Daily Archives: June 1, 2020

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson doesnt follow the President of the United States on Twitter.

She was sitting in her basement office eating breakfast May 20 when her staff called to inform her that Donald Trump had called Benson a rogue Secretary of State, accusing her of mailing ballots to Michigan voters (in fact, they were ballot applications) and suggesting (incorrectly) that vote by mail would lead to fraud. Oh, and he threatened to withhold funding from Michigan over the issue. (Its unclear what funding he was referring to; the White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

What stood out about the episode to Benson, a Democrat, wasnt just how Trump had addressed her, the factual inaccuracies, or the threat tucked into his tweet. It was that she was hardly the only Secretary of State to take a step like this. States like Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska, and West Virginiawhich Trump won in 2016, and which have Republican Secretaries of Statehave taken similar actions in sending out applications for absentee ballots in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, at least for their primaries.

This is nothing other than me doing my job. And its the same policy, vote by mail, that voters on both sides of the aisle embrace, Benson says. To me it was just disingenuous that while you have Republican colleagues of mine doing the same thing, that I get singled out, in part Im sure because Im a Democrat. Im sure its relevant that Michigans playing an important, prominent role in this years election. It helps feed into a national narrative that there are shenanigans happening in states that are critical to the election. A false narrative.

Before the pandemic, five states (Washington, Utah, Hawaii, Oregon and Colorado) conducted all-mail elections, and three (California, North Dakota, and Nebraska, the latter with some exceptions) gave counties the ability to determine their rules, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty-nine states plus Washington, D.C. have no-excuse absentee voting, which means voters do not need to provide a reason to request an absentee ballot.

But with the prospect of the coronavirus disrupting elections looming, others have moved to make vote-by-mail more easily accessible, with some taking action for primaries and others for the general election. Three states (Michigan, New Hampshire and California) have made changes to enhance vote-by-mail availability in November. Michigan announced it will send out absentee ballot applications for the general election. New Hampshire, which typically is not a no-excuse absentee voting state, decided to allow absentee voting in November if the pandemic is still a factor, a decision announced by the states Republican governor. And California will distribute vote-by-mail ballots to all of its registered voters.

In recent weeks, Trump has seized on these changes, turning a process designed to safeguard voters health and ballot access into a political wedge, arguing falsely that it will lead to widespread voter fraud and creating fear among election experts that the President is undermining the legitimacy of the contest. The irony in this goes beyond the fact that Trump often votes by mail himself. There is little evidence, experts say, that either party benefits politically from allowing citizens to vote by mail, while places that use it see increased voter turnout overall. And its not just Democrats pushing the idea: Republican Secretaries of State and other executives in red states have also employed it.

Im bumfuzzled by the Presidents objections to vote by mail. Republicans historically have done fine if not better in heavy-mail scenarios, says Michael Steel, a Republican strategist. They disproportionately tend to be used by older voters who disproportionately tend to vote Republican.

Its kind of a mystery why hes picked this particular fight to have at this particular time with a pandemic raging and a very tight election, Steel adds. If I were the President, I would be encouraging the Republican Party nationally and across the country to invest in the infrastructure to make sure that we can vote by mail successfully.

You dont need to reach back very far to find an example of vote-by-mail helping Republicans. The May special election in Californias 25th congressional district was mostly conducted by mail. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom had ballots and prepaid postage-return envelopes sent to every registered voter. An analysis by Political Data Inc., a voter data firm, showed that of the approximately 425,000 ballots sent to all voters, 34% were mailed back in. Though more ballots went out to Democrats, Republicans returned them at a higher rate. The seat, previously held by a Democrat, was won by the Republican candidate, Mike Garcia.

Which isnt to say vote-by-mail favors Republicans, either. A study published earlier this spring by Stanford University examined counties in a handful of states that implemented vote-by-mail programs and concluded vote by mail does not appear to increase either partys vote share. The researchers noted its difficult to extrapolate their findings to wider use during a pandemic. But generally, vote by mail doesnt overwhelmingly advantage one party over the other, says Daniel Thompson, a PhD candidate at Stanford and the papers lead author.

