Recently, I spoke at an event about my book, “The Indispensable Right,” at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Appearing on the panel with me was a New York University professor and one of the Facebook board members directing “content moderation.” We had a sharp disagreement over the record of Meta/Facebook on censorship, which I described as partisan and anti-free speech. Now, Congress has released the internal communications at Facebook, showing an express effort to appease Biden officials by censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election.
In a new report released by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, Facebook executives are shown following the lead of the FBI, which gave them prior warnings to prepare to spike such stories before the election. The FBI knew that the laptop was authentic. They had possession of the laptop, and American intelligence concluded that it was not Russian disinformation.
One Microsoft employee wrote, “FBI tipped us all off last week that this Burisma story was likely to emerge,”
However, these communications also show a knowing effort to appease Biden and Harris and effectively assist them in their election efforts. Facebook’s then-Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg reportedly wrote to Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan, “[o]bviously, our calls on this could colour the way an incoming Biden administration views us more than almost anything else.”
One of the most interesting communications came from a Facebook employee who recognized that they would be accused of seeking to influence the election: “When we get hauled up to [Capitol] [H]ill to testify on why we influenced the 2020 elections, we can say we have been meeting for YEARS with USG [the U.S. government] to plan for it.”
The Facebook files go beyond influencing the election. At one point, Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, asked, “Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made.” The Vice President in charge of content policy responded, “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more. We shouldn’t have done it.”
Notably, Democrats opposed every effort to seek this information, and Facebook only recently relented in turning over its files years after Elon Musk ordered the release of the “Twitter files.” I raised this issue during the NCC event to counter the glowing self-appraisal of Meta over its record. Despite its claims of transparency, it refused calls from many of us for years to release these files. When finally forced by the House to do so, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a perfunctory apology and moved on. As shown at the NCC event, it is now spinning its record as a defense of free speech.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The FBI knew that Hunter’s laptop was authentic? American intelliegence knew that is was not Russian disinformation? But, but, but…..but how about some Whataboutism? What about that letter, you know, that letter signed by 51 former US intelligence officials, that letter that said the laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”?
Oh, right: they said it had all the classic earmarks, not that it was, in fact, a Russian op. Silly me.
Proves the cliche of “words matter,” and the importance of careful drafting. And even more careful reading.
for those interested here is a link to the report
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/FBI-Election-Interference-Report-FINAL–10-30-24-.pdf
Thank you, PeterK. FYI, Rachel Maddow and Victoria Nuland, and probably more, are back on the Russian Meddling routine in preparation for Tuesday. Remember, election meddling is only OK if “we” do it.
Jonathan: It wasn’t just Jesse Waters and Charlie Kirk who are incensed by Julia Roberts urging women to vote for Kamala Harris–and do it without informing their husbands. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was on FOX yesterday expressing his out rage over the Roberts ad. Gingrich claimed women are being dishonest: “How do you run a country where you walk around saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? …What kind of totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”
Gingrich is hardly the person to preach to women about honesty. He was dishonest with his second wife, who was battling cancer, whom he divorced after an affair with the woman who would become his third wife. Gingrich is a hypocrite. He led the effort to impeach Bill Clinton over his tryst with Monica. DJT cheated on all three of his wives. So the Republicans are not exactly the ones to preach about “honesty”. They are the ones who represent a “amoral, corrupt, sick system” who think wives should listen to their husbands when they vote!
He is, but I am not going to shoot the messenger. What he is saying is essentially true.
And that makes what they say untrue, under your version of morality? I do believe “Pointing to another Wrong” is a text book example of a Invalid Logical Argument?
Oh really? https://adminforge.de/
This election is wild.
One side has Elon Musk, the entire UFC fighting roster, and an army of men with normal testosterone levels.
The other side has Mark Cuban, the Krassensteins, and an army of sexually blackmailed celebrities & alcoholic liberal women.
Men vs cucks
Exhausted
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851636282369220910
Kamala exhausted!
Donald trump talks about his running mate JDV. This comment was from a trump speech about how you pick a running mate.
“There’s a certain rule, Make them really bad and they’ll never take you out”
I guess trump doesn’t care if JD is killed?
Seems reasonable, his last VP pic was hunted by trump supporters hoping to put Pence on the gallows.
Lives in an alternate reality ^^^
Seems reasonable, his last VP pic was hunted by trump supporters hoping to put Pence on the gallows.
