Alt-Right-Delete
-
“What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right?” President Trump asked at his press conference at Trump Tower yesterday afternoon, where he once again that “both sides” were at fault in the violence that broke out in Charlottesville Friday and Saturday. “You had a group on one side that was bad. And you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” he claimed.
-
The Associated Press advises its reporters to only use “alt-right” in its stories along with a description like“an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism,” or, more simply, “a white nationalist movement.”
-
As the New York Times’ Liam Stack points out, “Researchers who study extremist groups in the United States say there is no such thing as the ‘alt-left.’ Mark Pitcavage, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League, said the word was made up to create a false equivalence between the far-right and ‘anything vaguely left-seeming that they didn’t like.’”
-
The President of Congregation Beth Israel of Charlottesville, Alan Zimmerman, shares what Saturday morning services were like as clusters of neo-Nazis marched past shouting “There’s the synagogue!” followed by chants of “Seig Heil” and three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street.
-
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports on how PayPal was integral to the fundraising for the so-called Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, even though the company’s acceptable use policy explicitly bans “the promotion of hate, violence [and] racial intolerance.”
-
Pierre Omidyar, who served on PayPal’s board until recently, tweets, “We’re talking about actual Nazis here. Let them send cash to each other in envelopes. No need to help them use our products.”
-
Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover are in the cross-hairs of Color of Change for processing funds on behalf of white supremacist groups.
-
One thing you can do: Donate to Unity C-ville, a group of Charlottesville community members raising funds to help victims of the weekend’s violence.
-
The Trump administration’s decision earlier this year to cut funding allocated at the end of the Obama administration to groups dedicated to combating white supremacy and de-radicalizing neo-Nazis is coming under renewed scrutiny, Melania Zenona reports for The Hill.
-
While the CEOs of Merck, Intel, Under Armour have all resigned from the White House’s business advisory council, the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have not, tech journalist John Battelle points out.
-
Media matters: The Nation magazine is conducting a post-publication review of a story by Patrick Lawrence that claimed the official version of the DNC hack was technically impossible, Erik Wemple reports for The Washington Post. Lawrence’s piece has been embraced by Breitbart News and retweeted by Donald Trump Jr as proof that the Russia-Trump scandal is a hoax.
-
What sharing economy? In the wake of numerous violations of its users’ privacy, Uber has agreed to 20 years of government oversight of its privacy practices and the threat of steep fines for future violations, Tony Romm reports for Recode. This may seem consequential until you recall that in 2011, Facebook submitted to a similar 20-year arrangement with the Federal Trade Commission. Anyone here think Facebook has done a great job respecting its users’ privacy since then?
-
Internet of Shit: A software update by Lockstate left hundreds of owners of so-called smart locks unable to open them, Dan Goodin reports for ArsTechnica.
-
Your moment of zen: The most liked tweet ever (a new record, according to Twitter).
Know someone who’s not a member of Civic Hall who would benefit from receiving First Post in their inbox every weekday morning? Let them know that they can subscribe and support the work we do here at Civicist.