Persona non grata

If Julian Assange was hoping that Donald Trump might display an iota of gratitude or loyalty towards him, given the role that Wikileaks played in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, then those hopes should have died today, after the embattled U.S. President threw the Wikileaks founder under the bus in what's come to be recognizable as Trump's singular style.

Besos on scrutiny

I'd written before about how Facebook's lack of ethics, morals, truthfulness, and accountability simply had no parallel in other FAANG companies. Here's a quote from Amazon's Jeff Besos that throws that difference into sharp relief, from CNBC:

This isn't the first time that Bezos has addresssed the issue of his company's scale with employees. In an earlier all-hands meeting in March, Bezos was asked whether tech companies like Amazon need to be more closely regulated because of their sizable market power and influence.

"It's a fact that we're a large company," Bezos said, according to a recording. "It's reasonable for large institutions of any kind, whether it be companies or governments, to be scrutinized."

[...]

Bezos said at the March employee meeting that the best way to respond to increased scrutiny is to "conduct ourselves in such a way that when we are scrutinized we will pass with flying colors."

It's an old-fashioned notion, isn't it?

The return of Jim Acosta

It looks like the U.S. court system isn't done pushing back against the unconstitutional excesses of Trump. As reported by CBC News:

A U.S. federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acosta's credentials to cover the White House.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly announced his decision following a hearing in Washington. The judge said Acosta's credentials would be returned immediately and reactivated to allow him access to the White House.

CNN had asked the judge to force the White House to immediately hand back the credentials that give Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, access to the complex for media briefings and other events. CNN asked for Acosta's credentials restored while a lawsuit over his credentials' revocation goes forward.

[...]

The judge said the government could not say who initially decided to revoke Acosta's hard pass.

The White House had spelled out its reasons for revoking his credentials in a tweet from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and in a statement after CNN filed its lawsuit. But the judge said those "belated efforts were hardly sufficient to satisfy due process."

The judge also found that Acosta suffered "irreparable harm," dismissing the government's argument that CNN could just send other reporters to cover the White House in Acosta's place.

Good.

I've said before that Trump is in the process of doing generational damage to every institution within the United States, and to their place on the world stage, but no part of his selfish, short-sighted corruptness is as corrupting as his assaults on the very idea of verifiable facts, the existence of objective truth, and the necessity of a free press to the functioning of democracy. Trump may well be desperate to avoid scutiny and silence criticism, but he absolutely cannot be allowed to succeed in doing so. It's heartening to see that some of the checks and balances that are in place, precisely to keep bad Presidents in check, actually are working.

Stop me if you've heard this one...

Originally posted on the Anti-Hype Machine.

Under pressure over the NY Times' bombshell story detailing Facebook's own campaign of anti-Semitic disinformation which they pursued in order to deflect criticism over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg offered a truly defense in response. In essence, he claimed:

1. the everybody knew that Facebook had employed Definers Media (i.e. nothing to see here);
2. that he himself didn't know that Facebook was employing Definers (i.e. it wasn't me);
3. that an un-named comms staffer had actually decided key details of Facebook's damage-control/PR strategy, apparently without anyone signing off on it (this, after testifying before Congress about how he "took full responsibility for" exactly this sort of decision-making at Facebook); and
4. that Facebook had now cut ties with Definers, literally yesterday (i.e. now that we all know about their shady business, they'd like to be seen doing a right thing).

As reported by Gizmodo:

Today, Facebook set up a press conference addressing a bombshell report from The New York Times that alleged, among other things, that the company contracted a Republican opposition research firm called Definers to run interference on the company’s image, a job which reportedly included leaning on George Soros conspiracy theories.

On the call, Mark Zuckerberg claimed he only found out the group was working for Facebook yesterday—which would mean the CEO learned about his company’s dealings well after most reporters.

Facebook ended its relationship with Definers yesterday, following backlash from the public as well as from the president of the Open Societies Foundation: one of the groups run by Soros, who has been a frequent target of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. In the wake of that abrupt dismissal, Facebook published a rebuttal which included the following statement:

Our relationship with Definers was well known by the media – not least because they have on several occasions sent out invitations to hundreds of journalists about important press calls on our behalf.

“Me personally, I didn’t know we were working with them,” Zuckerberg said during today’s Q&A. [...] Who would have known or approved of such a relationship? Zuckerberg, who previously stated that personnel matters are outside the purview of public disclosure, pinned the blame on “someone on our comms team.”

At this point, I can't help but wonder if anyone in Facebook's senior leadership had any idea what ethics even are. They've certainly behaved with reckless disregard for the truth, and utter contempt for the consequences of their decisions, with such consistency and for so long that I can no longer believe anything that they say without supporting documentation. Zuckerberg, personally, has done almost nothing but hide the truth and deflect criticism, all while espousing his own commitment to transparency, love of facts, and personal qualities of responsible leadership. The extent of the cynical hypocrisy on display here is simply breathtaking.

And I'm far from being the only person who's not buying it anymore.

This week in Facebook

Originally posted on the Anti-Hype Machine.

It's shaping up to be another bad week for Mark Zuckerberg.

The NY Times have published a blockbuster piece, reporting that Facebook were not only fighting the spread of fake news on their service, but actually spreading some fake news of their own: in particular, to paint their wave of post-Cambridge Analytica negative PR as some sort of George Soros-funded anti-Facebook conspiracy.

[As] evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

This means that Facebook funded anti-Semitic propaganda for no other reason that petty material self-interest. Which means that Facebook now have real blood on their hands, after a wave of anti-Semitic social media content on their own site helped inspire one of the worst incidents of anti-Semitic mass murder in U.S. history. And Jews weren't the only targets of Facebook's fake news campaign.

The importance of objective truth

If you were wondering just why Justin Trudeau has remained so popular, both at home and around the world, in spite of all the political headwinds he has faced at home in Canada, from Trump in the U.S., I suggest you watch this statement of principle on how necessary it is for democracy that we have a fact-based media capable of identifying objectively verifiable facts, and able to speak truth to power on behalf of the nation's citizens. As reported by CBC News:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a press freedom event in Paris Sunday that one of the bulwarks protecting democratic governments from being undermined is also an institution under stress — a free-thinking, robust media.

"If a democracy is to function you need an educated populace, and you need to have an informed populace, ready to make judicious decisions about who to grant power to and when to take it away," Trudeau said.

"When citizens cannot have rigorous analysis of the exercise of the power that is in their name and they have granted, the rest of the foundation of our democracies start to erode at the same time as cynicism arises."