Meta’s Dangerous Rule Change Has Unleashed Some Vile New Content

Meta employees are protesting the company’s new content moderation guidelines, which practically amount to no content moderation at all.

Some of the recent changes have dropped the digital guardrails on controversial topics such as immigration, race, gender identity, as well as language around the LGBTQ+ community, including allowing users to suggest that being gay is a mental illness. That last detail has sent some of the company’s own employees into a rage, according to internal conversations obtained by 404 Media.

“I am LGBT and Mentally Ill,” one employee wrote on an internal Meta forum called Workplace reads, 404 Media reported Thursday. “Just to let you know that I’ll be taking time out to look after my mental health.”

Users on Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, will also be allowed to refer to women as “household objects or property or objects in general,” Black people as “farm equipment,” and transgender individuals as “it,” according to an updated version of Meta’s hateful conduct policy that crossed out the prohibitions.

On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media behemoth would rid itself of its third-party fact-checkers, opting instead to replace them with user-generated corrections à la Elon Musk’s “community notes” function on X.

“Fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement posted to Facebook. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

John Fetterman will become the first sitting Democratic senator to visit Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate following the 2024 election, CBS News reports.

“That is the plan. Yes, we are going to have a conversation,” Fetterman told the network, confirming that he accepted an invitation to meet with the president-elect.

“I think that, one, he’s the president, or he will be officially,” Fetterman continued. “And I think it’s pretty reasonable that if the president would like to have a conversation—or invite someone to have a conversation—to have it. And no one is my gatekeeper.”

When Fetterman ran for the Senate in 2022 against Trump’s handpicked candidate Mehmet Oz, Trump shamelessly accused Fetterman of abusing heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and fentanyl, which Fetterman’s campaign dismissed at the time as “the same crap from these two desperate and sad dudes.”

Since then, Trump has been reelected president, Oz became Trump’s shady pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, and Fetterman became one of the most GOP-friendly Democrats in Congress. He has boasted about shifting away from progressive politics for more than a year, even claiming that brain damage from his near-fatal stroke allowed him to “say the things that I have to really believe in and not be afraid of if there’s any kind of blowback.”

Fetterman’s right-wing turn, including his full-throated support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, has cost him a lot of Democratic support. Most recently, Fetterman even downplayed Trump’s crazy idea to annex Greenland, comparing it to the Louisiana Purchase, signaling that he may be willing to go against his own party over the next four years like former Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

An official on Trump’s transition team said that a meeting between the president-elect and senator has not yet been finalized, but it goes to show that Fetterman either isn’t worried about the coming Trump presidency or just doesn’t care. Pennsylvania might have one Republican senator in Dave McCormick and one Democrat in name only.

A MAGA visit intended to make Greenland look pro–Donald Trump appears staged from the bottom up.

The so-called tourism trip saw Donald Trump Jr., far-right political pundit Charlie Kirk, and Trump administration staffer Sergio Gor visit the self-governing Danish territory at a time when the president-elect has made some odd jokes and eyebrow-raising militaristic threats about buying Greenland.

The trio’s presence on the island—and myriad photo ops with local residents—was not taken well by some of Greenland’s politicians, who slammed Don Jr.’s visit as a stunt to make the territory appear open to U.S. governance. Pipaluk Lynge, the chair of Greenland’s parliamentary foreign and security policy committee, told Politico that the territory wants its “own independence and democracy.” Lynge also warned the United States not to “invade” the nation, which is largely composed of Indigenous tribes, in light of its historical treatment of Alaska’s Indigenous population.

“Greenland is not for sale and will never be for sale,” Aaja Chemnitz, another member of Greenland’s Parliament, told NBC News.

But some of the behind-the-scenes details of the pro-Trump expedition are even worse.

Danish media reported Thursday that a series of photos featuring Kirk and Greenlandic residents in MAGA hats was staged. The MAGA cohort reportedly rounded up homeless people from the area—including one person from under a bridge—promising them a meal at the Hotel Hans Egede in exchange for their participation in the pro-Trump photo circuit.

Videos of the trip that circulated on X describe the Greenlandic participants as “the local community in Nuuk,” but several local sources that spoke with DR News described the photographed individuals as “homeless and socially disadvantaged” people who are often outside the supermarket directly across from the hotel where the Trump event was held.

“All they have to do is put on a cap and be in the Trump staff’s videos. They are being bribed, and it is deeply distasteful,” Tom Amtoft, a 28-year resident of Nuuk, told the Danish news outlet.

Amtoft reportedly witnessed the group’s attempts to get locals to wear the MAGA caps for the photos, describing the process as “very aggressive.” He said the Trump envoys chose a “selective” group of people “who could say that Greenland should be bought.”

The Los Angeles wildfires have so far claimed 1,300 structures and threatened 60,000 more, torching a total area larger than Manhattan. Analysts predict that the blaze could be the most expensive in U.S. history, costing billions of dollars in repairs across the city—but it didn’t have to be that way.

