DENVER: When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $400 million to help fund election offices as they scrambled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic late last summer, he said he hoped he would never have to do it again.
Republican legislatures are granting him that wish.
At least eight GOP-controlled states have passed bans on donations to election offices this year as Republicans try to block outside funding of voting operations. The legislation often comes as part of Republican packages that also put new limits on how voters can cast ballots and impose new requirements on county or city-based election officials.
The response is spurred by anger and suspicion on the right that Zuckerberg’s money benefited Democrats in 2020. Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation.
Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through a nonpartisan foundation that had liberal roots. Conservative groups cite analyzes that the money went disproportionately to Democratic-leaning counties in key states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.
“People saw that, and looked around, and they were increasingly concerned about why would you have a billionaire funding our elections through the backdoor,” said Jessica Anderson, executive director of the conservative group Heritage Action, which has pushed the bans in several states.
But many election officials say that effort short-sighted and fueled by paranoia. Election offices, they argue, are chronically underfunded and now cannot benefit from donations that still flow to so many other branches of government, including police, schools and libraries.
Furthermore, they say there is no sign of favoritism in the distribution of the grants from Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Elections are more expensive in populous urban areas, and especially more so last year, when states scrambled to shift to mail voting to deal with the pandemic. Metro areas had to buy expensive equipment to open and sort mail ballots, a task that smaller, more GOP-leaning counties could do by hand or with less gear.
Also, Republican-leaning areas were already discouraged from accepting election grants due to conservative suspicion of Zuckerberg. The Republican attorney general of Louisiana last year ordered his state’s election offices to turn down grants from the nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which distributed $350 million of the Zuckerberg money.
“Every election department that applied, received funding,” said CTCL’s executive director, Tiana Epps-Johnson, adding that the distribution of the money “reflects those who chose to apply.”
A spokesman for Zuckerberg declined to address the wave of new legislation.
“When our nation’s election infrastructure faced unprecedented challenges last year due to the pandemic, Mark and Priscilla stepped up to close a funding gap and granted $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonpartisan, 501 (c)(3) organization,” said Ben LaBolt. “Mark made clear this was a unique effort to address the unprecedented challenge of the pandemic and his preference for elections to be publicly funded.”
The center distributed grants to 2,500 election offices nationwide, from Alaska to Florida. The money was spent in a wide variety of ways — protective gear for poll workers, public education campaigns promoting new methods to vote during the pandemic, and new trucks to haul voting equipment.
In northern Arizona, sprawling Coconino County used its $614,000 grant to hire more election workers, particularly Navajo speakers who could do outreach on a reservation, and set up drive-up sites for voters to drop off ballots, said county recorder Patty Hansen.
She said it was the first time she had enough money to expand outreach to the entire county, which is among the biggest in land size in the country at 18,600 square miles but is sparsely populated.
“Because of the legislation passed and signed by the governor, we will never be able to get a grant like that ever again,” she said. “They’re cutting off a funding source to be able to provide these additional requirements they’re putting on us.”
Election officials have long complained they were underfunded, but never more so than last year when they had to instantly revamp their entire operations at the peak of the pandemic. There was a huge shift to mail voting, while even in-person voting required new protective measures, and hazard pay for poll workers.
Democrats pushed for an extra $2 billion for election offices in the initial coronavirus aid bill in April but only got $400 million. After a spring and summer of troubled primaries and partisan deadlock over more funding, Zuckerberg stepped in. He and Chan donated a total of $400 million to election offices — $350 million in the form of grants to local offices that were distributed through CTCL.
The selection of CTCL raised eyebrows among some conservatives because of the group’s roots. Some of its founders, including Epps-Johnson, once were at the New Organizing Institute, which provided data and training to liberal activists Still, CTCL has become respected among election officials and includes a Republican, Pam Anderson, former elected clerk of a suburban Denver-area county, on its board. In an interview, she said the group was “100 percent nonpartisan.”
Other Republican election officials have also vouched for the impartiality of the program. “I don’t see why governments should be barred from trying to work with the private sector in securing grant funds,” said Brian Mead, a Republican election director in Licking County, Ohio, outside Columbus, which received $77,000 from CTCL. “If we can work with the private sector and secure funds where we save our taxpayers money, I think that’s a good thing,” Mead said.
