Wondering on Wednesday (v188)

Today's wondering begins not in the halls of Congress or anywhere else in DC, but in a Dallas courtroom where the NRA is suing its former ad agency, Ackerman McQueen (AMc). The whole thing is a mess, but here's a quick recap from the Daily Beast.

According to an Oct. 25 amended complaint filed in its ongoing lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen, NRA officials believed the short-lived TV outlet - which featured shows from right-wing stars like Dana Letch and Dan Bongino - "strayed from the Second Amendment to themes which some NRA leaders found distasteful and racist." 

You know, distasteful and racist like "a picture of cartoon character Thomas the Tank Engine wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood."  This whole thing is part of a big ugly fight between the gun rights group and AMc, and comes on the heels of the litany of scandals that the NRA has faced:

a ProPublica report alleging sexual harassment by a senior NRA staffer; vicious infighting among top executive; and reportedly out-of-control spending and debt fueled by legal fees, unpaid bills and expenses on lavish travel, clothing and makeup for LaPierre and his wife. 

So, what's to wonder about? Well, with the messy lawsuits, and if things in this August Mother Jones article are still true, and we continue to see polling showing  the majority of Americans  - including Republicans - favor universal background checks, red flag laws, and more, I'm wondering how long politicians will continue to fear the NRA at election time, and if they stop being afraid, will we be able to get these very popular measures passed and signed into law?

Turning now to San Francisco, we learn that Twitter will ban ALL political ads, beginning November 22nd.  The company's CEO, Jack Dorsey, tweeted the decision this afternoon, saying that "political message reach should be earned, not bought."  And, he offered some insight, including this:

For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want! 😉” 

We know that politicians have been suggesting that Facebook needs to verify the truth of an ad, or not accept it. We've all heard about Sen. Elizabeth Warren's fake ad, suggesting that the social media giant and its CEO had endorsed Donald Trump in 2020. Facebook accepted that ad. And, the Biden campaign had asked Facebook to take down lies or debunked statements pushed by the president regarding the Ukraine thing.

In response, Facebook said that "politicians are not allowed to share a previously debunked viral hoax in ads, but their direct speech was ineligible for fact-checking." And, Katie Harbath, Facebook's head of global elections policy, said

Our approach is grounded in Facebook's fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is. 

So, here's what I'm wondering:

• Should Facebook and Twitter and the rest of the social media companies be required to fact-check everything that's published on their platforms? 
• Should these companies be required to fact-check only ads and promotions, things they're paid to publish?
• Should the companies be allowed to left our speech - truth, lies and everything in between - flow freely without fact-checking any of it?
• And finally, why are these companies being treated differently from any other media platform -television and radio stations, newspapers and magazines, web-only news outlets, and so on, who aren't fact-checked at all, except by other media companies?

And finally, tonight, I'm wondering when the president and people in the media will stop referring to the summary memorandum of that beautiful phone call with Ukraine's President Zelensky as a 'transcript'?  It's happening all over again, because of the revelation that Lt. Col. Anthony Vindman, a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, said the 'reconstructed transcript' of the call was incomplete and that his efforts to have it corrected were rebuffed.

As a reminder, here is the disclaimer that appears on the so-called transcript:

CAUTION: a Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word "inaudible" is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear. 

I get why the president calls it a transcript - no need to wonder about that - but I don't get why reporters are more careful when describing a document that expressly states it's not what they say it is.

I mean, if they're not careful, Facebook will start fact-checking them.