Seems like what one would expect from one of Tampon Tim’s supporters, bitterly crying in their Yanjing beer with the skanky ho because both attempts to assassinate Trump failed.
Vance is “bad” in the sense that left wing nuts would not prefer Vance to Trump.
Just as they would not prefer Harris to Biden or Walz to Harris.
But Vance was a far better choice than Pence – or Walz, or Harris.
So I am not sure what your point is.
Trump BTW has said this before, and he was refering to Obama’s choice of Biden and Biden’s choice of Harris.
Breaking news from New York Post relevant to this topic. Trump is suing CBS News for deceptively editing Kamala’a 60-Minutes interview with intent to tilt the election outcome.
https://nypost.com/2024/10/31/us-news/trump-sues-cbs-news-for-10b-alleging-deceptive-doctoring-of-harris-60-minutes-interview/
This case, if not summarily dismissed by the judge, begins a legal process to establish the “consequential public frauds” lawsuit, challenging whether 1st Amendment “press freedom” goes so far as to allow deceptive infowarfare for political effect.
If the Judge allows the suit, it will be a very important clarification of press freedom to dupe the public. Based on established defamation law, since it is not a government prosecution CBS is facing, but only a private citizen lawsuit, my early read is that CBS cannot claim protection under the 1st Amendment — since that “press freedom” only prohibits prosecutions. It allows lawsuits.
That said, as a test case, this one leaves much to be desired, both because the ideal would be ordinary citizens as the plaintiffs, not a Presidential candidate….and because the tradecraft of deception is video editing, not something more esoteric like AI deepfakery.
Did he also file a lawsuit against FoxNews for their deceptive interview with trump?
Is your point that Trump is not the model plaintiff?….himself a paragon of shameless political deceptions?
Political deceptions are not a crime, they are not a tort. They are perfectly legal.
The best claim I think Trump might have – not having read the lawsuit is that the editing is an in kind campaign contribution.
That too is likely to be a loser.
Anyone who calls Trump the paragon of shameless political deception – does not live in the real world.
How can you tell someone on the left is lying ?
There lips are moving.
The left lies when it thinks it’s to its advantage (when its lips are moving). Trump lies defensively when something he’s responsible for is going sideways (but is remarkably candid otherwise). Two very different patterns of manipulative speech.
As to whether political deceptions are a tort, up to this point, you’re partially correct — they’ve not been….EXCEPT where defamation is an impact. The very existence of that exception going all the way back to English common law proves that 1st Amendment free speech is about constraining government’s power to quash dissenting viewpoints. It is more neutral about citizen vs. citizen disputes.
In our moral tradition, truth and falsehood clearly do not occupy the same status. This preference for truth is clearly reflected in our highly-evolved legal system, with its taking of testimony under oath, rejection of hearsay, stiff penalties for perjury, and unanimous finding-of-fact by jury after hearing adversarial presentations. Disputes of consequence are settled this way in court, with misperceptions and falsehoods effectively sidelined. Juries rarely err (although I have a major problem with grand jury process).
IMHO, Sullivan was a blunder on the part of the Warren Court. It cleared the way for character assassination of political candidates by activist journalists, and has significantly narrowed the pipeline of high achievers willing to run for leadership positions.
Realistically, Congress would have to pass Consequential Public Frauds legislation establishing a new category of torts. But, building the impetus could arise from early test cases, where the public feels its interests in trustworthy public political speech are being summarily ignored by Federal Judges. Knowing how change comes about in this country, it will take a monumental dupe of major negative consequence to move the needle.
And that is inevitable under the gathering storm of political infowarfare in the hands of PsyOps-savvy professionals working with sympathetic media.
“Trump lies defensively when something he’s responsible for is going sideways (but is remarkably candid otherwise). Two very different patterns of manipulative speech.”
Pbinca, you are upset that Trump was correct on most issues and that Trump’s logic was on target when his policy didn’t work out. That is why you can’t mention SIGNIFICANT lies of Trump while President, and you base your idea of what a lie is on what the NYT and Washington Post tell you. You need to recognize how faulty your positions have been.
Your lack of truthfulness, where DJT and TDS are concerned, makes your position on falsehoods, with which I have some agreement, fail.
