Australia: Breaking up social media giants an option to deal with misinformation, Labor says

Exclusive: Wayne Swan to issue a call to arms for progressive parties globally to fight back against threats to democracy

The Australian Labor party’s national president, Wayne Swan, will issue a call to arms for progressive parties to fight back against misinformation proliferating on digital platforms, declaring nothing can be off the table “including breaking up the social media platforms where the concentration of their market power is damaging society”.

Swan will use a conference hosted by the Chifley Research Centre to foreshadow that over the next 12 months, the ALP will bring together a “coalition of centre-left and progressive parties from across the globe to drive this debate forward and take action to check the domination of firms such as Facebook”.

According to a copy of his speech seen by Guardian Australia, Swan will argue progressive and centre-left parties have been flatfooted in responding to the “disruption and chaos” that social media giants have enabled, “and we haven’t done enough to share our experiences and coordinate our responses across borders”.

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“2020 must be the year when we change this,” the party president will say.

Swan’s comments come as the Guardian reveals that an Israel-based group has covertly gained control of 21 popular far-right Facebook pages, using them in a coordinated way to deliver distorted and false information to more than 1m followers across the world.

The network has operated with relative impunity for more than two years, publishing more than one thousand posts a week, and disseminating large volumes of material in the lead-up to the May election that vilified Muslim politicians Anne Aly and Mehreen Faruqi, and promoted One Nation and Fraser Anning.

The intervention from Labor’s president also follows the establishment of a new select committee of the Australian parliament to examine foreign interference through social media. The committee will inquire into and report on the risks posed to Australia’s democracy by foreign interference through social media platforms – including Facebook, Twitter and WeChat – and report in the new year.

Swan in his speech to the Chifley conference will argue the conservative side of politics internationally is “smashing progressive political parties in organised social media, particularly under the radar communications disguised as political news or non-politically motivated views”.

He will say the rise of the digital platforms has created an environment where news consumers self-select information, which has “contributed to the rise of echo chambers and filter bubbles”.

“There’s no shared media experience any more, and misinformation can spread online quickly, easily and virtually unchallenged,” Swan will say.

“Secondly, hostile and bad-faith actors can weaponise controversial and misleading information at will to sow division and create chaos in our politics.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/06/breaking-up-social-media-giants-an-option-to-deal-with-misinformation-labor-says

>>7444444

Trump doesn't really care about Israel

Opinion: What seems like unconditioned support for the Jewish state from the U.S. president is primarily a personal political survival mechanism – keep Christian right and Orthodox Jews fully united behind him.

U.S. President Donald Trump's political base consists of three main groups: white men without a college education, Evangelist Christians and Orthodox Jews.

That's a peculiar triangular alliance, but this is the audience Trump aims for at almost every one of his decisions on policy.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/S100ESbenS

Philippines’ north hit by flooding, 66,000 forced from homes

The Philippines’ north has been hit by some of its worst flooding in decades, with torrents of muddy runoff forcing 66,000 from their homes, officials said on Friday.

Luzon island, the nation’s largest, has been hit by a string of storms that have battered its northern tip while monsoon rains were intensified by the passage of Typhoon Kammuri this week, AFP reports. Large swaths of lush green land were inundated after rivers burst their banks.

Landslides have cut off roads to some isolated towns and some bridges are covered by the flooding. The flood waters have forced about 66,000 people to flee their homes, some of whom had to be rescued by emergency crews in boats, local disaster authorities said.

https://www.rt.com/newsline/475194-philippines-flooding-storms-rains/

STOP it! Trump fumes at World Bank after it greenlights new $1bn+ loan program for China

US President Donald Trump has seen red over a newly-adopted plan by the World Bank to loan China up to $1.3 billion annually through 2025. Trump said Beijing “has plenty of money,” urging the bank to cancel the handout.

“Why is the World Bank loaning money to China? Can this be possible? China has plenty of money, and if they don’t, they create it. STOP!” Trump tweeted Friday, taking aim at the decision by the financial body’s board to approve a five-year plan to help China boost its private sector and foster fiscal reforms the day before.

The plan will see China take in between $1 billion and $1.3 billion each year until 2025, down from $1.8 billion, the average amount of low-interest loans Beijing had been given access to over the last five years.

It is envisaged that the figure would “gradually decline” over the next five-year period. Approving the measure, the World Bank stated, however, that the amount China would be entitled to receive “may fluctuate up and down from year to year” depending on how fast it accomplishes the goals stated in the plan.

Washington has been up in arms over the plan, and, though it can wield a veto on major decisions within the organization, it holds no sway over the Chinese lending scheme, as the move was not decided by a formal vote. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has argued that China does not require any outside financial aid, insisting it is wealthy enough to lend money to poorer countries and propel its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

https://www.rt.com/news/475252-china-world-bank-loan-trump/