In Michigans May 5 county and municipal elections, turnout was double past May contests, coming in at 25% of eligible voters, with 99% of those who cast a ballot doing so by mail. Vote-by-mail was equally popular in Republican and Democratic communties, Benson said. The ability to vote by mail actually significantly increased turnout across the board.

Despite this, many of Trumps allies have followed suit in attacking the process. The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Campaign Committee, and the California GOP this week filed a lawsuit against Newsom and Secretary of State Alex Padilla over expanding vote-by-mail in California, arguing it would invite fraud, coercion, theft, and otherwise illegitimate voting. Lawsuits over voting rights are playing out in several states, including Texas, where Democrats also sought to expand vote by mail.

Sam Reed, an advocate for vote-by-mail who served from 2001 to 2013 as a Republican Secretary of State in Washington, says suggesting that vote by mail will lead to voter fraud is totally incorrect. He pointed to checks in place to avoid it, like election staff taking training from the state police on how to verify signatures. We have really tight systems, Reed says.

Yet Trump has a history of pushing false narratives about voter fraud. He has long propagated conspiracy theories of widespread voter fraud despite the fact that studies have found it to be rare. A voter fraud commission the President put in place was disbanded by January 2018 with nothing to show for it.

The Presidents tweets on voter fraud even led to Twitter attempting to fact check him for the first time on Tuesday. In response to a tweet claiming in part that Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed, the social media platform added a label directing users to Get the facts about mail-in ballots.

Asked on Thursday by TIME whether the Presidents comments on vote-by-mail were an effort to lay groundwork to cast doubt on November election results, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany responded: No, hes certainly not doing that.

With reporting by Brian Bennett.

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Write to Lissandra Villa at lissandra.villa@time.com.

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Donald Trump Is Waging War on Vote-By-Mail. The Facts Don't Support It - TIME

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President Trump has finally goaded Twitter into starting the fight that Trump has been itching to have. Unfortunately for the social media giant, its a fight Twitter cannot win anymore and one that Trump and his allies do not want to end.

Over the course of his term, the president has flouted Twitters terms of service countless times with impunity as hes used the platform to launch personal attacks and wildly mislead the public (often with bold but false assertions that he eventually deletes). On Tuesday, Twitter whose leadership moves with tectonic speed finally called him on it, flagging two of his posts about vote-by-mail fraud in California as potentially misleading.

Naturally, Trump responded with outrage, accusing Twitter of trying to sway voters:

On Wednesday, Trump showed more of his cards. By pushing back against his tweets on voter fraud, Trump argued, Twitter was confirming its bias against conservatives:

The rhetorical jujitsu on display is, you have to admit, masterful. As is the case with so many of those who defy Trump, Twitter is playing checkers and Trump is playing Warzone.

For starters, Twitter singled out the wrong tweets. As distorted and factually wrong as Trumps tweets about Californias mail-in voting system were, they werent the ones that had provoked a groundswell of public outrage. Those would be the smear campaign Trump was simultaneously waging against MSNBCs Joe Scarborough, vaguely accusing the former congressman of having been involved in the death of a staffer 20 years ago. The staffers widower asked Twitter to take those tweets down, and Twitter refused.

More important, though, was the timing. Twitter has ignored Trumps line-crossing for so long that any move it makes now invites an accusation that its trying to influence voters. Had it taken action the first time the president abused its platform, it would have set a precedent that no one was above Twitter rules. By waiting until now, it has delivered exactly the opposite message.

Some readers might argue that the public has an interest in hearing whatever the president wants to say, on any platform. Thats nonsense. The president has a unique platform of his own that he can use at any hour of any day. When he ventures onto Twitter, Facebook or any other nongovernmental space, he is leveraging someone elses resources to broadcast his thoughts. He has no entitlement to do so no one does.

