Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos have a stranglehold on what can be said and heard are those whose actions are devoted to the perpetuation of their power and who benefit from their hegemony.
Everyone else will eventually be faced with the choice of conformity or censorship, of refraining from expressing prohibited views as the cost for maintaining access to crucial social media platforms. The only thing more authoritarian than the acts of Facebook and Twitter yesterday is the mentality that causes ordinary people to cheer it, to be grateful for the power and control they have long wielded and yesterday finally unleashed.
Update: Oct. 16, 2020, 6:18 a.m. ET
Late Thursday evening, Twitter announced changes to its ”Hacked Materials Policy” designed to address concerns that its policy as stated — and as applied to the Post articles — would result in the banning of crucial reporting based on hacked materials or other “unauthorized” disclosures. Explained by Vijaya Gadde, a top Twitter executive, the new rules now provide that Twitter’s policy applies not to articles by news outlets reporting on hacked materials but only in those cases when the hacked material “is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them.” Additionally, going forward, Twitter “will label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared.” Gadde said specifically that the changes are intended “to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation.”
There are still serious concerns about what Twitter did in this particular case and how these rules will be applied to future cases, but these changes are a commendably responsive effort to minimize the dangers of this policy and alleviate the concerns raised by journalists and transparency advocates.


theintercept--2020-10-15--Trump Boasts About Federal Task Force Killing Antifascist Wanted for Murder in Portland

at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Thursday , the president of the United States boasted about federal agents killing an antifascist activist suspected of murdering one of his supporters in Portland , Oregon this summer , calling the suspect ’ s death without trial an example of his leadership .
“ We sent in the U.S.
Marshals , ” President Donald Trump said proudly of the federal task force that killed the suspect , Michael Reinoehl .
“ Took 15 minutes , it was over , ” he added .
“ We got him.
” It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken credit for the killing of Reinoehl , a self-described “ 100 % ANTIFA ” activist who was gunned down on September 3 , hours after Portland ’ s district attorney had indicted him for murder in the fatal shooting of Aaron J. Danielson , a right-wing activist , five days earlier , after a raucous pro-Trump car caravan .
Trump had bragged about the killing to Fox News last month , saying in an interview , “ the U.S .
Marshals killed him , and I ’ ll tell you something — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be .
There has to be retribution.
” Reinoehl was in fact killed by local officers in Washington state who were deputized as federal agents as part of a fugitive task force led by United States Marshals .
Multiple witnesses have come forward in recent weeks to dispute the claim from officers that they fired on Reinoehl instead of trying to arrest him because he pointed a gun at them .
The president ’ s latest comments stirred particular outrage online because video snippets from his rambling , only somewhat coherent monologue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who told reporters for The Oregonian , The New York Times , Oregon Public Broadcasting , and ProPublica that the officers had fired on Reinoehl without attempting to detain him .
A spokesman for the Thurston County Sheriff ’ s office in Washington , which is running a criminal homicide investigation into the suspect ’ s death , told The Oregonian on Tuesday that officers found a loaded handgun in Reinoehl ’ s front pocket , and his hand on or near the gun , after he was fatally shot .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s remarks on Thursday , posted on Twitter by Acyn Torabi , was viewed more than 3 million times , but showed just the last 17 seconds of Trump ’ s meandering , minute-long diatribe .
While there is no doubt that Trump did praise federal deputies for killing Reinoehl — as part of a riff about how quickly agents under his command could put an end to violence from left-wing activists — the full video of his remarks shows that the president appeared to be saying , in his own , fractured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced to intervene because local officials in Portland , who are Democrats , “ didn ’ t want to arrest him.
” In the abbreviated version of the video that went viral , it seemed to many viewers as if the president had said the U.S .
Marshals “ didn ’ t want to arrest him , ” and that he was endorsing an extrajudicial execution .
“ The Democrats smear decent Americans as racists , slander our nation as evil , indoctrinate our children and incite anti-American riots on our streets that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as we did in Minneapolis , as we do wherever we go , but they have to invite us in , by law they have to invite us in , ” Trump told fans at the start of the remarks in Greenville , North Carolina on Thursday .
