Tag: g7

Briefings

Background Briefing: May 5, 2021

On By gram

 

Facebook’s Non-Decision on Making its Ban of Trump Permanent

We begin with the decision or non-decision by Facebook to maintain its ban against Donald Trump on its platform which was enacted on January 7, the day after the attack on the Capitol that Trump instigated. Michael Hiltzik, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and columnist at The Los Angeles Times who writes the twice weekly “Golden State” column and is the author of Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America, joins us. We discuss his latest column at The Los Angeles Times, “Facebook’s non-decision on banning Trump does no one any good” and how Zuckerberg punted in handing the decision to ban Trump to the Facebook Oversight Board which in turn upheld the ban but punted on the most important decision to make the ban temporary or permanent as is the case with Twitter’s banning of Trump. With Facebook unwilling to take responsibility for the enormous power it has as the main conduit for news and information, its efforts at content moderation are at best cosmetic since Trump is now leading a movement based on lies to overturn a democratic election and only a concerted defense of facts and truth can save American democracy from further ruination from this wannabe dictator.

 

The G7 Decides to Fight Disinformation From Russia and China

Then, with the G7 foreign ministers meeting in London committing their collective capabilities to fight disinformation from Russia and China and strengthening ties to its so-called “Rapid Response Mechanism” to rebut lies and propaganda, we speak with a specialist of Russian disinformation, propaganda and information warfare, Natalie Manaeva Rice, Research Associate at the Center for Information and Communication Studies at the University of Tennessee. We also assess the military standoff between Russia and Ukraine where Secretary of State Blinken has a day of meetings in Kyiv on Thursday.

 

How Could the American Left Allow the Republicans to Become the Party of the Working Class?

Then finally we speak with Ben Burgis, a philosophy instructor at Georgia State University and a columnist for Jacobin Magazine who is the co-host of the Dead Pundits Society podcast. He joins us to discuss his new book, just out, Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique Of The Contemporary Left and we examine how the Republicans are trying to position themselves as the party of the working class which is an indication of how the American left needs to get its act together.