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Elon Musk removes X block button as users fear return of ‘creeps’

Musk removes X block button as users fear return of ‘creeps’

Anthony CuthbertsonTuesday 24 September 2024 10:56

(Elon Musk is a creep. I left Twitter after over 46 thousand Tweets because I could not morally justify staying on Musk’s platform)

Elon Musk during a visit to Paris, on 16 June, 2023, alongside the X logo (Getty Images)

Elon Musk is facing a backlash after announcing that the block button on X(fomerly Twitter) will no longer prevent people from viewing posts.

The billionaire, who took over the social media app in 2022, said the update was long overdue, having previously claimed that the feature “makes no sense” and should be removed entirely.

“High time this happened,” Mr Musk wrote on X. “The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.”

His post received thousands of comments, with many X users fearing that the update will make X more toxic and open to harassment.

“With respect, I think this is a bad idea,” wrote X user Nzube Udezue, also known as the musician Zuby. “There are many reasons somebody may not want certain individuals from easily seeing all their public posts. There are some really bad actors on social media, sadly.”

Another user replied: “I don’t want the creeps I’ve blocked seeing my posts at all.”

It is not clear when X plans to roll out the update, though some users have reported that it has already come into effect for their accounts.

The update is one of a number of changes introduced to the app since Mr Musk’s acquisition nearly two years ago, with multiple organisations reporting that the takeover has coincided with a rise in hate speech. 

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League both found that racist slurs had increased newaly three times since October 2022, while the Institute of Strategic Dialogue reported that anti-semitic posts had doubled.

Separate studies have also reported a rise in misinformation, Islamaphopia, mysogynistic hate and anti-LGBT rhetoric on the platform, with media monitoring group GLAAD claiming in 2023 that X is “the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ people”.

How Instagram limits your political posts - The Washington Post

Don’t say ‘vote’: How Instagram hides your political posts

"Our tech columnist investigates how Meta’s Instagram, Facebook and Threads suppress content related to the election. Even discussing how to vote isn’t safe.

Geoffrey A. FowlerOctober 16, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

(Jun Ioneda for The Washington Post)

On Instagram, creator Mrs. Frazzled can get more than a million viewers for her goofy videos “parenting” misbehaving adults. One recent hit showed bartenders how to talk to drunk customers like they’re in kindergarten. But lately, she’s been frazzled by something else: Whenever she posts about the election, she feels as if her audience disappears.

It’s not just her imagination. I can show exactly how democracy dies on Instagram.

Mrs. Frazzled, whose real name is Arielle Fodor, let me inside her Instagram account to investigate. I found that whenever she mentioned anything related to politics over the last six months, the size of her audience declined about 40 percent compared with her nonpolitical posts.

It appears she can’t even say “vote.” When she used the word in a caption across 11 posts, her average audience was 63 percent smaller. “It is very disempowering,” Fodor says.

If you’ve suspected that you’re yelling into a void about the election on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, it might not be your imagination, either. Downplaying politics is a business and political strategy from Meta, the social media giant. And users just have to accept it.

Consider a wider study by the advocacy group Accountable Tech, which quantified the audience drop for five prominent liberal Instagram accounts, including the Human Rights Campaign and Feminist, that post almost entirely about politics. Over 10 weeks this spring, their average audiences fell 65 percent.

And it’s not just Instagram: Only one of six social media giants would tell The Washington Post whether you can use the word “vote” without having a post suppressed.

It matters because social media has a profound impact on how people see themselves, their communities and the world. One in five American adults regularly get their news from Instagram — more than TikTok, X or Reddit — according to the Pew Research Center.

It could leave swaths of Americans wondering why we aren’t hearing as much about the election. And less likely to vote, too.

Meta doesn’t deny that it’s suppressing politics and social issues. But as my deep dive into Mrs. Frazzled’s Instagram account shows, it has left users in the lurch — and won’t give straight answers about when, and how, it reduces the volume on what we have to say.