“ We want to go to Portland so bad , that one would take 15 minutes to set , 15 minutes , ” he added .
“ And the man that shot another innocent man , ” he continued , referring to Reinoehl .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed , instantly killed .
I said , ‘ What happened ?
’ ‘ Well , we haven ’ t arrested him , ' ” the president said , recounting an almost certainly imaginary conversation with Portland officials .
“ Two days , three days went by , ” Trump continued , describing the period during which Portland ’ s district attorney was , in fact , compiling enough evidence against Reinoehl for an indictment — including clear security camera images of the shooting .
“ We sent in the U.S .
Marshals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — 15 minutes it was over , we got him , ” Trump said .
“ They knew who he was , they didn ’ t want to arrest him .
In 15 minutes , that ended , ” the president said .
“ Anywhile , ” he added , slurring his words , “ they call themselves ‘ peaceful protesters . '
” Trump had leveled the same accusation against Portland officials the day that Reinoehl was killed .
Writing on Twitter that night , the president complained that the suspect had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ video of the shooting and an apparent confession from Reinoehl himself in a television interview with Vice News .
When he posted that tweet , about 11:40 p.m. Eastern time , Trump was apparently unaware that Reinoehl was already dead .
The fugitive task force had moved in on the suspect almost two hours earlier , acting on a warrant for his arrest on a charge of second-degree murder obtained that day by Portland ’ s progressive prosecutor , Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt .
While Trump has subsequently suggested that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his tweet , the timing of when it was posted suggests that he was not in the loop on its actions .
The president ’ s tweet was not even posted until 13 minutes after the news of Reinoehl ’ s death had been reported by The New York Times .
In a statement the next morning , Attorney General William Barr expressed no qualms about the killing of the suspect , claiming that he had “ produced a firearm , ” and offering praise for the federal task force “ that located @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

In chilling remarks at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Thursday, the president of the United States boasted about federal agents killing an anti-fascist activist suspected of murdering one of his supporters in Portland, Oregon this summer, calling the suspect’s death without trial an example of his leadership.
“We sent in the U.S. Marshals,” President Donald Trump said proudly of the federal task force that killed the suspect, Michael Reinoehl. “Took 15 minutes, it was over,” he added. “We got him.”
"We got him," the president of the United States says proudly about the killing of a fugitive witnesses say federal deputies made no attempt to arrest before gunning down. pic.twitter.com/vdwXpRRbh2 — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) October 15, 2020
It’s not the first time that Trump has taken credit for the killing of Reinoehl, a self-described “100% ANTIFA” activist who was gunned down on September 3, hours after Portland’s district attorney had indicted him for murder in the fatal shooting of Aaron J. Danielson, a right-wing activist, five days earlier, after a raucous pro-Trump car caravan.
Trump had bragged about the killing to Fox News last month, saying in an interview, “the U.S. Marshals killed him, and I’ll tell you something — that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.”
Reinoehl was in fact killed by local officers in Washington state who were deputized as federal agents as part of a fugitive task force led by United States Marshals. Multiple witnesses have come forward in recent weeks to dispute the claim from officers that they fired on Reinoehl instead of trying to arrest him because he pointed a gun at them.
The president’s latest comments stirred particular outrage online because video snippets from his rambling, only somewhat coherent monologue suggested that he agreed with the witnesses, who told reporters for The Oregonian, The New York Times, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and ProPublica that the officers had fired on Reinoehl without attempting to detain him.
A spokesman for the Thurston County Sheriff’s office in Washington, which is running a criminal homicide investigation into the suspect’s death, told The Oregonian on Tuesday that officers found a loaded handgun in Reinoehl’s front pocket, and his hand on or near the gun, after he was fatally shot.
One widely shared excerpt from the president’s remarks on Thursday, posted on Twitter by Acyn Torabi, was viewed more than 3 million times, but showed just the last 17 seconds of Trump’s meandering, minute-long diatribe.
