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The world first learned of Sophie Zhang in September 2020, when BuzzFeed News obtained and published highlights from an abridged version of her nearly 8,000-word exit memo from Facebook. Before she was fired, Zhang was officially employed as a low-level data scientist at the company. But she had become consumed by a task she deemed more important: finding and taking down fake accounts and likes that were being used to sway elections globally. Her memo revealed that she’d identified dozens of countries, including India, Mexico, Afghanistan, and South Korea, where this type of abuse was enabling politicians to mislead the...

snip-- The government has documented at least 12 confidential informants who assisted the sprawling investigation. The trove of evidence they helped gather provides an unprecedented view into American extremism, laying out in often stunning detail the ways that anti-government groups network with each other and, in some cases, discuss violent actions. An examination of the case by BuzzFeed News also reveals that some of those informants, acting under the direction of the FBI, played a far larger role than has previously been reported. Working in secret, they did more than just passively observe and report on the actions of the...

Internet sleuths found Joe Biden’s secret Venmo account in less than 10 minutes and were able to identify it using his friends list, causing a potential national security issue. Venmo is a mobile payment service owned by PayPal that allows users to transfer money to other users in their contacts list. An aide recently revealed that Joe Biden, AKA, “The Big Guy,” uses Venmo to send his grandchildren money. Internet sleuths immediately started searching for Joe Biden’s account by using the app’s features to look for his aides, friends and family. Within 10 minutes cyber detectives at BuzzFeed News found...

BuzzFeed acquired HuffPost from Verizon Media in February. BuzzFeed announced layoffs for the HuffPost newsroom on Tuesday, three weeks after acquiring HuffPost from Verizon Media in February. Hillary Frey, the site’sexecutive editor, and Louise Roug, the executive editor for international, will be departing in the restructuring effort. HuffPost Canada will also shutter operations later this month. A deal between BuzzFeed, HuffPost and Verizon Media was first made public in November. Verizon Media stated at the time that BuzzFeed and HuffPost would operate as “separate, distinct news organizations” with their own websites and editorial staff while BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti led...

"....In an email first obtained by BuzzFeed News, Amazon officials told the company they planned to boot it from its clouding hosting service, Amazon Web Services, saying it had witnessed a “steady increase” in violent content across the platform. “It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” the email read. Operating on little sleep, @donk_enby began the work of archiving all of Parler’s posts, ultimately capturing around 99.9 percent of its content. In a tweet early Sunday, @donk_enby said she was crawling some 1.1 million Parler video URLs. “These are...

<p>Amazon's suspension of Parler's account means that unless it can find another host, once the ban takes effect on Sunday Parler will go offline.</p><p>Amazon on Saturday kicked Parler off its Web hosting services. Parler, a social network favored by conservative politicians and extremists, was used to help plan and coordinate the January 6 attempted coup on Washington D.C. It has recently been overrun with messages encouraging “Patriots” to march on Washington D.C. with weapons on January 19.</p>

With more than 20,000 Election Day polling places being shuttered nationwide, rampant online misinformation, mail delays, and of course, the coronavirus pandemic still raging, voting in the 2020 election is already hard enough. But for many Americans, one of the biggest barriers to voting is a simple one: not having a ride to the polls. Access to transportation is not typically one of the first things people think of when it comes to forms of voter suppression, but advocates say it’s one of the top obstacles people face when trying to cast their vote. In a Harvard study from 2016,...

You know Yara Shahidi. Black-ish actor, fashion icon, passionate activist, and inspiration to us all. Well now, the 20-year-old is out here changing the game. Yara Shahidi was just cast as the first Black Tinkerbell ever!! The film, called Peter Pan and Wendy, will star Alexander Molony and Ever Anderson as the titular characters. And Jude Law will be playing Captain Hook! In a recent Instagram post, she made the announcement by sharing some gorgeous artwork (by @alexcollectsofficial) portraying her as Tinkerbell. "Thank you for all of the love," the Grown-ish actor said in the caption. "It truly means so...

