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| Presented By Toyota |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Jul 09, 2021 |
| Happy Friday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,198 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu. |
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| 1 big thing: How Russia invaded Facebook |
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| Cover: Harper |
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| "Oh f---, how did we miss this?" Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked, looking around at the somber faces of his top executives, the N.Y. Times' Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write in their book, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination," out Tuesday. - In an excerpt provided first to Axios, the authors write that the executives met Dec. 9, 2016, for a briefing on what Facebook's security team knew about Russian meddling on the platform during the election won by Donald Trump.
The security team, it turns out, had first spotted Russian activity on the platform in March 2016. But Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg were just being told about it nine months later. - The eight-page handout for the meeting — written by Alex Stamos, then Facebook's chief security officer — "acknowledged that Facebook was sitting on a trove of information proving that a foreign government had tried to meddle in the U.S. election."
Frenkel and Kang, in a chapter called "Company Over Country," write that "no one else spoke as Zuckerberg and Sandberg drilled their chief security officer": Why had they been kept in the dark? How aggressive were the Russians? And why, asked a visibly agitated Sandberg, had she not known that Stamos had put together a special team to look at Russian election interference? Did they need to share what Stamos had found with lawmakers immediately, and did the company have a legal obligation beyond that? What happened: The security team "had uncovered information that no one, including the U.S. government, had previously known," the authors write. - "Stamos felt that he had been trying to sound the alarm on Russia for months."
- Stamos said: "It was well within my remit to investigate foreign activity within the platform. And we had appropriately briefed the people in our reporting chain ... It became clear after that that it wasn't enough."
At the meeting, "Stamos gave a somber assessment of where they stood, admitting that no one at the company knew the full extent of the Russian election interference," we learn from "An Ugly Truth." - "Zuckerberg demanded that the executives get him answers, so they promised to devote their top engineering talent and resources to investigate what Russia had done on the platform."
Facebook spokesperson Dani Lever said in a previous statement to Axios about the book: - "There's no silver bullet to fighting misinformation and disinformation, which is why we take a comprehensive approach which includes removing fake accounts and coordinated networks, connecting people to reliable information, and running an historic, independent fact-checking program."
Go deeper: Read a N.Y. Times adaptation (subscription). |
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| 2. An Olympic fiasco |
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| Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios |
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| The Summer Olympics in Tokyo begin two weeks from today. Japan's state of COVID emergency is just the latest snafu for these postponed 2020 Games, Axios Sports medalists Kendall Baker and Jeff Tracy write: - Athletes will now be in empty venues during the biggest moments of their lives. They were already prepared for family to be absent, but at least limited fans would have approximated a normal environment.
- Broadcasters must adjust production plans, with now-empty stands affecting camera positioning and acoustics.
- Sponsors are admitting the Games are a sunk cost and canceling or scaling back plans now that fans won't be there, Reuters reports.
- Some reporters are landing in Tokyo without knowing if they can enter the country. Others, like Axios' Ina Fried, are spending hours each day in "terrible computer systems" trying to submit detailed activity plans for approval before they arrive.
- The torch relay is getting an altered trajectory, with remaining legs completed either virtually or on private roads.
The big picture: This all feels very 2020, when the return of sports necessitated extraordinary measures and the "bubble" concept was born. - Athletes will be tested daily upon arrival. Most aren't there yet, but at least three have already tested positive.
The bottom line: The Games may still end up captivating TV audiences. But the on-the-ground experience in Tokyo will be bizarre. |
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| 3. Vaccine gap grows in Trump country |
 Reproduced from KFF; Chart: Axios Visuals The gap in vaccination rates between counties that voted for Donald Trump and those that voted for President Biden is widening, Axios' Caitlin Owens writes from a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. - Why it matters: Vaccination rates give the strongest indication of which communities are still vulnerable to outbreaks, as the Delta variant rapidly spreads.
Share this story. |
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| A message from Toyota |
| How Toyota is working towards a carbon-neutral future |
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| Toyota's electrified models will comprise up to 70% of its U.S. vehicle sales. Why it's important: Toyota's hybrid vehicles sold in the U.S. have avoided putting approximately 38 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) into the atmosphere. |
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| 4. Pic du jour: M-U-R-R-A-Y-A |
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| Photo: John Raoux/AP |
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| Zaila Avant-garde, 14, of Harvey, La., last night became the first African American winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. - Her winning word: "Murraya," a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees.
Why it matters: Black kids around the country were watching the telecast from Disney World, waiting to be inspired and hoping to follow in the footsteps of someone who looked like them, AP reports. - MacNolia Cox in 1936 became the first Black finalist at the bee — but wasn't allowed to stay in the same hotel as the other spellers.
🏀 Amazingly, Zaila's spelling triumph could be but a footnote in her career, AP's Ben Nuckols writes: - Zaila is a basketball prodigy who has appeared in a commercial with Steph Curry — and owns three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously.
- She has 17,000 Instagram followers for "basketballasart."
YouTube: Watch Zaila's Guinness feat. |
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| 5. Danger zone: America's 5 vaccine deserts |
| The US COVID-19 Vaccination Tracking project at Georgetown University's Bansal Lab found these five clusters of low vaccination. - All are in the Southeast, running from New Mexico to Georgia, and stretching north to Missouri.
They're mostly rural areas: "92% of cluster counties have a population size of less than 100,000." |
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| 6. "Broadband nutrition label" to help comparison shoppers |
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| Illustration: Rae Cook/Axios |
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| In an executive order to be signed today, President Biden will encourage internet service providers to offer a "broadband nutrition label" detailing what's in an internet package, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill reports. - Why it matters: The idea is to make it easier for consumers to comparison shop for internet service, an official told Axios.
Flashback: Broadband labels were spearheaded by the FCC under President Obama. What's next: Biden speaks at 1:30 p.m. on "promoting competition in the American economy." - Biden's order will also encourage the FCC to reinstate net neutrality rules prohibiting the blocking, throttling or paid prioritization of web traffic, which were controversially repealed by the Trump-era FCC.
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| 7. What could go wrong? 3 danger zones for global boom |
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| Courtesy The Economist |
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| The world is enjoying "a weird, exhilarating boom" as we recover from the pandemic. The celebration is tempered by three sources of anxiety, The Economist writes: - "The first fault line divides the jabs from the jab-nots. ... [O]nly one in four people around the world has had a first dose of vaccine and only one in eight is fully protected."
- "The second fault line runs between supply and demand. Shortages of microchips have disrupted the manufacture of electronics and cars just when consumers want to binge on them. The cost of shipping goods from China to ports on America's west coast has quadrupled."
- "The final fault line is over the withdrawal of stimulus. At some point, the state interventions that began last year must be reversed."
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| 8. 1 smile to go: Stone-stacking stalwart |
| Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Stone stacker James Craig Page shows off one of his sculptures yesterday on Eye Cave Beach in Edinburgh, Scotland, ahead of this weekend's European Stone Stacking Championships. |
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| A message from Toyota |
| America's largest electrified lineup is getting even larger |
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| Toyota will introduce 15 new battery electric vehicles, including seven under its Beyond Zero brand, by 2025. Why it's important: The company's diverse portfolio of electrified products will help propel Toyota towards its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. Get the details. |
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