Tag: internet
With Social Post Crowning Himself 'King,' Trump Provokes Internet Fury

With Social Post Crowning Himself 'King,' Trump Provokes Internet Fury

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump called himself a "king" on his social media platforms. Now, journalists, commentators and academics are sounding the alarm about the second-term president's apparent embrace of monarchy.

Trump initially used the term "king" on his Truth Social platform, in a post about New York City's "congestion pricing" tolls. That policy imposes a toll on drivers entering Manhattan during peak commuting hours as a means of decreasing traffic jams in the United States' largest city. The New York Times reported that Trump intends to revoke federal approval of congestion pricing, though the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York (MTA) has already announced litigation to keep the policy in place.

"CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD," Trump wrote. "Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"

"We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king," New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote when announcing the MTA's intent to sue. "We'll see you in court."

A few minutes later, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted an AI-generated image of Trump wearing a crown and a cloak with the New York City skyline in the background, with Trump's "LONG LIVE THE KING" Truth Social post underneath. And shortly after, the official White House X account reposted the text of Trump's Truth Social post, and added an image of Trump wearing a gold crown and the text "LONG LIVE THE KING" at the bottom. Numerous commenters on social media condemned the president's posts.

"This is revoltingly un-American," Bulwark executive editor Adam Keiper wrote on Bluesky.

Keiper followed up his post by quoting President George Washington, who admonished a Revolutionary War colonel who suggested Washington coronate himself. The first president of the United States wrote: "I must view with abhorrence, and reprehend with severity [the idea]." Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo reminded her followers that the United States was literally founded by "violently rebelling against a king." Political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen lamented the Trump administration's pro-monarchy stance, writing: "They're not even hiding it." And Gizmodo reporter Matt Novak wryly commented that Trump was "not talking about Elvis."

"Donald Trump is openly calling himself a king," wrote YouTube host Keith Edwards. "Any Republican who pretends they don't know where this is going is lying to you."

University of Michigan policy professor Don Moynihan observed that the post came on the same day that Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" and falsely accused him of starting the war with Russia despite Russia invading Ukraine in 2022 (eight years after its illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula).

"Every member of the news media needs to ask every Republican, elected or not, if they believe Donald Trump is their king," podcaster Bob Cesca wrote on Bluesky.

Trump's "king" post also comes just a few days after he quoted Napoleon Bonaparte when he wrote: "He who saves his country does not violate any law." Former FBI counterterrorism official Frank Figliuzzi noted that the Napoleon quote was more recently used by far-right neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Breivik, who massacred 78 people in Norway in 2011 after writing a 1,500-page manifesto blaming feminism and diversity for the decline of Europe.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ex-FBI Official: Defense Lawyer's Notes Show Trump Had 'Criminal Intent'

Ex-FBI Official: Defense Lawyer's Notes Show Trump Had 'Criminal Intent'

Former President Donald Trump and his defense team have made a wide range of arguments against special counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents case, from claiming that any government material he had at his South Florida estate had been declassified to saying that Smith was improperly appointed because he wasn't approved by the U.S. Senate.

Smith has also been fighting with Trump's legal team over audio notes that former Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran made of his conversations with the former president in 2022 before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.

Trump's lawyers want Corcoran's notes tossed out as evidence — an idea that Smith vehemently opposes.

Former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi is arguing that the notes show "criminal intent" on Trump's part.

In a June 25 post on X, formerly Twitter, Figliuzzi wrote, "This is what we call criminal intent. Trump asks Judge Cannon to toss it: Donald Trump expressed concern that returning classified docs after subpoena could result in criminal charges, sealed notes say - ABC7 Chicago."

That day, Judge Aileen Cannon — the Trump appointee assigned to the case — held a hearing on the notes' admissibility as evidence.

Newsweek's Sean O'Driscoll reports, "In one conversation, Trump allegedly said that he didn't want to hand over classified documents to authorities because it would open 'new fronts' for his enemies to prosecute him."

O'Driscoll points out that after a May 2022 meeting, Corcoran said of Trump, "He raised a question as to, if we gave them additional documents now, would they, would they, the Department of Justice, come back and say well, why did you withhold them and try to use that as a basis for criminal liability or to make him look bad in the press."

In his notes, the attorney said that Trump "repeated many times that he felt he was really being targeted."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Can Musk Monetize Twitter Users To Replace Lost Ad Revenue?

Can Musk Monetize Twitter Users To Replace Lost Ad Revenue?

San Francisco (AFP) - Is it a pipe dream or possibility? Elon Musk wants to diversify Twitter's revenue stream beyond advertising, a feat none of the biggest social networks have yet pulled off.

Something of a gold standard, social media ads can be fine-tuned and tailored to individual users on a mass scale, and have been particularly lucrative for Meta's Facebook and Instagram, as well as Google.

"Facebook pretty much set the standard for having an ad model for social networks," said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence. "But that doesn't necessarily have to be the way that social platforms monetize."

Social networks are facing budget cuts from inflation-afflicted advertisers and increased regulations on the use of lucrative personal data, so it makes sense for them "to be exploring new, non-ad monetization techniques," she said.

The issue is delicate for Twitter, whose turnover is 90 percent dependent on advertising. Advertisers, on the other hand, do not necessarily need Twitter and can turn to other social networks.

The advertising situation at Twitter has been particularly dire since Musk took over the company in late October.

In recent weeks, half of Twitter's 100 top advertisers have announced they are suspending or have otherwise "seemingly stopped advertising on Twitter," an analysis conducted by nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters found.

They fear being associated with toxic content as Musk, who describes himself as a "free speech absolutist," advocates for laxer moderation.