If your political content isn't getting as much attention as your other posts, you're not alone. Tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler explains why. (Video: Monica Rodman/The Washington Post)

How Instagram turned against ‘politics’

During the dark days of covid lockdowns, Fodor started posting about virtual teaching, on TikTok and, eventually, Instagram. Over time, she developed the Mrs. Frazzled persona, which often employs her high-pitched teacher voice for humor. She got the most engagement from audiences on Instagram, where she has 377,000 followers.

Today, Fodor is a 32-year-old mom in graduate school who earns money as an online creator. As the 2024 election approached, her interests increasingly turned to politics and social issues. These topics accounted for about a third of her posts for the six months that ended in September. Some were about abortion rights or critical of Donald Trump, while others were more nonpartisan and educational, such as an explanation of ranked-choice voting. (Fodor says she hasn’t taken money from either presidential campaign.)

She noticed right away that her election work wasn’t taking off. “It’s a huge barrier when we have the interconnectedness of social media at our fingertips and we cannot even share any messages about the election process,” Fodor says.

Her frustration is a product of a change of heart by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In 2021, he began pulling back on political content on Facebook, after years of being accused by Republicans of favoring Democrats.

The hatchet fell on Instagram this year. In a February blog post, Meta said it would no longer “proactively recommend content about politics,” including topics “potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics.”

Translation: Meta tightened the reins over what to put in your feed and Explore tab, specifically from accounts you don’t already follow.

As part of the shift, Instagram also opted everyone into a new setting to have it recommend less political content from accounts you don’t follow. It did not alert users to this inside the Instagram app. (If you don’t want a sanitized feed on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, I’ve got instructions for how to change your settings below.)

This is not exactly “censorship” — anyone can still post about politics, and people who already follow you can still see it. That’s how Taylor Swift reached her 283 million followers with an endorsement of Kamala Harris.

But it is a form of what creators and politicians have long called “shadowbanning”: reducing the reach of certain kinds of content without being transparent about when it’s happening. Political campaigns, too, have been scrambling to find alternative ways to break through.

Why is Meta doing this? “As we’ve said for years, people have told us they want to see less politics overall while still being able to engage with political content on our platforms if they want to — and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing,” Meta spokesman Corey Chambliss said in a statement.

What short memories they have at Meta HQ. I was there in 2011 when Zuckerberg live-streamed an interview with President Barack Obama that explored how social media would contribute to democracy. “What Facebook allows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation,” Obama said during the chat.

Meta says it continues to run a program to point users to official information about registering and voting. But it thinks the majority of Americans want less politics on social media. I agree most of us don’t want political vitriol or Russian disinformation — but that’s not the same as respectful conversation. And Meta has complete control over three of the most widely used tools for self-expression.

In the spring, Fodor joined other creators in a letter to Meta, saying the company had abandoned its responsibility “to be an open and safe space for dialogue, conversation, and discussion.”

Algorithmic anxiety

What Fodor finds particularly disempowering is that she doesn’t know when, or how, her work crosses the line.

Creators mostly have to guess, leaving them in a state of what you might call algorithmic anxiety. “It makes people more distrustful of these social media platforms,” she says.

Instagram never flagged any of her individual posts as being too political to recommend.

It is possible that Fodor’s political stuff isn’t popular because it isn’t as good. But the data suggests that isn’t likely. Looking at the details of her audience reports, I could see that her political content was, on average, seen by significantly fewer people who aren’t her followers — suggesting that Instagram was putting a thumb on the scale.

And when people did see Fodor’s political posts, they were nearly 50 times as likely to individually share them by pressing the paper airplane icon in the Instagram app.

Zuckerberg has a First Amendment right to make decisions about what to promote on his platforms. But his users deserve transparency about what topics are limited — and how Instagram determines what’s over the line. Meta declined to comment on the Mrs. Frazzled account, saying fluctuations in engagement are common and can ebb and flow for reasons that have nothing to do with its policy changes.

