US law enforcement contacted us about online activity that they recently discovered and believe may be linked to foreign entities.
A major, two-night investigation of the powerful social media platform’s impact on privacy and democracy in the U.S. and around the world.
SEASON 37: EPISODE 4: The promise of Facebook was to create a more open and connected world. But from the company’s failure to protect millions of users’ data, to the proliferation of “fake news” and disinformation, mounting crises have raised the question: Is Facebook more harmful than helpful? On Monday, Oct. 29, and Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, FRONTLINE presents The Facebook Dilemma. This major, two-night event investigates a series of warnings to Facebook as the company grew from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room to a global empire. With dozens of original interviews and rare footage, The Facebook Dilemma examines the powerful social media platform’s impact on privacy and democracy in the U.S. and around the world.
I’m not quite sure what to label this particular type of failure. Tragedy of the commons? It’s painfully obvious that Facebook not only has no real idea how to solve this problem, but it’s even more telling that they don’t seem to have any desire or drive to solve it either. The more I watch what they’re doing to their product and their users, the more I think that they have absolutely no ethics or morality at all. In particular Mark Zuckerberg is completely tone deaf in these areas, and as a result the entire fish stinks from the head.
The only solution may be massive regulation. The sadder part is that with both their financing and lobbying power, not to mention their social influence power which could be leveraged completely via dark posts, they could have a painfully out-sized influence on elections to get their own way.
I’m really worried that things will get far worse before they get better.
The story of the former Trump campaign chairman and his ties to foreign governments begins long before the 2016 election.
WE LIVE AT A TIME WHEN JOURNALISM can land with great force. The epic investigation published Tuesday by The New York Times, on the fraud that is the Trump family business, is such a story. The piece, which took three reporters—David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner—18 months, 15,000 words, and eight pages in the print edition, has been roundly, and rightly, praised. One of its great benefits, to my mind, is that it transcends the headlines of the day, focusing on an elemental, fundamental aspect of this man and this presidency that, it turns out, is even more divorced from our common understanding than we might have previously thought. It is an example of journalism as long game, a sport that more of us need to be playing.
Hours after the presidential summit meeting in Helsinki, news broke of the arrest of Maria Butina, a Russian woman charged with conspiring to influence American politics.
In a remarkable news conference, President Trump avoided criticizing the Russian president, and instead aimed his sharpest barbs at the United States.
In the eight days between the firing of James Comey and the appointment of Robert Mueller, the deputy attorney general faced a crisis.
For two years, Americans have tried to absorb the details of the 2016 attack: spies, leaked emails, social media fraud — and President Trump’s claims that it’s all a hoax. The Times explores what we know and what it means.
Did they err? Or did they lie?
Six weeks ago, CNN broke a blockbuster story: According to several anonymous sources, President Trump had advance knowledge of the infamous Trump Tower meeting. It was a potential smoking gun, until one of those sources — Lanny Davis, attorney for Michael Cohen — recanted.
Beyond that headache for CNN, there was another. The original article had claimed, "Contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment." Depending on how you understand the word "comment," and depending your general disposition, that claim could be technically true or woefully, mendaciously disingenuous. Bob spoke with Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi about the implications — and dangers — of this latest media mishap.
Philip Bump (Washington Post)Trump likes to complain about the cost of the Mueller probe. It might just have paid for itself.
Republicans believe the move will permanently taint the Trump-Russia investigation.
"The president of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could," a lawyer for Papadopoulos said.
Even though the U.S. President called it "an incredible offer"
President Trump has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the F.B.I. infiltrated his campaign in 2016 for political purposes. In response, the department granted the president’s team access to highly classified information from the special counsel’s Russia investigation. What’s behind this decision?
On today’s episode:
• Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers the White House for The New York Times.
Background reading:
• In a series of tweets on Sunday, President Trump demanded an investigation into whether an F.B.I. informant “infiltrated or surveilled” his campaign. The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to accommodate the president’s wishes by expanding an existing inquiry.
• The president’s tweets referred to a Times report about Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, examining whether countries other than Russia, including Saudi Arabia, had offered assistance to the Trump campaign.
• After a White House meeting on Monday, intelligence and law enforcement officials agreed to disclose some sensitive documents from the Russia investigation to Republican congressional leaders.