Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 17

Four Viral Claims Spread by Journalists on Twitter in the Last Week Alone That are False

There is ample talk, particularly of late, about the threats posed by social media to democracy and political discourse. Yet one of the primary ways that democracy is degraded by platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is, for obvious reasons, typically ignored in such discussions: the way they are used by American journalists to endorse factually false claims that quickly spread and become viral, entrenched into narratives, and thus can never be adequately corrected.

The design of Twitter, wh...

Rescue at Oakland Slaughterhouse Shows New, Potent Tactics of Growing Animal Rights Movement

This article and the above video include graphic images some readers may find disturbing.

An Oakland slaughterhouse, Saba Live Poultry, was occupied last weekend by more than 200 people, protesting the atrocious conditions in which animals are kept before being slaughtered. Oakland police arrested 23 people and charged them with trespassing, for entering the facility, filming abuses, and removing at least three animals for rescue.

Activists described seeing intense suffering, abuse, and cruel...

The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets Reveals the Federal Cover-Up of Barbaric Factory Farms

This article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing.

FBI agents are devoting substantial resources to a multistate hunt for two baby piglets that the bureau believes are named Lucy and Ethel. The two piglets were removed over the summer from the Circle Four Farm in Utah by animal rights activists who had entered the Smithfield Foods-owned factory farm to film the brutal, torturous conditions in which the pigs are bred in order to be slaughtered.

While filming the conditions ...

Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet?

Last Friday, most major media outlets touted a major story about Russian attempts to hack into U.S. voting systems, based exclusively on claims made by the Department of Homeland Security. “Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states in the run-up to last year’s presidential election, officials said Friday,” began the USA Today story, similar to how most other outlets presented this extraordinary claim.

This official story was explosive for obvious reasons, and predictably tr...

Brazil’s Latest Outbreak of Drug Gang Violence Highlights the Real Culprit: the War on Drugs

On July 1, 2001, Portugal enacted a law to decriminalize all drugs. Under that law, nobody who is found possessing or using narcotics is arrested in Portugal, nor are they turned into a criminal. Indeed, neither drug use nor possession is considered a crime at all. Instead, those found doing it are sent to speak with a panel of drug counsellors and therapists, where they are offered treatment options.

Seven years after the law was enacted, in 2008, we traveled to Lisbon to study the effects o...

A única solução para a violência como na Rocinha é a descriminalização

Em 1º de julho de 2001, foi promulgada em Portugal uma lei que descriminalizou todas as drogas. Sob essa lei, ninguém que seja encontrado portando ou usando narcóticos é preso em Portugal, ou considerado criminoso. Nem o uso, nem a posse de drogas são considerados crimes em qualquer hipótese. Em vez disso, as pessoas encontradas nessas situações são encaminhadas para conversar com um painel de conselheiros e terapeutas especializados em drogas, onde lhes são oferecidas opções de tratamento.

S...

Sean Spicer Is Honored Because — As Bush Officials Have Shown — D.C. Elites Always Thrive

Sean Spicer’s playful, glamorous appearance at last night’s Emmy Awards and being honored as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School (the honorific which the CIA vetoed for Chelsea Manning) has prompted a mix of shock and indignation. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau wrote: “Harvard fellowships, Emmy appearances, huge speaking fees: there’s just gonna be no penalty for working in Trump’s White House, huh?” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie added: “The degree to which Sean Spicer has faced no c...

The Clinton Book Tour Is Largely Ignoring the Vital Role of Endless War in the 2016 Election Result

To pitch her book, Hillary Clinton is sitting down this week for a series of media interviews, mostly with supportive TV personalities, such as Rachel Maddow, to discuss her views of “What Happened,” the book’s title. Calls for Clinton to be quiet and disappear are misguided for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that she is a very smart, informed, and articulate politician, which means her interviews — especially when she’s liberated from programmed campaign mode — are illuminating abo...

Charlie Hebdo May Now Be Criticized Because It Mocked White Texans Rather Than Muslims

The newfound free speech crusaders borne of the January 2015 murders of 10 Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in Paris sought to promulgate a new and quite dangerous standard. It was no longer enough to defend someone’s right to express their ideas while being free to condemn those ideas themselves — long the central tenet of the free speech movement (I defend their right to free speech even while finding them and their ideas repugnant). In the wake of the Hebdo killings, one had to go much further th...

The NY Times’s Newest Op-Ed Hire, Bari Weiss, Embodies its Worst Failings — and its Lack of Viewpoint Diversity

Controversy erupted on April 14 over the New York Times’s hiring of neoconservative climate-skeptic and anti-Arab polemicist Bret Stephens as the paper’s newest Op-Ed page columnist, hired away from the Wall Street Journal’s right-wing op-ed page. But just two days after it unveiled him, the paper’s op-ed page, with much less fanfare, announced that it had also hired a carbon copy of Stephens named Bari Weiss, also from the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, to “write and commission the kinds of...