I sent Meta questions about how it determines what to reduce. It wouldn’t detail what it means by “political and social issues” beyond content potentially related to “things like laws, elections, or social topics.”

How do its automated systems make these calls? Would mentioning Taylor Swift count as political? What about coconuts? Can it make a distinction between voting information and partisan bickering?

I also asked Meta for a list of forbidden keywords, after I noticed that Fodor’s use of “vote” in captions correlated to a steep audience drop. Meta wouldn’t share that, either, saying thousands of factors affect how content is ranked and recommended.

Meta put a slightly finer point on “social topics” in a statement to The Post earlier in the year, defining it as “content that identifies a problem that impacts people and is caused by the action or inaction of others, which can include issues like international relations or crime.”

How to increase the amount of political content you get recommended

But that definition could rule out wide swaths of the lived human experience, including people talking about their family in the Middle East or simply being gay or trans.

“These are such integral parts of some people’s identities and livelihoods — Meta’s gone so far as to limit their capability to talk about who they are and what they care about,” says Zach Praiss, Accountable Tech’s campaigns director, who led the organization’s research.

Fodor says she’s glad to know she wasn’t imagining the problem. “To see it laid out with data is so affirming,” she says.

So what does she do now? She’ll keep on posting, she says: “I’ll do a little yelling into the void.”

Unfortunately for our democracy, she doesn’t have a lot of other choices.

Andrea Jimenez contributed to this report."

How Instagram limits your political posts - The Washington Post

How to watch tonight’s Hunter’s Moon, the largest supermoon this year - The Washington Post

What to know about tonight’s Hunter’s Moon, the largest supermoon this year

"The Hunter’s Moon will be the largest of the four supermoons this year, reaching its closest distance to the Earth on Wednesday night.

Amudalat AjasaOctober 16, 2024 at 1:33 p.m. EDT

The pumpkin-colored harvest moon rises through clouds over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Camden, Maine, on Sept. 17. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

The Hunter’s Moon, this month’s full moon, will illuminate skies this week, as leaves turn from green to orange-yellows and reds, and sweaters become a wardrobe staple.

The moon is the third supermoon of the year, which means it will be particularly bright. Supermoons, full moons that occur when the moon is at the closest point of orbit to the Earth, can appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the farthest full moon, according to NASA. Sky watchers can see up to four supermoons each year. And, like clockwork, they always happen consecutively and roughly 29.5 days apart.

The Hunter’s Moon will be the largest of the four supermoons this year, reaching its closest distance to the Earth on Wednesday night.

Where does this moon get its name?

Cultures give different names to moons, often based on common seasonal activities. Dubbed the Hunter’s Moon, this moon marks the time of year when Indigenous groups stock up on food for winter — especially since deer and other prey have fattened up after feasting all summer, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. Other cultures have called October’s moon the Falling Leaves Moon and the Freezing Moon. The Hunter’s Moon is generally in October — although once every four years it makes an appearance in November.

Sky watchers across the world will be able to see the enlarged moon — although clouds could play a spoiler for some.

When is the best time to view the Hunter’s Moon?

The moon has appeared enlarged since Tuesday and will continue to appear that way through Friday. The moon will be closest to the Earth at 8:47 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday evening, according to NASA. The moon will be at its fullest on Thursday morning at 7:26 a.m. Eastern time, just as people are leaving for their morning commute.

The moon won’t be the only shining celestial orb in the sky Thursday morning. As the moon sets, the brightest planet in the sky will be the gas giant Jupiter hanging above the southwestern horizon. Mars will hang above the southern horizon.

On Thursday evening, Saturn will illuminate above the southeastern horizon and Venus will lurk above the southwestern horizon. Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, the ancient comet that won’t be back for 80,000 years, will also be visible with binoculars or a telescope.

The supermoon series will conclude on Nov. 15 with the Beaver Moon."

How to watch tonight’s Hunter’s Moon, the largest supermoon this year - The Washington Post

Conversations and insights about the moment. - The New York Times

Republicans Hate Tech’s Influence on Politics. Unless It Comes From Elon Musk.