S. Meyer: OK, just exactly WHAT issues was Trump “correct on”? Let’s start with COVID: “It’s one person coming from China; 15 cases will soon be 0 cases; it will go away when the weather warms up; you’ll be back in church by Easter; it’s no worse than the flu (actually, 10xs more deadly)”–were any of these things true–AND did he know they weren’t true when he told these lies? According to Bob Woodward, Trump admitted, on tape, that he KNEW they were lies when he uttered these things–but he lied because he didn’t know how to handle the crisis of COVID, and that he had been advised that there would be hundreds of thousands who would die. Bob Woodward has opined that the real test of a leader is having the courage to deliver bad news to the American people and to reassure them that there is a plan on how to handle it–like FDR did with his “fireside chats” when WWII started–he laid it on the line–lots of our boys would die, but freedom would prevail eventually.
How about: “Frankly we did win this election”—that whopper, told about 2:00 a.m. the morning after Election Day before all of the votes were counted, set the stage for the insurrection and cost the lives of several Capitol Police and Ashli Babbitt. Trump KNEW he lost when he told this one, but because he is mentally sick with malignant narcissism and therefore can never be wrong, he still tells this lie and substantial numbes of his followers still believe it. So, you have followers of a chronic, habitual liar who believe provably false lies and you accuse those of us who oppose this creature deranged?
How about addressing just these 2 lies, which he told when he was in office–not the tens of thousands of them he’s told since then. I did not need the NYT nor the Washington Post to tell me these things were very significant lies–and, why would you attack these newspapers over Trump and his lies? There’s lots of others, but how about addressing just these two?
“S. Meyer: OK, just exactly WHAT issues was Trump “correct on Let’s start with COVID:? ”
Gigi, that is one of your typical dumb questions: even today, there are only some answers to all the questions. Trump could have been better, but he was better than most. Trump said he could get the vaccines out in less than ~ five years and did it in ~ one.
“It’s one person coming from China; 15 cases will soon be 0 ”
According to the manual created by government agencies, that comment was correct. No one knew how many would die, if any.
I can only compare Trump to Biden.
Trump created an excellent economy, but Biden failed.
Trump sealed the Border, and Biden kept it wide open, so we now have criminals and criminal gangs killing people while women are being raped and cities destroyed because they cannot handle the social services required.
Trump started no new wars. The Biden administration has two hot ones on its hands and has brought the world closer to WW3 than ever before. Technically, can we say we are in WW3 today, though nukes haven’t been exchanged? Russia, China and Iran (now North Korea) are involved in the Ukrainian and Middle East wars. The US and other countries are involved. Troops from all these countries and others were killed on the battlefield. Why is that not considered a world war?
“cost the lives of several Capitol Police”
No Capitol police were killed on J6. The Capitol Police killed two protesters. Nancy Pelosi admitted guilt because she didn’t permit the 10,000 troops authorized by Trump.
“So, you have followers of a chronic, habitual liar who believe provably false lies and you accuse those of us who oppose this creature deranged?”
Until you can quote in context Trump’s lies, you are the liar and a deranged one at that.”
S. Meyer, I appreciate you commenting about what you think, but please don’t speak for me. Your mind-reading skills are highly inaccurate.
Pbinca, I am not mind-reading. I read what you write, which is what I know about you. You always have a chance to correct the record if it is wrong. Your record is clear on Trump, so I do not believe I veered off the truth. I provided proof in previous statements and questions. In the future, feel free to correct me. If not, live with what you are.
Interesting. This suit is not about an opinion. It is about an intentional lie perpetrated by those with a broadcast license. It will be interesting to observe the legal claims.
I am hard pressed to think of a potential claim that would survive summary judgement.
My thought is the best claim is in kind political contribution.
It is also possible that Trump is just trying to make a point.
There is no difference between CBS deceptively editing an embarrassing interview with Harris, than Trump paying to kill the Stormy Daniels story.
There is no crime or tort in either.
There are many ways to skin the cat if one is willing.
John, I don’t know of any laws they broke except moral laws involving truth. There are no specific laws against immorality, only crimes. However, this deserves an in-depth review of the law and a claim against their broadcast license and its renewal.
At the very least, CBS should be known as the liar network.
pbinca – I do not know the details of the Trump lawsuit – nor I doubt do you.
If as you claim it is based on some public frauds or defamation claim – it will be tossed quickly.
Trump has no claim to an injury – specifically to have been defamed.
This is NOT based on defamation law.
No the first amendment does not only prohibit prosecutions.