Trump: We sent in the US Marshals, took 15 minutes and it was over… They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him and 15 minutes that ended pic.twitter.com/fJA5BsJVeF — Acyn (@Acyn) October 15, 2020
While there is no doubt that Trump did praise federal deputies for killing Reinoehl — as part of a riff about how quickly agents under his command could put an end to violence from left-wing activists — the full video of his remarks shows that the president appeared to be saying, in his own, fractured way, that the federal government was forced to intervene because local officials in Portland, who are Democrats, “didn’t want to arrest him.”
In the abbreviated version of the video that went viral, it seemed to many viewers as if the president had said the U.S. Marshals “didn’t want to arrest him,” and that he was endorsing an extrajudicial execution.
“The Democrats smear decent Americans as racists, slander our nation as evil, indoctrinate our children and incite anti-American riots on our streets that we could control in 25 minutes — as we did in Minneapolis, as we do wherever we go, but they have to invite us in, by law they have to invite us in,” Trump told fans at the start of the remarks in Greenville, North Carolina on Thursday. “We want to go to Portland so bad, that one would take 15 minutes to set, 15 minutes,” he added.
“And the man that shot another innocent man,” he continued, referring to Reinoehl. “This was an innocent man shot, killed, instantly killed. I said, ‘What happened?’ ‘Well, we haven’t arrested him,'” the president said, recounting an almost certainly imaginary conversation with Portland officials.
“Two days, three days went by,” Trump continued, describing the period during which Portland’s district attorney was, in fact, compiling enough evidence against Reinoehl for an indictment — including clear security camera images of the shooting. “We sent in the U.S. Marshals: took 15 minutes it was over — 15 minutes it was over, we got him,” Trump said.
“They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him. In 15 minutes, that ended,” the president said. “Anywhile,” he added, slurring his words, “they call themselves ‘peaceful protesters.'”
Trump had leveled the same accusation against Portland officials the day that Reinoehl was killed. Writing on Twitter that night, the president complained that the suspect had not been arrested yet, despite witness video of the shooting and an apparent confession from Reinoehl himself in a television interview with Vice News.
Why aren’t the Portland Police ARRESTING the cold blooded killer of Aaron “Jay” Danielson. Do your job, and do it fast. Everybody knows who this thug is. No wonder Portland is going to hell! @TheJusticeDept @FBI — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020
When he posted that tweet, about 11:40 p.m. Eastern time, Trump was apparently unaware that Reinoehl was already dead. The fugitive task force had moved in on the suspect almost two hours earlier, acting on a warrant for his arrest on a charge of second-degree murder obtained that day by Portland’s progressive prosecutor, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt.
While Trump has subsequently suggested that the task force was acting in response to his tweet, the timing of when it was posted suggests that he was not in the loop on its actions. The president’s tweet was not even posted until 13 minutes after the news of Reinoehl’s death had been reported by The New York Times.
In a statement the next morning, Attorney General William Barr expressed no qualms about the killing of the suspect, claiming that he had “produced a firearm,” and offering praise for the federal task force “that located Reinoehl and prevented him from escaping justice.”


theintercept--2020-10-15--A Desperate Trump Rallies in Iowa as He Cancels Ads, Loses Ground

first lady , ‘ I ’ m going to have the greatest publicity I ’ ve ever had tonight.
’ ” President Donald Trump told the crowd on the tarmac of the Des Moines International Airport on Wednesday night .
“ I got nominated for the Nobel Prize .
I get home and turn on the TV .
They ’ re talking about your floods in Iowa.
” Of course , there was no major flooding in Iowa this year .
Trump was complaining about the lack of media coverage for his Nobel nomination , but he confused the disastrous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ derecho that struck in August .
Along with the coronavirus , the disastrous derecho wind storm that destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of crops have increased farmers ’ desperation .
Trump came to Des Moines in an attempt to invigorate his base and swing momentum back in his favor as Election Day approaches .