Oct. 9, 2024, 5:05 a.m. ETOct. 9, 2024

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

"Elon Musk has not been at all subtle in his efforts to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Musk hasn’t just endorsed him or donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump PACs or appeared at Trump rallies to jump up and down with joy. Musk is also using the full power of his ownership of X to to portray Kamala Harris as an existential threat to America while spreading many falsehoods.

The Republicans’ silence about Musk’s blatant politicking via his social media platform demonstrates their party’s deep hypocrisy when it comes to Big Tech’s power over politics.

A rule to push Musk’s posts to more people was apparently hard-coded into the platform’s software after Musk got upset that President Biden’s posts about the Super Bowl received more views than his. Musk reportedly threatened to fire his own engineers unless they made sure his posts were super amplified. Sure enough, Musk’s posts now get tens of millions of views.

Musk has posted on X, for example, that “if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election” (103 million views). He has described Kamala Harris as “just a puppet” (20 million views) or “the Kamala puppet” (28 million views). He also regularly claims what he describes as the “the Kamala Dem machine” or “the Dems” are out to ensure a “permanent one-party rule in America” (33 million views).

Musk also routinely makes false claims about mass electoral fraud committed to help Democrats. For example Musk posted that Arizona is “refusing to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls” and shared a post claiming that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants had registered to vote there — both of which prompted a correction attempt from the county recorder based in Phoenix, who is a Republican.

But Musk goes on, undeterred.

It’s not hard to imagine what many Republicans would be saying if a Silicon Valley C.E.O. had come out as hard for Kamala Harris as Musk has for Trump. Years ago, Republican legislators raised concerns that tech companies were secretly putting their thumbs on the algorithmic scales in favor of the Democrats. In response, Republican lawmakers held hearings in which they claimed that tech platforms were biased against conservatives, which they suggested was antithetical to free speech.

Where are they now?

If Republican legislators were actually serious about Big Tech’s influence on politics, they’d be dragging Musk to Congress to hold him accountable for shameless partisan favoritism. Instead, they’re reaping the spoils of Musk’s influence while saying nothing.

Who says Kamala Harris’s unconventional media tour won’t reveal anything of note? On Tuesday, she did an hourlong sit-down with Howard Stern, the satellite radio host, and among the juicy bits we learned is that the V.P. isn’t a napper; that she digs Doritos and jigsaw puzzles; that her favorite F1 driver is Lewis Hamilton; that she went to see U2 at the Sphere; and that a rare area of musical agreement between her and Doug, her husband, is their love of Prince.

Yes, folks hoping to find serious policy talk on the Stern show were out of luck. But honestly, any voters still undecided at this late date are unlikely to be making their decision based on the nitty-gritty of the candidates’ tax plans.

The goal of these chats is to help voters feel as if they know Harris, so the personal tidbits serve a purpose. And in terms of reaching a range of listeners, I’m guessing Stern’s audience doesn’t overlap excessively with fans of Oprah and “The View.” (I mean, when I tuned into the show a little early, it was just in time to hear Stern make an obscene crack about an octopus.)

Also, who could resist the opportunity to outsource some Trump bashing to a professional trash-talker like Stern, who famously disdains the MAGA king?

Stern got the political talk rolling by noting that he doesn’t even like to watch “Saturday Night Live” make fun of Harris because there’s just too much at stake this election. From there, the softballs he lobbed fell into a couple of big categories:

• Talking up her biography, especially her early work as a prosecutor. “Were you a wreck?” he asked about her first cases. “What was that like?” He had her talk about how her decision to become a prosecutor stemmed partly from having had a high school friend who was sexually abused by her stepfather. And he invited her to revisit some of the more brutal cases she dealt with. “To me you’re the law-and-order candidate,” he said, “and yet they try to paint you as a leftist who wants people running through the streets committing crimes.”