It prohibits actual infringement on the right to the free speech of another.
Regardless, the constitution is not a code of law for the conduct of individuals.
It is a code of conduct for the government.
I am not sure what Trump’s actual claim is – but if you claim it is defamation – it will be thrown out.
If it is some public frauds claim – it will be thrown out.
Here’s a link to the 18-page lawsuit filed. It’s based on “deceptive trade practices”:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EareOhPtnTw1IfzP0qwjRXNVSDwr9GCx/view
The contents of the laptop provided evidence supporting allegations that Hunter Biden unlawfully purchased a firearm in 2018 by falsely denying his drug use on a federal form. The end.
And that joe biden is a criminal
Jonathan: Well, the 2024 election has finally been decided. Forget the polls! Julia Roberts has just come out with an ad endorsing Kamala Harris!
And predicably, your comrades at Fox News were went crazy. They claim Roberts’s endorsement of Harris is a betrayal. Jesse Waters opined: “If I found out Emma [his wife?] was going to the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair”. Does Jesse think his wife is a closet lesbian? Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk thinks the whole idea of a wife voting for Harris is “nauseating” and “so gross”. In Kirk’s version of the “Handmaid’s Tale” a wife whose husband “works his tail off to make sure she can go you know and have a nice life”, that wife should not be allowed to vote in secret for Harris.
Got news for Jesse Waters and Charlie Kirk. We don’t live in the 18th century when a wife was virtually owned by her husband, and if single, by her father. Julia Roberts’s endorsement has struck a raw nerve with the MAGA faithful. That’s probably why Elon Musk is building a huge “compound” in Texas for his 11 children and their mothers–to try to more effectively control their lives. No doubt, if DJT wins the election he will bring Musk into his cabinet to be in charge of–what else, but the repeal of the 19th Amendment!
Oh Dennis you silly azz! Everyone knows Musk will be head of the Luftwaffe and Bannon the Goebbles propaganda master./s
I guess you need an IQ north of 80 to recognize humor.
Why dod you pretend to be so stupid, Dennis?
Virtually no one cares about endorsements – particularly those of actors.
The idea of voting for Harris is nauseating – but people are free to do nauseating things – you vomit all over this blog daily.
That is your right.
One of the reasons that mailin voting violates most states secret ballot requirements is that if Ballots come to peoples homes,
Their employers, their spouses, their children, their parents, their neighbors can try to influence their vote – and because this is no a secret ballot in a voting both in a precinct it is possible for others to KNOW how you voted, and to either induce or coerce your vote.
That is completely immoral – and democrats like you are for it.
If you do not want Wives votes being controlled by the husbands – do not allow ballots to leave the direct oversight of the state.
But as usual – you thoughtlessly create problems and then blame others.
No one is looking to go back to the 18th century, or the 19th or even the 20th.
We are just looking to put and end to the woke garbage that democrats have foist on us since 2008.
It is always amusing what YOU care about. It is never things that most other people care about.
You do not care about jokes offensive to mexicans told at a Walz rally, But you are through the roof
over jokes at a Trump rally.
Democrats say and then do things that are ACTUALLY fascist – not a word from you.
While you wast hours trying to deceptively edit off the cuff remarks by Trump and then make claims about altered remarks that are simply false.
Harris SuprePACs are telling her the Nazi remarks are Bombing – so YOU go all Nazi, Nazi, Nazi.
You should seek help – you do not live in the world that normal humans do.
The deplorables, the garbage, desparately klinging to their guns and bibles.
I can find nothing on Fox about a Julia Roberts endorsement – not questioning that it happened.
Only that Fox or anyone else cares.
Charlie Kirk’s observation was correct and had nothing at all to do with wives or women.
I do not especially care what Kirk and Waters say either, but the least YOU could do is not lie.
“Michael Flynn, a national security advisor under then-President Donald Trump, ominously predicted election-related violence in a recent interview and urged Trump to declare victory before the full results of the presidential election are known.”
If anyone has any doubts of the fascists tendencies of trump and his sycophants, just listen to them talk.
How does one declare victory before the results are in?
Is that the same General Micheal Flynn the FBI altered their investigation interview records to report lying and then Obamas DOJ deepstate indicted him? That Mike Flynn? I hope Trump sticks it up their arses so far he hits grey matter!
Fascist sycophant. ^^^^
Everyone is afraid of violence. Those on the left have been sold a bill of goods with Harris and the nuts view that she can win.