Under a provision of federal communications law known as Section 230, Twitter has a clear right to enforce its terms of service against any user who violates them. And given that its a private company,and not an arm of government, there are no 1st Amendment issues in play. In fact, Twitter has its own 1st Amendment speech right to mark offending tweets as it sees fit.

But conservatives have campaigned steadily in recent years to turn those rights into liabilities, arguing that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other online powerhouses have been biased against their tribe. Never mind that the supposed targets of this alleged bias have been extremists like Alex Jones of Infowars (and Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, not exactly a Republican). The point is to play the victim card over and over, so that Twitter and company will hesitate to act even against obviously improper posts.

The fact that it took Twitter until Tuesday to act and that it used the blandest possible language in flagging Trumps tweets shows how well conservatives have worked the refs.

So what might Trumps big action be? He cant simply create a new watchdog to oversee the tech giants because, again, they are protected by Section 230. But there may be a legislative play; some Republicans (and some Democrats) are trying to weaken or even undo that shield because they believe it protects too much bad behavior. Thats why Congress carved a hole in Section 230 two years ago in the name of fighting sex trafficking.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has been in the vanguard of the effort to neuter Section 230, pushing a bill that would force tech companies to earn the laws liability shield by proving to a supermajority of the Federal Trade Commission every two years that their algorithms and content removal practices are politically neutral. Its a ridiculous idea that would defeat the whole purpose of Section 230, which was to enable companies to enforce their terms of service. Not only do we not want a political body to decide what is and isnt politically neutral, but any objective measure could be easily gamed. If Twitter removes 100 tweets by neo-Nazis but only 10 by communists, does that mean that Twitter is biased against the far right? Or that neo-Nazis simply spew more hate on the platform?

The bill would put so much power into the hands of a minority of the members of the FTC that it seems unlikely to obtain the bipartisan support needed to make it through the Senate. But as Trump shows, the point here isnt to change the law. Its to be able to complain, continually, that the deck is stacked against Republicans and by doing so, making sure that few if any cards get played.

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Twitter waited too long to enforce its rules on Trump - Los Angeles Times

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US President Donald Trump speaks as US Attorney General William Barr listens before signing an executive order on social media companies in the Oval Office on May 28.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting social media companies on Thursday. The move came after Twitter fact-checked two of his tweets as containing "potentially misleading misinformation."

"Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias," the order reads. "Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politicians tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called Site Integrity has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets."

This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS! the president tweeted on Thursday morning before attacking by name the Twitter employee whom some conservatives have falsely claimed was responsible for adding the fact-check label to his tweets.

While signing the executive order on Thursday, the president said he would shut down Twitter if his lawyers found a way to do it. "I'd have to go through a legal process," he told reporters.

Trumps executive order will affect Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms like Facebook and Twitter from being held liable for content posted by their users. The 1996 law states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

US Attorney General William Barr said Thursday that the executive order will not revoke Section 230, but did not further explain how the order would impact it, only saying that social media companies have stretched the meaning of its original intention. The president argued on Thursday that once a platform like Twitter edits content, it "ceases to become a neutral public platform and becomes an editor with a viewpoint."

The president continued the feud late on Thursday night, tweeting, ".@Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is today criticizing Twitter. We have a different policy than Twitter on this. I believe strongly that Facebook shouldnt be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Did Twitter criticize Obama for his you can keep your Dr.?

On Thursday evening, Twitter released a statement in which the company said, "This EO is a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law. #Section230 protects American innovation and freedom of expression, and its underpinned by democratic values. Attempts to unilaterally erode it threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms."

Twitter slapped Trump on the wrist. Trump responds with an attempt to blow up the entire internet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has dubbed Section 230 the one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression. Passed following two court decisions that forced early internet services to choose between moderating content and enjoying immunity from being sued over what users posted on them, Section 230 solved the "moderator's dilemma" by allowing internet services to both patrol user-generated content and sidestep lawsuits for content they hosted.

Although the Communications Decency Act was passed on a bipartisan basis, Jeff Kosseff, assistant professor of cybersecurity law at the United States Naval Academy, told BuzzFeed News that Section 230 has been stuck for years in a political purgatory. You have one contingent saying there is too much moderation, he said, but then you have another contingent saying overall there is not enough moderation.