• Marveling at how horrible Donald Trump is, in so many different ways: Did you ever think you would see a Republican not embracing NATO? What about the revelation in Bob Woodward’s new book that Trump was secretly sending Covid test kits to Vladimir Putin when they were in short supply at the height of the pandemic?

The Stern stop wasn’t the stretch some people might think. For all his shock-jock nastiness, Stern has become a regular political stop, hosting heavy hitters including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

I’ve talked to campaign people about this media strategy, and they make the point that Harris needs to reach people where they are. Fair enough.

In general, Stern was a little too openly butt-smoochy for my taste, but I like a little more spice in my political interviews. So my vote for Harris’s next stop? “Hot Ones.”

In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by three points. She’s made strategic appearances on the podcasts “Call Her Daddy” and “All the Smoke.” Her new direct-to-camera ad is strong.

But she hasn’t made her closing argument yet. And the best way for her to do that is in another debate. To persuade Donald Trump to join her, she should offer to hold that debate on Fox News.

Yes, time is running out, but the final 2020 debate was on Oct. 22 of that year. Yes, Trump would have to agree to do it — and based on his recent approach he probably wouldn’t — but Harris already knows that there’s no way he’ll accept her challenge to debate on CNN on Oct. 23. There’s only one network where Harris would have another opportunity to speak to 67 million people at once, so why not?

The argument against is basically that Fox would be hostile territory, but the upside could outweigh the downside and the degree of difficulty might not be much higher than a debate on another network.

By any objective measure, Harris beat Trump in their Sept. 10 debate. If there were another debate he’d almost certainly be better prepared, but Harris was effective in answering questions the way she wants to and not the way a moderator might expect. You can pretty much guess in advance what topics the candidates would be asked about: the Middle East, immigration, transgender rights, reproductive rights, grocery prices, tariffs.

Would Fox News moderators fact-check Harris more than she was fact-checked in the first debate? Probably. But if the fact-checking were anywhere close to being evenly applied, it would be a net benefit for her. And if her campaign thinks that CNN’s moderators would go a lot easier than Fox News’s, it’s hard to see why. In the June debate, President Biden was asked, among other things, “why should voters trust you” to solve the border crisis? And “what do you say to Black voters who are disappointed that you haven’t made more progress” addressing the racial health and wealth gaps? Whether you think the framing of those questions is useful or fair, the framing of the questions in a Fox News debate would be similar.

And Harris doesn’t need to throw Trump to the proverbial mat. Another solid debate would bolster the impression that she — running in her first, truncated general election — can go toe-to-toe with a former president running in his third election. Plus, there’s a narrow slice of voters who would probably give her credit for going on an unfriendly network.

Harris might prevail in November without another debate, and she might lose if there is one. But if it makes sense to debate on another network, it also makes sense to go on Fox News.

There’s an old joke about papal pronouncements on premarital sex: If you don’t play the game, you don’t make the rules. Something similar might be said about France’s foreign policy.

Last week, President Emmanuel Macron told a radio show that “countries should stop shipping weapons to Israel for use in Gaza.” Though he insists he’s committed to ensuring Israel’s security, what he’s really asking for is an arms embargo: You can’t deny Israel weapons for potential use in one conflict while not also denying it those weapons for use in the others.

There was a time when such a call would have mattered. In the Jewish state’s early years, France supplied it with some of its most significant weaponry, including advanced jets and, according to many accounts, vital support for its nascent nuclear weapons program.

That changed on the eve of the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when President Charles de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on the Middle East that mainly hit Israel. He also accused “the Jews” of being “at all times, an elite people, sure of itself and dominating.”

Since then, France’s contribution to Israel’s security has essentially been zero. France reportedly still sells Israel about $20 million worth of components of weapons systems, an insignificant fraction of the country’s overall military procurement budget. But the French government did supply the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with a nuclear reactor, which the Israeli Air Force destroyed in 1981. France has also been notably remiss in trying to enforce the terms of the U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which was supposed to disarm Hezbollah and keep it away from Lebanon’s border with Israel.