For a long time, it’s been hard to distinguish between Babylon Bee headlines and actual news headlines. The creative minds behind the Babylon Bee therefore decided that it was time to create a new website, Not The Bee, which is devoted to the craziest things the left produces that are true, rather than being satire. Sometimes, though, crazy is scary, and there are few things more frightening than watching critical race theorist Ashleigh Shackelford explain to a room full of white people that they not human. Although you might think what the video you’re about to watch shows some bizarre,...

Unredacted portions of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on his Russia investigation were released Friday as a result of a lawsuit from BuzzFeed News and a nonprofit research group. The newly disclosed portions reveal claims that Roger Stone notified President Trump and his campaign advisers in advance of a looming document dump that was potentially damaging to Hillary Clinton. According to the documents, Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen told federal investigators he overheard a July 2016 phone call between Stone and then-candidate Trump in which Stone claimed to have spoken with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Stone claimed the website...

Sydney (AFP) - Groundbreaking website Buzzfeed said on Thursday that it would be shuttering part of its loss-making news operations in Britain and Australia, as it scales back global ambitions to cut costs. "For economic and strategic reasons, we are going to focus on news that hits big in the United States during this difficult period," a company spokesperson said. Many news outlets have been hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with plummeting advertising revenues and already struggling operations pushed deeper into the red. Ten staff in Britain and four in Australia will be furloughed, in a move that is expected...

LGBT parents are suffering homophobic and transphobic abuse from their own children during the lockdown, a charity has revealed — while young LGBT people are being thrown out onto the street by parents who discover their child’s sexuality or gender identity. While homelessness caused by anti-LGBT rejection is not new, the context within this pandemic is, and so too is abuse from children directed at their own LGBT parents.

RUSH: Once again, ladies and gentlemen, your host all over the news proving that it is the media attempting to politicize this coronavirus. There can’t be any doubt about it. I am being lied about, misunderstood on purpose, taken out of context. I got the audio sound bite roster today, and I’m all over it. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Then there’s a headline here at TheHill.com: “Limbaugh: Bernie Sanders And The Democratic Party Pose ‘Far Greater Threat To This Country’ Than Coronavirus.” There’s no doubt. Socialism, if we elect socialism we got four years of an utter disaster on our hands...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) dog is campaigning for her in Iowa while the senator is stuck in Washington watching the impeachment trial. Warren’s golden retriever Bailey took to the campaign trail five days before the Democratic caucuses in the state, accompanied by Warren’s husband Bruce Mann. During a stop in Fort Dodge, Bailey posed for selfies, received pets and stuck her nose into a cake of peanut butter and oats made specifically for her, BuzzFeed News reported. Meanwhile, Mann spoke about his wife asking the crowd of volunteers to shout out single words that described the senator during her town...

**SNIP** Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have promoted "Medicare for all," a federal $15 minimum wage, and social justice issues as cornerstones of a policy platform that helped elect both House Democrats in 2018. “We have the support of the majority of the public for the policies that we advocate for. And so we have to speak from a place of authority and power,” Omar told BuzzFeed. **SNIP** The Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairwoman, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who referred to Trump as a "combative racist" in 2019, said, "progressives are just the first...

ANGRY Tory Brexiteers have slammed 'biased' John Bercow as “nauseating” after the Speaker broke down in tears as he announced he was quitting. Remainer Bercow – known for his eccentric outbursts in the Commons – choked up when he told the chamber he will resign as a Tory MP if Boris Johnson gets a national poll. BYE BYE BERCOW But while Bercow was treated to a long drawn out goodbye today - with MPs falling over themselves to pay tribute - there were few tears shed at No10. Boris and his team have become infuriated by what they see as...

"We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy." Ravelry, a community website for knitters, crocheters, and other textile fans, has banned all content supporting President Trump and his administration in what it described as a stand against white supremacy. In a statement posted to their website, the administrators wrote that posts, projects, patterns, and profiles supporting the president are no longer allowed. The site is the most popular online forum for knitting fans and counts millions of users, as...