But legal experts said that regardless of whether the provision needed to be changed, Trump's action Thursday will add even more confusion to what responsibility platforms have about what is posted in their communities.

How [Trumps executive order] would work is very unclear. If there are effects, it will take a long time and be likely struck down by the courts, Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at Columbia Universitys Knight First Amendment Institute, told BuzzFeed News. I believe the purpose of this is to put a burden on the social media companies.

Fallow said it was ironic that the executive order treats Twitter, a private company, as a public square where people have free speech rights protected by the First Amendment when conservatives historically have opposed government regulation of speech on private property.

The executive order is unlikely to have many tangible effects, according to Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law. It's largely atmospherics. It's largely performative, he told BuzzFeed News.

Twitter slapped Trump on the wrist, Goldman said. Trump responds with an attempt to blow up the entire internet.

President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order on social media companies in the Oval Office on May 28.

In advance of Trumps announcement, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel released a statement on Thursday saying an order pulling the agency into Trumps spat with Twitter was a bad idea.

This does not work. Social media can be frustrating. But an Executive Order that would turn the Federal Communications Commission into the Presidents speech police is not the answer. Its time for those in Washington to speak up for the First Amendment. History wont be kind to silence, Rosenworcel said.

In his remarks, the president made it clear that the order was retaliation for Twitter fact-checking his tweets. The executive order says that the "Attorney General shall develop a proposal for Federal legislation that would be useful to promote the policy objectives of this order."

Attorney General Bill Barr has been exploring options to change Section 230 for months. In a December speech, Barr said the Justice Department had started thinking critically about the issue, describing social media companies relative immunity as staggering.

I think the leaked order is trolling all these legal scholars.

But the Department of Justices focus, according to Barrs speeches, has been less about political bias and more about whether or not social media companies are doing enough to make the internet safe. In February, the Department of Justice held a workshop on the future of Section 230. Barr said in his opening remarks that the threat of lawsuits could force social media companies to do more to limit speech that facilitated terrorism and human trafficking; the issue of whether Twitter and other platforms were targeting conservative speech barely came up, according to coverage of the workshop by the Verge.

Mary Anne Franks, the president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and a member of Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, criticized Trumps order, saying it would "reinforce the baseless claim that conservatives are being discriminated against on social media, she told BuzzFeed News.

Franks also took issue with the way the executive order was announced: first by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to reporters on a flight back to Washington on Wednesday night and then leaked later that evening.

I think the leaked order is trolling all these legal scholars, Franks said.

Franks didnt think the executive order would change much in the law, but it would influence how online platforms carry out their fact-checks and moderate content.

It's meant to have a cultural impact, not a legal impact, she said. All they did was slap a tiny label on something that will probably not have any real effect except make him angry. It's really a shame this really modest step in that direction has set this off.

Ahead of the executive orders signing on Thursday morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg differentiated his company from Twitter, saying during a Fox News interview that Facebook should not be an arbiter of truth.

Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that, he said, adding, In general, I think a government choosing to censor a platform because they're worried about censorship doesn't exactly strike me as the right reflex there.

In a statement late on Thursday, Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said that repealing or limiting Section 230 would "restrict more speech online, not less."

The Trump fact-check on Twitter infuriated Republicans and set off waves of abuse at an employee incorrectly believed to be responsible for applying the label.

On Wednesday evening, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended the Trump fact-check, tweeting, "Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and thats me. Please leave our employees out of this. Well continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make."

The dispute between Trump and Twitter also included members of Congress.

The law still protects social media companies like @Twitter because they are considered forums not publishers, Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted on Tuesday. But if they have now decided to exercise an editorial role like a publisher then they should no longer be shielded from liability & treated as publishers under the law.

On Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley shared an open letter to Dorsey.

.@jack a few questions for you below, he wrote. Bottom line: Why should @twitter continue to get special treatment from government as a mere distributor of other peoples content if you are going to editorialize and comment like a publisher? Shouldnt you be treated like publisher?