That did not mollify conservatives, especially after the initial grants went to major, Democratic-voting cities. In Pennsylvania, one of the central battlegrounds of the presidential election, Philadelphia, with an annual election budget of $12.3 million, received $10 million from CTCL. The conservative Foundation for Government Accountability found that in Pennsylvania, Democratic-voting counties received an average of $4.99 per voter, while Republican-voting ones got $1.12 per voter.
In Florida, the differential was also dramatic, with one-third of the $18 million in total money going to Democratic-leaning Palm Beach County, and an additional $2.4 million for Miami-Dade County, which backed Democrat Joe Biden, albeit more narrowly than expected. Republican Donald Trump won the state.
“If Charles Koch was doing this, well, for many of these people the shoe would be on the other foot,” said Hayden Dublois, a researcher at the Foundation for Government Accountability, referring to the conservative billionaire.
In some states, including Georgia and Texas, the new laws require all donations to local election offices to be distributed by the secretary of state. In Arizona, Kansas, Iowa and elsewhere, they are banned altogether.
Anderson, the Republican CTCL board member, said that will do real damage.
“If you want to block this funding, then I want to ask if the legislators are funding elections?” Anderson said. “Because so many states don’t.”
Zuckerberg’s cash fuels GOP suspicion and new election rules
https://arab.news/76v32
Zuckerberg’s cash fuels GOP suspicion and new election rules
- Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation
- Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through a nonpartisan foundation that had liberal roots
CNN defamation trial comes at a rough time for legacy media — and for the struggling network
- US Navy veteran Zachary Young blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover
NEW YORK: At a particularly inopportune time for legacy media and CNN, the news outlet is on trial in Florida this week, accused of defaming a Navy veteran involved in rescuing endangered Afghans from that country when the US ended its involvement there in 2021.
The veteran, Zachary Young, blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover.
In a broader sense, the case puts the news media on the stand in journalism critic Donald Trump’s home state weeks before he’s due to begin his second term as president, and on the same day Facebook’s parent introduced a Trump-friendly policy of backing off fact checks. Young’s attorney, Kyle Roche, leaned into the press’ unpopularity in his opening arguments on Tuesday.
“You’re going to have an opportunity to do something significant in this trial,” Roche told jurors in Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit Courts in Panama City on Tuesday. “You’re going to have an opportunity to send a message to mainstream media. You’re going to have an opportunity to change an industry.”
That’s the fear. Said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota: “Everybody in the news media is on trial in this case.”
Actual defamation trials are rare in this country
Defamation trials are actually rare in the United States, in part because strong constitutional protections for the press make proving libel difficult. From the media’s standpoint, taking a case to a judge or jury is a risk many executives don’t want to take.
Rather than defend statements that George Stephanopoulos made about Trump last spring, ABC News last month agreed to make the former president’s libel lawsuit go away by paying him $15 million toward his presidential library. In the end, ABC parent Walt Disney Co. concluded an ongoing fight against Trump wasn’t worth it, win or lose.
In the most high-profile libel case in recent years, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million on the day the trial was due to start in 2023 to settle the company’s claims of inaccurate reporting in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
The Young case concerns a segment that first aired on Jake Tapper’s program on Nov. 11, 2021, about extraction efforts in Afghanistan. Young had built a business helping such efforts, and advertised his services on LinkedIn to sponsors with funding who could pay for such evacuation.
He subsequently helped four separate organizations — Audible, Bloomberg, a charity called H.E.R.O. Inc. and a Berlin-based NGO called CivilFleet Support eV — get more than a dozen people out of Afghanistan, according to court papers. He said he did not market to — or take money from — individual Afghans.
Yet Young’s picture was shown as part of CNN story that talked about a “black market” where Afghans were charged $10,000 or more to get family members out of danger.
The plaintiff says the story’s reference to ‘black market’ damaged him
To Young, the “black market” label implied some sort of criminality, and he did nothing illegal. “It’s devastating if you’re labeled a criminal all over the world,” Young testified on Tuesday.
CNN said in court papers that Young’s case amounts to “defamation by implication,” and that he hadn’t actually been accused of nefarious acts. The initial story he complained about didn’t even mention Young until three minutes in, CNN lawyer David Axelrod argued on Tuesday.
Five months after the story aired, Young complained about it, and CNN issued an on-air statement that its use of the phrase “black market” was wrong. “We did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market. We regret the error. And to Mr. Young, we apologize.”
