Now playing on Facebook. Accompanying Meta’s abandonment of third-party fact-checking: An update to its “hateful conduct” policy—meaning, CNN reports, that “users are now allowed to, for example, refer to ‘women as household objects or property’” …
■ … and, as Wired notes, to say “gay and trans people have ‘mental illness.’”
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst details “the free speech Mark Zuckerberg traded his dick to Donald Trump for.”
■ Popular Information: Meta’s giving hate speech “a green light.”
■ Recalling Facebook’s role in slaughter of the Rohingya in Myanmar, a former employee tells Platformer’s Casey Newton, “This is a precursor for genocide.”
■ On the plus side, Facebook’s restored longtime Chicago media watcher Robert Feder’s profile.
■ In a news conference yesterday, President-elect Trump said he thinks Meta monarch Zuckerberg is “probably” responding to threats Trump’s made against him.
■ 404 Media: Even as Zuckerberg touts a new commitment to free expression, the company’s censoring stories about Facebook censorship …
■ … and deleting internal employee criticism of new board member and Trump pal Dana White.
■ In making his announcement about changes that stand to cost journalism jobs, Zuckerberg wore a rare watch that Bloomberg says is worth about $900,000.
■ Satiric Australian website The Shovel: “Zuckerberg—Dead At 36—Says Social Media Sites Should Not Fact Check Posts.”
■ Andy Borowitz mockingly quotes serial liar and ex-Rep. George Santos: “I commend Facebook’s decision, and I know that my fellow Beatles agree with me.”
■ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer sees opportunity for Democrats in plutocrats’ supplication to Trump.
■ Journalist Dan Sinker—you may recall him as the longtime proprietor of a satirical @MayorEmanuel Twitter account (2011 link)—says he’s quitting Facebook sibling Threads: “You were never very good. And fuck you, Mark Zuckerberg, neither were you.”
■ Chicago Public Square’s shifting its social media focus to Bluesky.
Wikipedia’s under seige, too. Forward reports the conservative Heritage Foundation is aiming to “identify and target” volunteer editors with the internet’s go-to source for reliable information.
■ The Washington Post: How to do your own fact-checking.
■ The Post and HuffPost have announced layoffs.
■ Biz watcher Matt Stoller explains why a Disney corporate deal should scare you.
‘Take Trump’s Greenland obsession seriously.’ Reflecting on Trump’s news conference, The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger says the president-elect’s thirst to expand the United States exemplifies “the foreign-policy expression of his core political impulse: Bullying.”
■ He’s pushing a rebrand of the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” … because, he says, “it’s ours.”
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based parodist Rex Huppke: “Damn straight it’s ours! Are you going to tell me that 200 million years ago when the Pangea supercontinent was breaking up there weren’t big, strong American workers causing tectonic plates to shift and form our beautiful gulf?”
■ Seth Meyers: “Good news: Everybody’s gettin’ new maps! Bad news: Maps are super expensive due to inflation.”
■ In his inimitable style, columnist Jeff Tiedrich recaps a “batshit press conference.”
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg shares thoughts on how to endure the next four years.
■ Desi Lydic at The Daily Show: “We’ve been so concerned about all the scary things that Trump’s going to do, we forgot he’s also going to do some really stupid things.” (Cartoon: Marc Stopeck.)
■ In an exit interview with USA Today, President Biden said Trump gave him a compliment.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch: The real reason Trump won is “the millions who didn’t think voting was worth it.”
‘A bad look.’ A Tribune editorial slams Mayor Johnson for blocking Illinois legislation that would have enabled “action against unregulated purveyors of potent hemp products that have sent numerous city kids to the hospital after what could accurately be described as overdosing.”
■ Politico: The legislation’s fate exemplifies strained relations between Johnson and Gov. Pritzker …
■ … who is getting a bill to remove guns from domestic violence situations …
■ … another giving nursing home residents and employees an easier path to suing nursing homes for retaliation after reporting complaints about facilities …A Square advertiser
Is your house ready for winter’s worst? Realtor Patty Reilly-Murphy’s newsletter offers answers on that front and many more. And when you’re ready to sell or buy, Patty’s ready to help with that, too.
Mask up. Illinois’ respiratory illness gauge has moved from Moderate to High.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist tackles questions frequently asked about bird flu.
This one could burn. Nicor Gas is asking for the largest gas rate-hike in Illinois history—hiking Chicago-area customers’ delivery charges by about a fifth.
■ The state-chartered Citizens Utility Board calls the request “a money-grab meant to benefit shareholders to the detriment of customers who just want to keep their homes warm.”
L.A. aflame. Continual updates: Wildfires have been ripping across the Los Angeles area …
■ … devastating the Pacific Palisades celebrity enclave.
■ Among those evacuating: Actors Mark Hamill, Eugene Levy and James Woods.
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “L.A. stations are known for their helicopters, but the intense winds mean that virtually all the live shots are coming from the ground … making it difficult to see the full scope of the emergency” …
■ … but AP photos capture some of the devastation.
■ Climate change is one of the culprits.
Underground, sans oversight. ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Boring Company is tunneling beneath Las Vegas with almost no government safeguards.
■ 2018: It coulda happened in Chicago.
■ As the CTA quits Twitter X, a rider’s created a replacement with realtime transit updates.
Thanks. Rosemary Caruk and Mike Braden made this edition better.
■ Your support—even just $1, once—helps keep Square coming.
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Cash prize for dogged reporting. Enter your work to win the Chicago Headline Club’s A-Mark Prize for Dogged Reporting. The award includes cash prizes for first, second and third place. Apply by Friday night. More info at HeadlineClub.org.