According to the most recent polls , Trump is neck and neck with former Vice President Joe Biden in Iowa , though he handily won the state by 9 points in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ since the Iowa caucuses at the beginning of 2020 , a pre-coronavirus event now most notable for hosting Kyle Rittenhouse , the vigilante shooter who killed two protesters in Kenosha , Wisconsin , in the front row .
But though the crowd was buoyant , the grim reality of the coronavirus pandemic seemed to hang over the event : The January rally drew thousands , but this time Trump drew a crowd of just over 1,000 , the majority of whom remained unmasked .
A billboard mockingly calling the Trump rally a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ airport by Rural America 2020 , a political action committee targeting Trump in rural states .
And , elsewhere in Iowa , there have been hints of waning support for the president as Trump slumps in the polls and local Republican proxies like Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov .
Kim Reynolds see precipitous drops in their approval ratings .
Facing a campaign cash crunch , the Trump campaign has withdrawn planned television and radio advertisements in Iowa just weeks before Election Day , along with ads planned in Ohio and New Hampshire .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ be seen as a referendum on his national response to the coronavirus .
Few states have embodied Trump ’ s mandate to “ not be afraid ” of Covid-19 like Iowa has .
Since the early days of the pandemic ’ s spread through the United States , Iowa ’ s unified Republican state government and particularly its governor have been lockstep with Trump , refusing to institute a statewide mask mandate and keeping masks optional for in-person learning .
Iowa surpassed California in cases-per-million in early September and hasn ’ t looked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mandate has resulted in “ unnecessary transmission and deaths , ” according to reports from Trump ’ s own White House .
Iowa has counted over 100,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and over 1,500 deaths as a result in a state with a population that barely tops 3 million .
Health care is consistently cited by Iowa voters as a major issue , and the pandemic has only exacerbated already present issues in the state ’ s privatized Medicaid and led to layoffs at hospitals .
The two days prior to Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ records for coronavirus-related hospitalizations .
The state government , which has consistently affirmed its support for Trump ’ s coronavirus strategy , is also losing popularity .
An Iowa poll from September gave Reynolds a 47 percent approval rating — a 15-point drop from before the pandemic .
The same poll showed Iowa women , in particular , favoring Biden over Trump in the upcoming presidential election .
And Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is in a tight race for reelection this November against progressive Theresa Greenfield , and faces consistently worse polling numbers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same ticket .
Polling has shown that Democrats are the preferred candidate in three of Iowa ’ s four congressional districts and leading by double digits in two of the districts .
After months of lax safety protocols at the White House , Trump was sidelined in early October when he contracted the coronavirus .
Even as he embarked on his proof of life tour this week , a trip that has included visits to Florida and Pennsylvania , it still hasn ’ t been entirely clear whether the president may still be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or even if he may still be contagious .
Trump ’ s erratic speech started with a tirade concerning the report published by the New York Post earlier that day that used dubiously obtained materials to make claims about Biden ’ s son Hunter ’ s business dealings in Ukraine and included a sidebar about the lack of media coverage around his Nobel Prize nomination .
But if there was a lodestar of the speech , it was Trump ’ s continual insistence that he was the Iowa farmer ’ s savior , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trade war with China and proudly touting a claim that he gave Iowa farmers $ 28 billion in subsidies .
“ We have a great history here , what we ’ ve done for you , what we ’ ve done for farmers , what we ’ ve done for everyone , ” Trump said in his speech .
“ Two weeks ago , you had the largest order of corn in the history of our country.
” It ’ s true that China ordered a record amount of corn , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ targets as the price of corn continues to fall .
Many farmers are frustrated with the dwindling returns as they continue to face hardship from the growing amount of climate change-related severe weather .
That farmers will continue to be reliant on ongoing payouts are a key part of Trump ’ s reelection strategy .
Trump has funneled approximately $ 46 billion in cash to U.S. farmers this year , propping them up to prevent them from souring on him during his trade war .
His monetary support through subsidies and use of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ representative of his campaign has been so blatant that it has drawn accusations of ethics law violations .
For all of her devotion to Trump ’ s coronavirus strategy , Reynolds was not well-rewarded in Trump ’ s speech Wednesday evening , though she spoke immediately preceding his arrival .
