Facebook 😡 Square. In the latest sign that Facebook really, really wants Chicago Public Square to stop sending readers its way—as has been the case for virtually every edition since launch in 2017—the company this week has repeatedly removed posts sharing the Sept. 30 edition, which among other things featured news of The New York Times’ presidential endorsement for Kamala Harris.
■ Facebook says, “It looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.” And/or: “Spam.”
■ If you’re unsure what constitutes “misleading” or “spam” when sharing an award-winning, critically acclaimed email newsletter, good luck finding out. As with previous rounds of censorship, Facebook parent Meta provides no way to offer a personalized defense and no way to reach a human for answers.
■ Want to protest this capricious crackdown? Share (or try to share) this link on Facebook, Threads and other Meta-brand social media: https://www.chicagopublicsquare.com/2024/09/trumps-dark-threats-post-helene-hell.html …
■ … or this link to the Mailchimp email dispatch of that edition: https://us6.campaign-archive.com/?u=c1ce195a775f7d7ff4846006e&id=56f2c8500e.
Wayback: Way down. Archive.org—whose Wayback Machine has by default become the definitive repository of internet history—has been hacked …
■ … exposing 31 million usernames, passwords and other data …
■ … and knocking much of its service offline …
■ … including a repository of Square podcasts.
■ Check haveibeenpwned.com to see if yours is among the accounts compromised.
Death and blackouts. Updating coverage: Floridians—at least those who could sleep through the night—awakened today to widespread destruction and some fatalities in the wake of Hurricane Milton …
■ … but the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says the state avoided “that worst-case scenario that we were planning for.”
■ A former Florida climate commissioner writes for Heated: “Milton is a monster. Elected leaders are to blame.”
■ Among the devastation: The roof of the Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium …
■ The paper’s climate reporter is sharing photos.
■ Popular Information: The fine print means many Florida homeowners—even those with insurance—will get little or no help rebuilding …
■ … and Hurricane Helene’s damage to Deerfield-based Baxter International’s North Carolina plant foretells a shortage of IV fluids for hospitals across the nation.
‘It’s beyond ridiculous.’ President Biden held back little yesterday in calling out Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for lying about the federal government’s disaster response.
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: Trump-led misinformation is sucking time from recovery efforts.
■ Alumni of Trump’s presidency hit the trail to campaign against him in Pennsylvania last night, but The Bulwark questions whether they can reach their target audience.
■ Trump’s niece Mary quotes herself: “If [Donald] can … profit from your death, he’ll facilitate it, and then he’ll ignore the fact that you died.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
‘Like sharing news that Hugh Hefner went on a date.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg’s not all that hot to praise the Times for its belated acknowledgment of Trump’s “extensive cognitive decline.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Increasingly, Trump’s behavior seems to parrot the dictators he appears to admire.”
■ National political journalist Nina Burleigh describes a new documentary about Trump-inspired MAGA violence—available digitally next week—as “required viewing.”
‘Harris doesn’t owe the mainstream press anything.’ Public Notice’s Noah Berlatsky rejects media whining about her refusal to grant them interviews.
■ Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show: “Harris raised a billion dollars. Yeah, now you’re allowed to text her for donations.”
‘A license plate is pretty clearly a public forum.’ Columnist Eric Zorn agrees with the Illinois secretary of state’s office that vanity plates displaying “some iteration of the date Oct. 7” are “repugnant and ghoulish,” but he contends the platform “ought to be open for a wide variety of expressions, even those that many of us find politically objectionable.”
■ Puck’s Dylan Byers recaps an ostensibly “confidential” staff meeting to discuss “a fast-metastasizing, five-alarm shitshow” at CBS News—over an aggressive interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about the Mideast war.
■ Media columnist Justin Baragona at Zeteo: Anchor Tony Dokoupil’s admitted to violating CBS standards.
‘A strange day in civic Chicago.’ Activist Tom Tresser marvels that the teachers union and the embattled school board agree on a highly controversial notion: The end of the city’s tax increment financing (TIF) system.
■ WBEZ: Such a move “could draw ire from some City Council members and private developers who rely on the system to fund projects.”
■ Hundreds of Chicago families have been blindsided by private operator Acero’s decision to close seven schools beginning next year.
‘Why is this a story?’ Square reader Michael Rosenbaum writes of yesterday’s edition’s inclusion of an item about a person’s arrest after a gun was found in a room at Chicago’s Trump Tower: “Is Trump planning to stay there next week when he is in Chicago? … Other than the name of the building, does this have anything to do with Donald J. Trump?”
■ As subsequent reporting has explained: Yes. Also, turns out: Multiple guns.
Got anything going on tonight? Come to FitzGerald’s in Berwyn to support a great cause—the Farther Foundation, funding life-changing educational travel for deserving students …
■ … and—bonus—hear your Square columnist share profoundly personal, highly embarrassing tales of his own travel mishaps.