Total economic losses for the inferno are predicted to reach nearly $50 billion, JPMorgan analyst Jimmy Bhullar told the Wall Street Journal, though they could continue to rise if the fires aren’t brought under control. Bhullar estimated that the price tag on insured losses would be more than $20 billion, nearly $8 billion more than the most destructive wildfire in California’s history, the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County.

Local authorities have acknowledged there is a serious lack of personnel and essential resources, such as water, to effectively combat the fire. But remedies to legitimately tackle the growing climate threat have sat on the table, sinking from inaction, for years.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s Green New Deal proposed an $18 billion increase in national spending specifically to address the “more frequent and severe wildfires” plaguing the American West.

“In order to be able to quickly and effectively respond to wildfires, we will expand the wildfire restoration and disaster preparedness workforce,” the proposal reads. “We will increase funding for firefighting by $18 billion for federal firefighters to deal with the increased severity and frequency of wildfires.”

Sanders first unveiled the details of his radical agenda to fight climate change in 2019, after a cohort of progressive lawmakers in Congress outlined a new series of climate principles and goals for the nation. In March last year, Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reintroduced the legislation. They were joined by 55 lawmakers in the House and seven senators, but the proposal was ultimately dismissed by Republicans and Democrats alike for its lofty objectives, with some critics hyperbolically mischaracterizing the policy.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton falsely told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in 2019 that the proposal would confiscate cars and would force Americans to ride a light rail “powered by unicorn tears.” The same year, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso baselessly claimed that the Green New Deal would ban livestock and mark the end of ice cream, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes.

But while Congress has failed to offer alternative solutions, the looming national crisis awaits—with an incoming Republican trifecta apparently set on killing tax credits for electric vehicles and spurring fossil fuel production on federally protected land.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s transition team has already prepared executive orders for the president-elect to once again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the international climate treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

And Trump isn’t likely to offer much help to California while it rebuilds from the blaze, either—the forty-fifth president reportedly resisted sending wildfire aid to the Golden State in 2018 because the state voted Democratic.

It seems that Karen Pence still holds a grudge against Donald Trump for leaving her husband to the January 6 mob.

Politicians past and present gathered in Washington, D.C., on Thursday for the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter. President-elect Trump and his wife, Melania, walked past his former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, who were sitting alongside another former vice president, Al Gore.

Gore and Pence both stood up to greet Trump and Melania, shaking their hands and saying a few words. But Karen Pence stayed seated, staring ahead icily instead of greeting the couple.

It’s highly likely the snub was intentional, especially as Karen was seen later greeting former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura.

Trump shunned Pence in 2020 after the vice president refused to stop the certification of the election results. “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy,” Trump told Pence during the certification process, according to The New York Times. Pence chose to defy his president.

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” Trump tweeted during the January 6 riots shortly before shouts of “Hang Mike Pence” began ringing out from the crowd. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson later testified that Trump expressed support for the chants that day.

It’s likely that this was Trump and Pence’s first public encounter since January 6, 2021. For Karen Pence, those wounds still seem to be fresh.

While one of the most devastating wildfires in American history rages on in Southern California, Republicans in Congress have decided to focus on retaking the Panama Canal.

On Thursday, Representative Dusty Johnson introduced a bill that authorizes the president to begin negotiations to reacquire the canal, with 15 of his fellow Republicans as co-sponsors.

The move follows Donald Trump’s public calls to reacquire the canal even though Panama’s leadership has said the idea isn’t up for discussion. Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha said Tuesday that “the sovereignty of our canal is not negotiable and is part of our history of struggle.”

Trump claimed last month that Chinese troops were stationed in the canal zone, which Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino called “nonsense,” saying that “there is not a single Chinese soldier in the canal.”

Johnson seems to be playing to Trump’s ego with the bill, if his words to Fox News on Wednesday are any indication.

“I think it is a Teddy Roosevelt moment,” the South Dakota representative said. “And frankly, America used to run this canal, and it was very well run under American leadership.”

In recent weeks, Trump has also floated taking over Greenland and adding Canada as the fifty-first U.S. state. Whether his plans are serious or not, they’ve already received pushback from leaders in the Danish territory, Canada, and even France, speaking on behalf of the European Union.

The case of Panama is unique, though: Trump has an outstanding tax evasion case in the country and could be looking to settle scores (and protect his wallet) with some saber-rattling. Maybe he also has some kind of financial interests in Greenland and Canada. If only the president-elect saw dollar signs in Southern California. Maybe then, people who are losing their homes and livelihoods to wildfires would be his priority.

The right is blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion and “wokeness” for the response to massive wildfires in Southern California.

Several conservative pundits and personalities have gone after their favorite bogeymen on social media this week as fires have spread throughout the Los Angeles metro area, afflicting liberals, conservatives, the wealthy, and the poor alike.