Last year, Hawley introduced legislation to amend Section 230 to revoke what he called the immunity big tech companies receive ... unless they submit to an external audit that proves by clear and convincing evidence that their algorithms and content-removal practices are politically neutral.

He said on Tuesday that he plans to introduce similar legislation again.

At the time of its passage, the liability shield was not tied to an expectation that platforms would act in a neutral manner toward political speech that they hosted. The law's text makes no such requirement either. But conservatives like Hawley have recently attempted to tie the two together, arguing that platforms should only enjoy immunity from lawsuits if they act in a politically neutral fashion.

President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order on social media companies in the Oval Office on May 28.

In a statement last June, Hawley said, With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who drafted Section 230 along with former Republican Rep. Chris Cox, said in an interview with BuzzFeed News Thursday that he thinks its clear Trump is targeting the provision in his order because it protects private businesses right not to have to play host to his lying.

The bottom line is, I have warned for years the administration was threatening 230 in order to chill speech, bully, you know, companies Facebook and YouTube and Twitter into giving him favorable treatment, and today he proved that that take was right, Wyden said.

In February of last year, Barr argued that [t]echnology has changed in ways that no one, including the drafters of Section 230, could have imagined. But Wyden said he thinks Barrs argument is less about the changing landscape of the internet and more about his personal agenda.

I think Barrs agenda has been really clear from the beginning. What he has been interested in is a speech control program, because he, like the president, feels that any coverage that isnt favorable to him is somehow a crime, he said.

The attack on Section 230 is also antithetical to conservative principles, the senator argued.

And the idea that these conservative officials think that the government should take control of private companies and dictate exactly how they operate, that just turns on his head what you think conservative principles are all about, he said. Now, I understand these conservative politicians are upset that there are large corporations don't toe their party line, and then when they talk about it shout about it it's popular with their base. But theyre just plain wrong.

Wyden said hes particularly bothered by the argument some conservatives have made that Section 230 requires platforms to be neutral, something the law itself, he noted, doesnt say at all. He also said hes disturbed by the idea of a panel deciding what constitutes neutrality or discrimination against conservative ideas.

Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School, told BuzzFeed News that Trumps executive order is the first missive in a larger battle over whether Section 230 is a special privilege that's given to internet platforms or whether it's a core extension of the First Amendment.

Persily said an attack on Section 230 was bound to happen, whether from the right or left.

This reads like a stream of consciousness tweetstorm that some poor staffer had to turn into the form of an executive order.

In January, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told the New York Times he also wanted to revoke Section 230, saying, "The idea that its a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one."

On Thursday, Biden for President Spokesperson Bill Russo told BuzzFeed News that the executive order was an "extreme abuse of power."

"It will not be the position of any future Biden Administration or any other administration that is aware of our basic constitutional structure that the First Amendment means private companies must provide a venue for, and amplification of, the President's falsehoods, lest they become the subject of coordinated retaliation by the federal government. Joe Biden understands that no President should use Executive Orders as menus to abuse the power of the presidency," he said.

Russo added that "Vice President Biden believes that social media companies should be held accountable for disseminating content they know to be false, just as any other private company would be."

Regardless of what comes of the executive order, Trump's action is already being celebrated in right-wing media and among his base online.

Daphne Keller, director of the program on platform regulation for Stanfords Cyber Policy Center, told BuzzFeed News that the executive order was political theater. This reads like a stream of consciousness tweetstorm that some poor staffer had to turn into the form of an executive order, she said.

Keller said that an informed public debate about the power of platforms over public discourse was important. But thats not what this executive order had led to.

This is a distraction, she said. We have only ourselves to blame if it makes us avert our gaze from the crises that are right in front of us: 100,000 Americans dead in a profoundly mismanaged pandemic, for example, or the potential failure of democratic process in the 2020 elections.

Addy Baird and Zoe Tillman contributed reporting to this story.

