Broken Arrow

‘Fake news’ in Russia: State censorship elicits an outcry

In Russia, the internet has been a freewheeling space for information flow and open debate since its inception. Now a package of new laws, signed this week by Vladimir Putin, is stirring an outcry in Russia over allowing anyone in authority to decide what constitutes fake news and to determine what to do about it. Russian civil society activists, the Kremlin’s own Presidential Council for Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, and even a rare street demonstration this month by thousands of internet freedom advocates have all expressed deep alarm at the prospect of bureaucrats being handed the power to summarily shut down any online content that rubs them the wrong way.

When Trump tweets, how should the media respond?

It’s a perpetual question for the reporters who cover President Donald Trump: How to handle his tweets? If you cover every blip and blast Mr. Trump sends out into the Twittersphere, some say, you are allowing the president to dictate the news cycle – and distracting attention from real events by hyping phony controversies. If you ignore his tweets, however, some say you’re “normalizing” behavior that is at best unpresidential, and at worst alarming.

Small donors boost Beto and Bernie – and may transform the political landscape

Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders raked in so much cash within 24 hours of announcing their presidential bids that they made Barack Obama look like a kid with a lemonade stand. Both men are riding a surge in grassroots giving that is transforming the entire landscape of money in American politics.

The ethics of watching a massacre video

In her famous writings on photography, the late pundit Susan Sontag worried about the “ethics of seeing,” or the choices we must all make about what images to allow into our sight. For many, viewing the massacre was just one click away. A debate over the ethics of watching or, more importantly, transmitting the video is more timely than ever.