Some bizarrely claimed that the shortage in firefighters was because “Los Angeles deliberately set out to exclude white men from becoming firefighters,” in the words of Matt Walsh.

Others blamed DEI and wokeness more broadly.

Megyn Kelly went on a tirade on her radio show Wednesday, blaming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley for prioritizing “diversity,” attacking Crowley’s background.

“Who gives a s–t if the fire chief is gay? I’m sorry but who gives a flying fig about who she likes to sleep with; can you fight the f–king fires, madam? That’s the relevant question,” Kelly said.

Chaya Raichik, the bigot behind the “Libs of TikTok” account, also went after Crowley.

Many on the right cited a 2017 speech by right-wing comedian Adam Carolla, who complained that he was rejected when he applied to be a Los Angeles firefighter because he was “not Black, Hispanic, or a woman,” as evidence. But Carolla’s story, if true, took place in the 1980s, not recently, a fact lost on these conservatives. And in another bizarre turn, pundit Charlie Kirk railed against sign language interpreters during emergency briefings, calling them a “distraction” and “over the top.”

In reality, one major reason for the shortfall in firefighters in Los Angeles is because Bass cut the city’s firefighting budget by $17.6 million, while increasing the police department’s by $126 million. But conservatives aren’t going to complain about a higher police budget. Nor are they going to realize that climate change is the root cause of increased wildfires. Maybe they think shooting at a wildfire can put it out.

Elon has zeroed in on his next political target: U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The world’s richest man has been consulting with his right-wing allies to devise a strategy to oust the Labour Party’s Starmer before the next election, according to a report from the Financial Times Thursday.

Musk has been antagonizing Starmer on X for some time, but according to people familiar with the matter, he is now focused on finding a way to destabilize the Labour government and bolster other alternatives.

“His view is that Western civilisation itself is threatened,” one source told FT.

Musk has been rallying to free far-right, Islamaphobic hooligan Tommy Robinson from prison since the new year and thinks that all-out civil war is “inevitable” in the nation. He’s also been calling for a national investigation into the grooming and exploitation cases in the Midlands region of England. Musk blames Starmer, who was a director of public prosecutions at the time, for his oversight on the issue.

Musk’s attempted toppling of Starmer is another installment in his efforts to exert the same political influence he has in the United States in Europe. The billionaire has been singing the praises of Germany’s far-right, nativist Alternative for Germany, or AfD,  Party. He published an op-ed in a German newspaper in which he wrote, “Portraying the AfD as far-right is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Come on!” He has since been accused of election interference by the German government but has shown no signs of stopping. He is also scheduled to host AfD leader Alice Weidel live on X sometime before the German elections in February.

Meanwhile, Musk is also closing in on a massive telecommunications deal with Italy’s far-right government, entrenching himself in the Eurozone.

The highest court in New York has declined Donald Trump’s request that they stop his scheduled sentencing in his hush-money case on Friday. Judge Juan M. Merchan will sentence him unless the Supreme Court steps in to deny him.

The president-elect was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

Merchan has already said he does not intend to sentence Trump to prison. If he is fined, which also seems unlikely, his attorneys are expected to argue that this process is an undue burden on Trump as he prepares to take office again.

Trump has been begging the Supreme Court to help him evade sentencing for weeks now, even trying to incur his presidential immunity—but to no avail thus far.

“I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge by a corrupt judge who is just doing the work of the Biden/Harris Injustice Department, an attack on their political opponent, ME!” Trump railed on Truth Social last weekend.

This story has been updated.

The star witness who falsely alleged that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter took a $10 million bribe from Ukraine was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday.

Republicans repeatedly touted the testimony of Alexander Smirnov as the smoking gun against the president and his son, using it in an attempt to impeach Biden. But in February last year, Smirnov was indicted by special counsel David Weiss and charged with lying about the Bidens’ involvement with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, collapsing House Republicans’ case.

Last month, Smirnov pleaded guilty to four felony charges, which included one count of obstruction of justice and three tax evasion charges, and admitted to fabricating the conspiracy. As a condition of Smirnov’s plea deal, prosecutors agreed to ask for a maximum of six years in prison. Smirnov, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, also has to pay about $675,000 in restitution to the IRS for his tax evasion charges.

Smirnov’s sentencing should end the case against the president and his son, with the only remaining loose end being Weiss’s final report, and Attorney General Merrick Garland will decide whether that should be made public. A jury convicted Hunter Biden on gun charges in June, and he pleaded guilty to tax charges in September. But President Biden pardoned his son before he could be sentenced in either case.

With Donald Trump set to be sworn in as president in less than two weeks, Republicans could attempt to pretend that this entire saga never happened. Or Representative James Comer and company might try to find another “informant” and gin up new charges against the Bidens, following through on Trump’s threats to go after his enemies. Trump’s pick to run the FBI, Kash Patel, zealously wants to put those threats into action. The next few months will show whether this case is really over.