One result of that nonfeasance is the war now raging in Lebanon. Another is that pronouncements on the Middle East conflict by the president of France just don’t matter, other than as feckless virtue-signaling toward segments of the French public and the Francophone world. As for Paris’s once-considerable influence on public opinion in Israel, consider that Macron’s comments came days after Iran tried to hit it with a barrage of nearly 200 ballistic missiles and on the eve of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 pogrom.

Whatever else one thinks about Israel, it remains an example of how a small country can make a big difference in world affairs, not least by confronting the threat Iran poses to the entire free world. Under Macron, France has become the opposite: a big country that makes no difference.

Over the past week, many Americans have turned their gazes toward North Carolina to behold gutting scenes of the damage and despair wrought by Hurricane Helene. They should keep looking, but for an additional reason: My state is a cautionary tale of what happens when no corner of our lives is cordoned off from partisan exploitation and we lose our tether to the truth.

I’ve seen politicking off human tragedy before, but seldom on this scale or with this stench. Donald Trump and many of his MAGA minions have used the historic flooding to drown their followers in self-serving lies:

About a profoundly incompetent and wholly uncaring federal government that used up all its disaster-relief money on migrants who entered the country illegally. About emergency vehicles left idling and emergency supplies blocked by Democratic politicians who don’t want to help Republican voters. About unidentified bureaucrats who somehow control the weather and wield it as a weapon.

That last fantasy? Its purveyors include a Republican member of Congress, one Marjorie Taylor Greene. But it’s not just the likes of Trump and Greene peddling such paranoia. As the fake claims and faked pictures spreading across social media make clear, many thousands if not millions of Americans have chosen fiction over fact — because it serves their political goals, profits them financially or validates their tribal fury.

They seem not to realize or care that they’re complicating honest-to-goodness efforts to assist actual victims, as government officials’ duties expand from assisting people devastated by the storm to battling opportunists whose accusations invite distrust and meddling.

The website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has a section devoted to “Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response,” and “Hurricane Helene: Fact vs. Rumor” is the title of a similar page on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s site.

Those agencies are run by Democrats, but a North Carolina Republican, State Senator Kevin Corbin, beseeched his Facebook followers to “help STOP this conspiracy theory junk” about government inaction. He assured them that both federal and state officials were on the scene and on the job. “PLEASE help stop this junk,” he repeated. He seemed desperate.

Aptly so. The need in North Carolina is real. Gaudy falsehoods aren’t going to meet it. And none of our problems will be solved if we forgive or reward merchants of grievance for whom nothing — not even suffering like my state’s — is off-limits.

Every Monday morning on The Point, we start the week with a tipsheet on the latest in the presidential campaign. Here’s what we’re looking at this week:

• With four weeks until Election Day, a vivid contrast in the presidential race is how Kamala Harris is trying to grow her vote while Donald Trump is trying to shrink his. Well, if not purposely shrinking it, Trump is going narrow by saying the same kinds of things at the same sorts of rallies with the same types of voters (i.e., his MAGA base), while ceding broader audiences to Harris on “The Howard Stern Show,” “The View,” Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, the podcast “Call Her Daddy” and “60 Minutes.”

• Harris is appearing on all five this week, and these shows have reach: “Call Her Daddy” is one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify, drawing millions of listeners — many of them young women who don’t live and breathe politics.

• In the podcast episode released Sunday, Harris was relaxed and engaging, introducing herself as a former prosecutor who fought for women, girls and others who faced injustice, and as a champion of abortion rights. She was by turns tough — calling Trump a liar several times and urging the audience to never accept “no” — and reflective about the challenge ahead. “I’m feeling great, and I’m feeling nervous,” she said about the presidential race. I’ve rarely heard a candidate admit to feeling nervous; it was refreshing.

• Harris is mixing these appearances with campaign events later in the week in Arizona and Nevada, two swing states that some Democrats see as less fertile than the other five, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina. But I still think Harris is wise to play out west: Union members, younger voters, Latinas and other women and registered Democrats are helping make the race a dead heat in Nevada and tight in Arizona, according to polls, and abortion rights measures and competitive Senate races are on the ballot in both states in November.

