donal brown

After it emerged that the suspect in the Buffalo shooting rampage was an adherent of “replacement theory” that there is a conspiracy to replace native-born Americans with non-white immigrants, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced Rupert Murdock and Fox News for “reckless amplification” of the theory. (Deadline, May 17, 2022, by Ted Johnson) Columnist Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post, May 17, 2022, writes that the rampage “was fueled by a burgeoning ideology of the radical

Online attacks have derailed Homeland Security’s effort to fight false information related to homeland security. The new head of the Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, a leading expert in disinformation and extremism, resigned under an avalanche of harassment and abuse. (The Washington Post, May 18, 2022, by Taylor Lorenz) “These smears leveled by bad-faith, right wing actors against a deeply qualified expert and against efforts to better combat human smuggling and domestic terrorism are disgusting,

The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, introduced in the Senate and passed by the House Judiciary Committee, would require an ethics code and stronger recusal rules, transparency for Justice’s finances and a view of the ways lobbyists and dark money attempt to sway the Court. (End Citizens United, May 16, 2022, press release) “At a time when the judiciary has outsized power — over our personal privacy and health care decisions, over who

With Elon Musk asserting his ideas of turning Twitter into a free speech haven, the Buffalo shooting demonstrates the importance of moderating content on the social media. In the wake of the shooting, the social media companies worked hard to remove posts that were legal but in violation of their policies.They included posts of the shooting and the shooter’s racist diatribe. (The Washington Post, May 18, 2022, by Will Oremus) For related FAC coverage, click