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Its Unclear What Trumps Section 230 Executive Order Will Do Beyond Bully Social Media Companies - BuzzFeed News

"Is Soros Behind the War on Hydroxychloroquine?" So queried a headlineon the U.S. evangelicals-orientedBreaking Israel Newssiteearlier this week. Thepiece suggests that George Soros, the Hungarian-born American billionaire philanthropist, is set to benefitboth financiallyfrom the coronavirus pandemic,andpolitically byundermining President Donald Trump.

The U.S.president has been pushing use of hydroxychloroquine as an antidote to,or preventative measure against,the virus andlast week announcedthat he was taking it himself.

"A bit of research into the separate elements shows some disturbing connections, indicating the media war against hydroxychloroquine may be backed by some nefarious forces," the piece opens.

There is, to be clear, no war on hydroxychloroquine, but rather a plethora of warnings of itsserious side effectsincluding ahigher risk of heart problems and even death. The World Health Organizaton has halted clinical trials for the drug, and France has just banned its use in COVID-19 cases, citing patient safety concerns.

The somewhat obscure Breaking News Israel is hardly alone in fingering Soros as the hidden hand behind COVID-19: the theory is all over pro-Trump hard right social media and right-wing news platforms with soft spots for conspiracy theories from Gateway Pundit to Trumps newest best friend, One America Network.

How should we understand this latest iteration of the storied and ever-versatile anti-Soros smear campaign, which invariably paint himasringleader ofaglobalconspiratorial plot?

Most clearly,the Soros as hydroxychloroquine antagonist conspiracy theory has something in common with many a Soros conspiracy theory.

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While Soros himself, as a financier, Jew and donor to liberal causes, is the initial target, "Soros" has also become a metonym for any opposition to the worldview not just of full-time conspiracy theorists, but also of more mainstream and powerful politicians and commentators. Soros conspiracies are thus also a tool to delegitimize that opposition.

Soroshimselfis, of course, the most obvious target.

Today, as protesters across the United States take to the streets against police brutality, the name George Soros trends on Twitter;right-wingersassert that these protesters are notgenuinely expressinggrief and anger about the continued killing of black Americans by police officers, but aredemonstratingbecause they were put up to it by Soros. Some prominent conservatives areeven sayingSoros should be arrested.

Nor is this a wholly 2020 phenomenon. In 2018, ahead ofthe U.S.midterms,Soros was blamed for everything-from protests against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to a migrant caravan threatening to "invade" Americas southern border.

Cesar Sayoc mailed Soros, among other high-profile and liberal-leaning figures, a pipe bomb; his social media accounts were full of anti-Semitic and pro-Trump memes, one of which described Soros as a "Judeo-plutocratic Bolshevik Zionist."The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter claimed Soros was secretly behindthe migrant caravan. He killed 11 Jews in prayer whom he blamed for participating in the plot.

That same year, citing "an increasingly repressive political and legal environment in Hungary," Open Society Foundations, Soross philanthropic operation,announceditsinternational operations would move from Budapest to Berlin.Clearly, Soros himself is a key subject of these conspiracy theories and they directlyimpact himand his philanthropic work.

But Soros, whose net worth is estimated to be $8.3 billion, is not the only victim. There are many otherswho dont have billions and who are alsodamagedby Soros conspiracy theories.

To take thehydroxychloroquinecoronavirus example: Its not just Soros whos being attacked. Its also an attemptto delegitimize scienceitself(as being contaminated by "Soros")while boosting a right-wing political force.

Insinuating a Soros plot is adeliberatedistraction fromthe 100,000 (and counting)Americandead. It is an excuse not to take responsibility, a pivot bya president who refused to take the virus seriouslyatfirst, and now recommendspoppinga miracle pill that could kill them.

Back in2018,theNew York Postjumped on the "Soros connection" oftwo women who confrontedthen-SenatorJeff Flake over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, accused of attempted sexual assault. "Look who was behind the Jeff Flake elevator setup," the headlineread, the implication being that Soros pushed the two women to confront the senator.