The president had more effusive praise for Reynolds ’ s predecessor , Terry Branstad , who had recently abdicated his quiet role as ambassador to China in order to help out Republicans on the campaign trail in Iowa .
He found plenty of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ husband , Kevin Reynolds , who apparently had been on a hunting trip with his son , Donald Trump Jr. Trump also spent more time praising Sen. Chuck Grassley than the Iowa senator on the November ballot , Ernst .
In his speech , Trump did little to address the ongoing problems of the pandemic , referencing it only to claim that it had been a speed bump in “ the best economy of all time ” and to claim that he was already miraculously drawing the country out of the economic downturn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he lectured that “ the cure can ’ t be worse than the problem itself.
” When Trump invited Dan Gable , an Iowa wrestling legend whom he plans to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom , to the stage to praise the president , Trump gripped his shoulder and repeated claims he ’ d made previously that he was now “ immune ” to the coronavirus .
The few who showed up for Trump , of course , were largely indifferent to the idea of potentially contracting the coronavirus from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man , said he considered the threat of the virus to be overblown and cited the strong wind at the outdoors event as a reason to feel safe .
Another woman , decked out in head to toe “ Make America Great Again ” regalia , said she had a mask , but didn ’ t like to wear it when she was talking .
Attendees often recognized and embraced one another .
No one in the crowd showed any reluctance to crowd close to one another , something that security and event @ @ @

“I told the first lady, ‘I’m going to have the greatest publicity I’ve ever had tonight.’” President Donald Trump told the crowd on the tarmac of the Des Moines International Airport on Wednesday night. “I got nominated for the Nobel Prize. I get home and turn on the TV. They’re talking about your floods in Iowa.”
Of course, there was no major flooding in Iowa this year. Trump was complaining about the lack of media coverage for his Nobel nomination, but he confused the disastrous flooding Iowa experienced in 2019 with the derecho that struck in August. Along with the coronavirus, the disastrous derecho wind storm that destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of crops have increased farmers’ desperation.
Trump came to Des Moines in an attempt to invigorate his base and swing momentum back in his favor as Election Day approaches. According to the most recent polls, Trump is neck and neck with former Vice President Joe Biden in Iowa, though he handily won the state by 9 points in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton.
It was Trump’s first visit since the Iowa caucuses at the beginning of 2020, a pre-coronavirus event now most notable for hosting Kyle Rittenhouse, the vigilante shooter who killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the front row. But though the crowd was buoyant, the grim reality of the coronavirus pandemic seemed to hang over the event: The January rally drew thousands, but this time Trump drew a crowd of just over 1,000, the majority of whom remained unmasked. A billboard mockingly calling the Trump rally a “superspreader event” was erected near the airport by Rural America 2020, a political action committee targeting Trump in rural states.
And, elsewhere in Iowa, there have been hints of waning support for the president as Trump slumps in the polls and local Republican proxies like Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds see precipitous drops in their approval ratings. Facing a campaign cash crunch, the Trump campaign has withdrawn planned television and radio advertisements in Iowa just weeks before Election Day, along with ads planned in Ohio and New Hampshire.
Read Our Complete Coverage Election 2020
If he loses Iowa, it will be seen as a referendum on his national response to the coronavirus. Few states have embodied Trump’s mandate to “not be afraid” of Covid-19 like Iowa has. Since the early days of the pandemic’s spread through the United States, Iowa’s unified Republican state government and particularly its governor have been lockstep with Trump, refusing to institute a statewide mask mandate and keeping masks optional for in-person learning. Iowa surpassed California in cases-per-million in early September and hasn’t looked back.
Supporters take pictures as President Donald Trump arrives for a rally at the Des Moines International Airport in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 14, 2020. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
The absence of a mask mandate has resulted in “unnecessary transmission and deaths,” according to reports from Trump’s own White House. Iowa has counted over 100,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and over 1,500 deaths as a result in a state with a population that barely tops 3 million. Health care is consistently cited by Iowa voters as a major issue, and the pandemic has only exacerbated already present issues in the state’s privatized Medicaid and led to layoffs at hospitals. The two days prior to Trump’s arrival in the state saw new records for coronavirus-related hospitalizations.