• Trump is zeroing in on Pennsylvania: He returned this past weekend to Butler, where the July assassination attempt occurred, and he is scheduled to campaign on Thursday in Scranton, President Biden’s birthplace, and Reading. (Trump lost the Scranton area in 2020 but won Berks County, which includes Reading.) I see Pennsylvania as a must-win state for Harris, but the polls there are tight, and the Trump campaign is surely seeing something in its internals to devote this much time there.

• To win, Trump is betting that energizing and turning out his base in the swing states is more important than growing his vote. His base isn’t the “60 Minutes” crowd, but some of them listen to Stern and “The View” — as do some of the undecided and late-breaking voters who are just getting around to sizing up Harris and giving Trump another look. Is Trump trying to blow it? All I can tell you is that Trump said at a Wisconsin rally Sunday that he wants to win a “mandate” from voters in November. A “mandate” usually implies a landslide victory, and I don’t see that happening with just his MAGA base."

Conversations and insights about the moment. - The New York Times

Astrophysicists Discuss New Evidence for Dark Matter Stars

Buttigieg counters Musk claim of Fema blocking Starlink from hurricane relief

The billionaire’s accusations about his satellite internet company are false, Fema and transportation secretary say

Blake Montgomery

(This is a horribly, deceptive, racist man, a thug immigrant from the Apartheid legacy of South Africa)

Elon Musk’s claims were amplified by Donald Trump on his app Truth Social. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, shot down criticism by Elon Musk on the government’s handling of Hurricane Helene relief efforts, accusing the SpaceX CEO of spreading misinformation.

Musk accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) of blocking his satellite internet company, Starlink, from delivering to parts of North Carolina decimated by the hurricane, a claim both Fema and Buttigieg said was false.

“No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call,” Buttigieg wrote. Musk replied that he had seen hundreds of such reports and would phone.

SpaceX engineers are trying to deliver Starlink terminals & supplies to devastated areas in North Carolina right now and @FEMA is both failing to help AND won’t let others help. This is unconscionable!!

They just took this video a few hours ago, where you can see the level of… pic.twitter.com/abpOsfNenF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2024

Musk had spent several hours on Friday raging on X against Fema over what he called “belligerent government incompetence”. Posting texts allegedly received from “a SpaceX engineer on the ground”, he accused the federal agency of blockading the disaster area and preventing private helicopters from delivering Starlink terminals, which connect to satellite internet service, and other supplies.

Musk wrote, “SpaceX engineers are trying to deliver Starlink terminals & supplies to devastated areas in North Carolina right now and @FEMA is both failing to help AND won’t let others help. This is unconscionable!!”

When reached for comment on Musk’s allegations, Fema issued a statement similar to Buttigieg’s: “The claims about FEMA confiscating or taking commodities, supplies or resources in North Carolina, Tennessee, or any state impacted by Helene are false.

“FEMA has helped provide Starlink terminals to the state of North Carolina, including to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation and critical lifeline locations as determined by the state. These units are supporting state and local municipalities, Urban Search and Rescue and disaster coordination. Starlink units have been sent to multiple states in support of Hurricane Helene response efforts,” said Jaclyn Rothenberg, Fema director of public affairs.

Still, Donald Trump amplified Musk’s claims on his app Truth Social. Musk said he would join the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

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False information has swirled in the communications blackout that has followed Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Phone and power lines were down across the south. Trump falsely accused Joe Biden of failing to call Georgia’s governor after the storm, when Biden had phoned Brian Kemp.

Musk has a history of inserting himself into rescue operations. In 2018, he offered to deliver a small submersible to Thailand to assist with the rescue of a boys’ soccer team, which divers on the scene called a “PR stunt”. In response, Musk called the head rescuer a “pedo guy”, eliciting a defamation suit that Musk later won.