That didn’t prevent a defamation lawsuit, and the presiding judge, William S. Henry, denied CNN’s request that it be dismissed. CNN, in a statement, said that “when all the facts come to light, we are confident we will have a verdict in our favor.”
Axelrod argued on Tuesday that CNN’s reporting was tough, fair and accurate. He told the jury that they will hear no witnesses who will say they thought less of Young or wouldn’t hire him because of the story — in other words, no one to back up his contention that it was so damaging to his business and life.
Yet much like Fox was publicly hurt in the Dominion case by internal communications about Trump and the network’s coverage, some unflattering revelations about CNN’s operations will likely become part of the trial. They include internal messages where CNN’s reporter, Alex Marquardt, says unflattering and profane things about Young. A CNN editor was also revealed on messages to suggest that a Marquardt story on the topic was “full of holes,” Roche said.
“At the end of the day, there was no one at CNN who was willing to stand up for the truth,” Roche said. “Theater prevailed.”
Axelrod, who shares a name with a longtime Democratic political operative and CNN commentator, contended that the give and take was part of a rigorous journalistic process putting the video segment and subsequent printed stories together. “Many experienced journalists put eyes on these stories,” he said.
It’s still going to be difficult for CNN to go through. The network, with television ratings at historic lows, doesn’t need the trouble.
“At a moment of wider vilification and disparagement of the press, there is every reason to believe this will be weaponized, even if CNN prevails,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor at the University of Utah law school and expert on libel law.
The case is putting a media organization and its key players on the stand in a very public way, which is something people don’t usually see.
“I always dread any kind of libel cases because the likelihood that something bad will come out of it is very high,” Minnesota’s Kirtley said. “This is not a great time to be a libel defendant if you’re in the news media. If we ever did have the support of the public, it has seriously eroded over the past few years.”
‘Offensive’ Muslim fintech ads banned in UK for showing burning banknotes
- Posters by Wahed Invest were banned by Advertising Standards Authority after agency received 75 complaints
LONDON: Adverts by Muslim fintech company Wahed Invest have been banned in the UK for featuring burning banknotes, which the country’s advertising watchdog deemed “offensive.”
The New York-based investment platform, which targets the Muslim community, ran a series of posters across London’s transport system in September and October.
The ads showed US dollar and euro banknotes on fire alongside slogans such as “Join the money revolution” and “Withdraw from Riba” — a term referring to the Islamic prohibition of interest.
The Advertising Standards Authority said it received 75 complaints that the ads were offensive.
“The ads represented the expression that viewers’ money was ‘going up in flames’ and that images of burning money were commonly encountered,” the ASA said in a statement.
“However, regardless of whether viewers would have understood that message or understood it as a defiant act designed to show a challenge to financial institutions, the currencies which were burned in all of the ads were clearly visible as US dollar and euro banknotes.”
The advert also featured images of Muslim preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk and Russian former professional mixed martial artist Khabib Abdulmanapovich Nurmagomedov.
Three of the posters showed Menk holding an open briefcase filled with US dollar and euro banknotes on fire, with two of them stating “Withdraw from Exploitation.”
Wahed defended the campaign, explaining that the burning banknotes symbolized money “going up in flames” due to inflation outpacing savings growth.
The company, which describe itself as an investment platform allowing consumers who were predominantly Muslim to invest in a manner which aligned with their faith and values, launched in the US in 2017 and is backed by the oil company Saudi Aramco and the French footballer Paul Pogba.
Wahed acknowledged that the currencies depicted in the ads could be viewed as symbols of national identity but argued that the imagery of burning money was a powerful reference to hyperinflation, a concept often depicted in popular culture through film and television.
A spokesperson added: “We understand that visuals like those included in our campaign can elicit strong reactions.
“While our intention was to spark thought and awareness, we recognize the importance of ensuring that messaging resonates positively with the diverse audiences that may consume them.”
The ASA said that the adverts would have been seen by many people, including people from the US and eurozone countries, who “would have viewed their nation’s currency as being culturally significant.
“Although we acknowledged Wahed Invest’s view that they had not directly criticized a specific group, and that depictions of burning banknotes were commonly encountered, we considered the burning of banknotes would have caused serious offense to some viewers,” the regulator said.
“We therefore concluded that the ads were likely to cause serious offense.”
Jailed Italian reporter in Tehran freed, says Italy
ROME: An Italian journalist arrested in Iran and jailed for three weeks has been freed and is returning to Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said on Wednesday.