It is highly unlikely that is happening.
Right now I – and lots of others – Flynn included are praying for a landslide – the most likely outcome is a trump landslide, but a Harris landslide will do.
If Trump wins as he did in 2016 – the left will go on the warpath. As they did in 2016 – only much worse.,.
The violence will be worse the closer the election is.
If Trump wins we will get years of “It was the Russians” and other nonsense. ‘
If Trump is winning at midnight Tuesday – and 3 days later millions of Harris votes are found – you can expect a great deal of distrust and possibly violence from half the country.
The left cheats. We all know it. We are all hoping that Trump’s margin of victory is fraud proof.
And that is likely.
Republicans are also doing a much better job of Thwarting left wing fraud – there will still be alot, but likely less than half of 2020.
Various states are trying to prepare us for long counts.
Voters should have figuratively burned those state legislatures down over the past 4 years and demanded elections whose results were known immediately.
Most of the world can do that. The US could do that through my lifetime.
But left wing nuts need days to pull together their fraud machines.
Any election that takes more than 24hrs to count – should be presumed to be fraudulent.
The Germans had no role to play in WW1 and WW2?
Getting bombed should be a consequence of violating international law.
What the hell does drinking cooking sherry till your sloshed have to do with International Law?!!
Why is Russia still in the United Nations?
That’s like letting Nazi Germany be in the League of Nations.
Democrats won WW1 and WW2.
Republicans lost the Vietnam War.
Democrats also got us into all 3.
No, the Germans did.
Breaking News! The Germans got the United States into Vietnam. News at 11.
Yea the germans attacked pearl harbor. Spastic idiot.
I would suggest reading “The Guns of August” regarding the origens of WWI – it is far more complex than “the germans did it”.
As to WWII – the Brits and French had half a dozen oportunities to stop Hitler that they botched.
I agree the origins of WWI are many, the German “blank check” to Austria-Hungry certainly didn’t help the situation.
“Democrats also got us into all 3.”
So what you’re saying is, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor you would have just let them get away with it. Total Trumptard move.
^^ Idiot ^^
* Democrats is a stolen name from the real Democrats. Of course it’s stolen. What else do they do?
Democrats lie almost as much as Trump.
You obviously have no understanding of the Vietnam War. LBJ started it on false pretenses and did not run for reelection because of his failures. The pubic was strongly opposed to the war. Nixon ended the war in Paris.
Sorry, no. Kennedy and McNamara sent training troops and others to Vietnam, thinking to win hearts and minds, in the same era that they were planning the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. Johnson had the distinction of claiming, before the 1964 election, that Goldwater would lead the US into war, and then, once elected, expanding the war effort in Vietnam. Kennedy also seems to have planned or condoned the assassination of the Vietnamese president only a few weeks before Kennedy himself was killed by a recent visitor to both Moscow and Havana. Somehow the Left always wants to let Kennedy off the hook.
If Russians and North Koreans are on Ukrainian soil without the consent or permission of the Ukrainians, then this is a violation of international law. Boom goes the dynamite.
The solution to the problem of Russians and North Koreans in Ukraine is to bomb all of your problems away. Issuing speeches and statements and condemnations won’t cut it. It is folly to think that it ever would.
Facebook is so passé. I never joined FB and am always surprised to learn people still use it. Podcasts and X/Twitter are America’s best source for news and interviews
The JD Vance interview by Joe Rogan is a home run for Americans. What a delight to hear JD speak unscripted, extemporaneously, into a mic sitting across the table with a professional interviewer who lets nothing slide. All Americans should watch/hear the Rogan/Vance interview to get to know JD Vance unvarnished. And he’s only 40 years of age. He makes Kamala/Walz look like chumps. No wonder the Democrats loathe him because he believes the Woke movement is a religious movement and a grave threat to America. That and Democrats loathe everyone not on their side.
“…he believes the Woke movement is a religious movement and a grave threat to America…”
I find wokeness annoying. But, name one thing due to wokeness that has taken bread off your table.
$6T on green new deal, passed without a single repub vote
Could you ask a challenging question next time?
I find racial hatred more than annoying when it is directed at me and mine. Critical Race Theory is all about organizing and rationalizing racial hatreds for political ends.
Inflation
Green New Deal, wait times at hospitals due to illegals, inflation, the price of gas.