The state government, which has consistently affirmed its support for Trump’s coronavirus strategy, is also losing popularity. An Iowa poll from September gave Reynolds a 47 percent approval rating — a 15-point drop from before the pandemic. The same poll showed Iowa women, in particular, favoring Biden over Trump in the upcoming presidential election. And Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is in a tight race for reelection this November against progressive Theresa Greenfield, and faces consistently worse polling numbers than Trump despite her presence on the same ticket. Polling has shown that Democrats are the preferred candidate in three of Iowa’s four congressional districts and leading by double digits in two of the districts.
If there was a lodestar of the speech, it was Trump’s continual insistence that he was the Iowa farmer’s savior.
After months of lax safety protocols at the White House, Trump was sidelined in early October when he contracted the coronavirus. Even as he embarked on his proof of life tour this week, a trip that has included visits to Florida and Pennsylvania, it still hasn’t been entirely clear whether the president may still be vulnerable to the effects of the virus or even if he may still be contagious.
Trump’s erratic speech started with a tirade concerning the report published by the New York Post earlier that day that used dubiously obtained materials to make claims about Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine and included a sidebar about the lack of media coverage around his Nobel Prize nomination. But if there was a lodestar of the speech, it was Trump’s continual insistence that he was the Iowa farmer’s savior, painting himself as their defender in the trade war with China and proudly touting a claim that he gave Iowa farmers $28 billion in subsidies.
“We have a great history here, what we’ve done for you, what we’ve done for farmers, what we’ve done for everyone,” Trump said in his speech. “Two weeks ago, you had the largest order of corn in the history of our country.” It’s true that China ordered a record amount of corn, but the amount still fell short of trade deal targets as the price of corn continues to fall. Many farmers are frustrated with the dwindling returns as they continue to face hardship from the growing amount of climate change-related severe weather.
That farmers will continue to be reliant on ongoing payouts are a key part of Trump’s reelection strategy. Trump has funneled approximately $46 billion in cash to U.S. farmers this year, propping them up to prevent them from souring on him during his trade war. His monetary support through subsidies and use of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue as de facto representative of his campaign has been so blatant that it has drawn accusations of ethics law violations.
For all of her devotion to Trump’s coronavirus strategy, Reynolds was not well-rewarded in Trump’s speech Wednesday evening, though she spoke immediately preceding his arrival. The president had more effusive praise for Reynolds’s predecessor, Terry Branstad, who had recently abdicated his quiet role as ambassador to China in order to help out Republicans on the campaign trail in Iowa. He found plenty of opportunity to talk up Reynolds’s husband, Kevin Reynolds, who apparently had been on a hunting trip with his son, Donald Trump Jr. Trump also spent more time praising Sen. Chuck Grassley than the Iowa senator on the November ballot, Ernst.
In his speech, Trump did little to address the ongoing problems of the pandemic, referencing it only to claim that it had been a speed bump in “the best economy of all time” and to claim that he was already miraculously drawing the country out of the economic downturn. And despite being hospitalized for Covid-19, he lectured that “the cure can’t be worse than the problem itself.” When Trump invited Dan Gable, an Iowa wrestling legend whom he plans to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to the stage to praise the president, Trump gripped his shoulder and repeated claims he’d made previously that he was now “immune” to the coronavirus.
The few who showed up for Trump, of course, were largely indifferent to the idea of potentially contracting the coronavirus from the event. Bernard McDonugh, an older man, said he considered the threat of the virus to be overblown and cited the strong wind at the outdoors event as a reason to feel safe. Another woman, decked out in head to toe “Make America Great Again” regalia, said she had a mask, but didn’t like to wear it when she was talking. Attendees often recognized and embraced one another. No one in the crowd showed any reluctance to crowd close to one another, something that security and event coordinators encouraged.