That the centerthat employed the protestorsreceived money from Open Society was a fact. But the idea that Soros was behind that particular confrontation,and the protests more generally,was not only untrue, but insulting toa substantial number ofpeople, some themselves survivors of sexual assault, whofreely chose to speakup against Kavanaughsspeedyconfirmation.The Soros tropewas more than insulting; it was delegitimizing.

The same goes for Rudy Giulianis unhinged attack on SorossJewishness late last year. After accusing Soros of controlling U.S. diplomats, he declared, "Soros is hardly a Jew. Im more of a Jew than Soros is. He doesnt belong to a synagogue, he doesnt support Israel, hes an enemy of Israel. Hes a horrible human being." Giuliani was talking about Soros the individual, and handily pointing out his Jewish origins for an appreciative hard right but he wasalsousing "Soros" to slur and delegitimize Democrat-voting U.S. Jews(some 80 percent of American Jews in the 2018 midterms).

Its no accident that Donald Trump used the same tack of trying to police and demean his Jewish political opponents a few months earlier, announcing that voting for a Democrat means, "you're being disloyal to Jewish people and you're being very disloyal to Israel."

The United States is hardly alone inpushing conspiracy theories that smearSoros, yes, butalso push the people supported by his philanthropy further into the margins.

TheHungarianparliament(which has alreadypassedthe "Stop Soros" law criminalizing assistance to undocumented immigrants) recently ratified legislation(ostensibly due to the coronavirus pandemic) whichgavePrime Minister Viktor Orbn unchecked power. Orbnsaidon state radio that those critical of the move were part of a network led by Soroswhose tentacles reached deep into the Brussels bureacracy.

Like Orbansprevious attacks on Soros, thisconspiracy theory smacks of anti-Semitism, with its whispers of a Jewish financier controlling politicians all over the world, and the nefarious intention to turn nation-states more "cosmopolitan," or (((globalist.))) Butit does something else, too: it renders moot any criticism and any critics of Orbns parliamentary power grab.

It was in Budapest, incidentally, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus son, Yair Netanyahu, said that "radical" Soros organizations were "destroying Israel from the insideworking day and night with an unlimited budget to rob the country of its Jewish identity."

Thats a conscious insult aimed at Soros.But more significantly, it is also aboutdelegitimizingthose causes Soros and Open Society support in Israeland the Palestinian territories, such as providingscholarships forPalestinianstudents in the West Bank and Gazaandfunding human rights groups usingthejudicial systemto challenge discrimination. If Soross efforts are destructive, the thinking goes, then thesePalestinianstudents andIsraeliactivists are, too.

And while the right wingprovides themostnotoriousexamples of blaming the meta-Soros-for dissent and to strip activists of agency, there are offenders on the left, too.

When, for example, Max Blumenthal goes on The Jimmy Dore Show toallegethat Soros is funding regime change in Venezuela and Hong Kong, hereduces those protesting,at great personal risk,to mere pawns.

Thousands in Hong Kong have taken to the streets to protest national security lawsimposedby Beijing. To say that they are Soros stooges(or shills) removes their individual capacity and volition to think, choose, and take sides. It also acts to whitewash and legitimize the authoritarian regimes against whom theyre protesting.

Conspiracy theories about Soros, ubiquitous though they are,must bedisputed, andnot only because they are factually incorrect, or because they are unfair to one man. They arealsounfair tothemany men and women whom these conspiracy theoriespatronize,delegitimizeand, often, furthermarginalize.

These theories arent only about increasingly vicious political partisanship, but about the attempt to strip political agency from those with dissenting views, to subvert their standing and, sometimes, even to endanger them.

Those pushing theSorosconspiracy theoriesare well aware of their malign power.The rest of us need tobe, too.

Emily Tamkin is the U.S.editor at the New Statesman and the author of the forthcoming book,The Influence of Soros: Politics, Power, and the Struggle for an Open Society. Twitter:@emilyctamkin

This op-ed was updated on 31 May 2020 to reflect the expansion of the Soros conspiracy theory to include protests following George Floyds death

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