Reading archive 2020-11-01

Biden camp cancels multiple Texas events after a "Trump Train" surrounded a campaign bus: The highway skirmish came as Democrats close ground in a state that is polling competitively in the race for president. Recent polls indicate the presidential race in Texas between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is tight, with some national prognosticators calling it a “toss-up.”

March to Alamance polls ends with police using pepper-spray on protesters, children

Maria Bartiromo Was a Generational Icon for Financial Television. What Happened?

What Happened to Glenn Greenwald? - "At face value one wonders how Greenwald, who made such a name for himself as an opponent to the national security state, and who lives as a prominent gay journalist, married to a Socialist congressman, in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, can now spend so much time and energy effectively running cover for the American fascist right."

Battle-hymn of the Never Trumpers: Renegade Republicans represent the breadth—and the admirable best—of Joe Biden’s coalition

Trump allies, largely unconstrained by Facebook’s rules against repeated falsehoods, cement pre-election dominance: From a pro-Trump super PAC to the president’s eldest son, conservatives have blown past Facebook’s fact-checking guardrails, with few consequences.

Facebook Fired An Employee Who Collected Evidence Of Right-Wing Pages Getting Preferential Treatment: Facebook employees collected evidence showing the company is giving right-wing pages preferential treatment when it comes to misinformation. And they’re worried about how the company will handle the president’s falsehoods in an election year. - "While there are signs Facebook will stand up to Trump in cases where he violates its rules — as on Wednesday when it removed a video post from the president in which he claimed that children are 'almost immune' to COVID-19 — there are others who suggest the company is caving to critical voices on the right. In another recent Workplace post, a senior engineer collected internal evidence that showed Facebook was giving preferential treatment to prominent conservative accounts to help them remove fact-checks from their content. 

"The company responded by removing his post and restricting internal access to the information he cited. On Wednesday the engineer was fired, according to internal posts seen by BuzzFeed News.

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"On July 22, a Facebook employee posted a message to the company’s internal misinformation policy group noting that some misinformation strikes against Breitbart had been cleared by someone at Facebook seemingly acting on the publication's behalf. 'A Breitbart escalation marked ‘urgent: end of day’ was resolved on the same day, with all misinformation strikes against Breitbart’s page and against their domain cleared without explanation,' the employee wrote."

Trailing in the polls, Trump enlists his administration and co-opts the government to bolster his reelection