Alternate solutions

Social media sites are testing two alternate solutions in particular: charging everyday users and charging content creators.

The forum platform Reddit has deployed a hybrid model, making money via advertising, paid subscriptions and digital coins that allow users access to special privileges.

That said, "It's always hard to charge for something that used to be free," said Carolina Milanesi of research firm Creative Strategies.

"Unless you give something different or create a different product, you can't go from not charging to charging," she said.

While Twitter has been offering a paid subscription with additional features since last year, Musk aimed to raise the price to $8 a month and include account verification in the plan's perks.

A partial launch was chaotic, however, and prompted the proliferation of so many fake accounts that the rollout of so-called Twitter Blue has now been paused.

"Figuring out a way to charge users for premium features and make money off of users is not a bad idea," Enberg said.

But she said the benefits Twitter offered may not have been enticing enough, and that the verification aspect should be more of a security feature than a monetizable feature.

Finally, because paid subscribers -- arguably the most active on the network -- would see 50 percent less advertising than non-paying users, the plan would "dilute the quality and the size of the addressable audience for advertisers."

Some newer platforms are trying to do without advertising altogether, with no guarantee of long-term viability.

For example, on Discord, a live-discussion social network, subscribers have access to more emoticons.

And on the fledgling photo-sharing app BeReal, users can escape ads with in-app purchases for extra features, according to the Financial Times.

'Big-Name Influencers'

Twitter had some 230 million daily active users as of June, and Musk continues to congratulate himself on growing that number since taking over.

But increased users do not necessarily translate into dollars.

Snapchat, which also launched a paid version in June, has gained more and more users, but not necessarily money.

Faced with this reality, platforms are competing for content creators to attract and retain audiences -- and either taking commission or making them pay for the promotion of their messages and videos.

This represents "a really big opportunity" for Twitter, Enberg said.

Twitter "does have a lot of celebrities and big-name influencers, politicians and journalists" with whom it could form a mutually financially beneficial relationship, she said.

Milanesi added that while the network already offers some promotional tools, they are "quite expensive, and not very effective."

Reporters Group: Online Media Fuel Political Polarization​​ And Global Tensions

Reporters Group: Online Media Fuel Political Polarization​​ And Global Tensions

London (AFP) - Unregulated online content has spread disinformation and propaganda that have amplified political divisions, fanned international tensions and even contributed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a media watchdog said Tuesday.

Reporters Without Borders, widely known by its French acronym RSF, presented its findings in the 2022 edition of its annual World Press Freedom Index.

Democratic societies, it said, are increasingly fractured by social media spreading disinformation and media pursuing a "Fox News model", referring to the controversial US right-wing television network.

Autocratic regimes meanwhile tightly control information within their societies, using their leveraged position to wage "propaganda wars" against democracies and fuel divisions within them.

Such polarization is becoming more "extreme," worldwide, RSF's director of operations and campaigns Rebecca Vincent told a news conference in London.

She pointed to the deaths of journalists in the Netherlands and Greece as well as the case of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who risks extradition and trial in the US for the publication of secret files.

The report showed how Russia, where state-run media overwhelmingly dominates and independent outlets are largely stifled, waged a propaganda war before its invasion of Ukraine.

Evgeniya Dillendorf, a correspondent for the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, said the main reason for lack of media diversity in Russia "is not pressure but lack of independent business which would finance it, and the lack of independent judicial system that would defend it".

Novaya Gazeta has suspended publication for the duration of Moscow's military intervention to avoid being shut down.

"The creation of media weaponry in authoritarian countries eliminates their citizens' right to information but is also linked to the rise in international tension, which can lead to the worst kind of wars," RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said.

The "Fox News-isation" of Western media also posed a "fatal danger for democracies because it undermines the basis of civil harmony and tolerant public debate", he added.

Deloire urged countries to adopt legal frameworks to protect democratic online information spaces.

Record 'Very Bad'

The situation is "very bad" in a record 28 countries, according to this year's ranking of 180 countries and regions.

The lowest ranked were North Korea (180th), Eritrea (179th) and Iran (178th), with Myanmar (176th) and China (175th) close behind.

Russia (155th) and its ally Belarus (153rd) were also among the most repressive.

Based on the previous calendar year, this does not reflect Russia's massive media crackdown since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

Hong Kong's position plummeted dozens of places to 148th, reflecting Beijing's efforts to use "its legislative arsenal to confine its population and cut it off from the rest of the world", RSF said.

"It is the biggest downfall of the year, but it is fully deserved due to the consistent attacks on freedom of the press and the slow disappearance of the rule of law in Hong Kong," Cedric Alviani, head of RSF's Taiwan-based East Asia bureau, told AFP.

Just eight countries were ranked as "good", down from 12 last year.

Nordic countries Norway, Denmark and Sweden again topped the index, while the Netherlands fell from sixth to 28th after top crime reporter, Peter R. de Vries, was gunned down on an Amsterdam street last July.

The Free Press Unlimited group called the fall in the Netherlands "alarming news" and unprecedented, as the country had always been in the top 10 since 2002.

RSF commended Moldova (40th) and Bulgaria (91st) this year due to government changes and "the hope it has brought for improvement in the situation for journalists".

But it noted "oligarchs still own or control the media" in both.

Media polarization was "feeding and reinforcing internal social divisions in democratic societies" such as the United States (42nd), it said.

That trend was even starker in "illiberal democracies" such as Poland (66th), a European Union country where RSF noted suppression of independent media.

The NGO, launched in 1985 and which has published the yearly index since 2002, has become a thorn in the side of autocratic and despotic regimes around the world.

This year's listing used five new indicators to define press freedom -- political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context, and security -- to reflect its "complexity".

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