“The plane taking journalist Cecilia Sala home took off from Tehran a few minutes ago” following “intense work through diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Meloni’s office said in a statement.
“Our compatriot has been released by the Iranian authorities and is on her way back to Italy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expresses her gratitude to all those who helped make Cecilia’s return possible, allowing her to re-embrace her family and colleagues,” her office said.
Meloni personally informed Sala’s parents of her release by telephone, it added.
Sala, 29, was arrested on December 19, soon after the United States and Italy arrested two Iranian nationals over export violations linked to a deadly attack on American servicemen.
The journalist, who writes for the Italian daily Il Foglio and is the host of a news podcast produced by Chora Media, was kept in isolation in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Sala told her family she was forced to sleep on the floor in a cell with the lights permanently on.
Italy and Iran summoned each other’s ambassadors last week after Rome warned that efforts to secure her release were complicated.
Sala traveled to Iran on December 13 on a journalist’s visa. She was arrested six days later for “violating the law of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the country’s culture ministry, which oversees and accredits foreign journalists.
She had been due to return home the following day.
On Monday, Iran denied any link between Sala’s arrest and that of Iranian national Mohammad Abedini, detained in Italy in December at the behest of the United States over export violations linked to a deadly attack on US servicemen.
Surge in Telegram user data passed to French authorities
- Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram
PARIS: Messaging service Telegram passed vastly more data on its users to French authorities in the second half of 2024 following founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in Paris, figures published by the platform showed.
The company said it handed over IP addresses or telephone numbers that Paris asked for in 210 cases in July-September and 673 in October-December.
That was up from just four in the first quarter and six in the second.
Some 2,072 users were affected by French requests for user data — again massively weighted toward the second half of 2024, with more than half in the fourth quarter alone.
Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram.
He and his supporters have claimed that most French and European authorities’ requests for user data were simply not being sent to the right department at the company and therefore received no response.
Durov, who holds Russian, French and United Arab Emirates passports, has been barred from leaving French soil since he was charged.
That has not stopped Telegram from issuing updates to its moderation rules supposed to boost cooperation with investigators.
A source familiar with Durov’s case told AFP in December that the platform was responding more frequently to requests from the judicial system from both France and other countries.
Getty Images, Shutterstock gear up for AI challenge with $3.7bn merger
- Deal faces potential antitrust scrutiny
- Merger aims to cut costs and unlock new revenue streams as companies grapple with the rise of generative AI tools
LONDON: Getty Images said on Tuesday it would merge with rival Shutterstock to create a $3.7 billion stock-image powerhouse geared for the artificial intelligence era, in a deal likely to draw antitrust scrutiny.
The companies, two of the largest players in the licensed visual content industry, are betting that the combination will help them cut costs and grow their business by unlocking more revenue opportunities at a time when the growing use of generative AI tools such as Midjourney poses a threat to the industry.
Shutterstock shareholders can opt to receive either $28.80 per share in cash, or 13.67 shares of Getty, or a combination of 9.17 shares of Getty and $9.50 in cash for each Shutterstock share they own. The offer represents a deal value of more than $1 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
Shutterstock’s shares jumped 22.7 percent, while Getty was up 39.7 percent. Stocks of both companies have declined for at least the past four years, as the rising use of mobile cameras drives down demand for stock photography.
Getty CEO Craig Peters will lead the combined company, which will have annual revenues of nearly $2 billion and stands to benefit from Getty’s large library of visual content and the strong community on Shutterstock’s platform.
Peters downplayed the impact of AI on Tuesday and said that he was confident the merger would receive antitrust approval both in the United States and Europe.
“We don’t control the timing of (the approval), but we have a high confidence. This has been a situation where customers have not had choice. They’ve always had choice,” he said.
Some experts say US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division signal that there would be little change to the tough scrutiny that has come to define the regulator in recent years.
“With Gail Slater at the helm, the antitrust division is going to be a lot more aggressive under this Trump administration than it was under the first one,” said John Newman, professor of law at the University of Miami.
Regulators will examine how the deal impacts the old-school business model of selling images to legacy media customers, as well as the new business model of offering copyright-compliant generative-AI applications to the public.
The deal is expected to generate up to $200 million in cost savings three years after its close. Getty investors will own about 54.7 percent of the combined company, while Shutterstock stockholders will own the rest.
Getty competes with Reuters and the Associated Press in providing photos and videos for editorial use.
