| | | | | | | Presented By The Boeing Company | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen · Nov 18, 2022 | | Happy Friday. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,196 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Noah Bressner. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Denting disinformation | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios There's a lot that worked about the midterms — hellish lines weren't epidemic; losers conceded. Here's another one: - Misinformation didn't swamp voting the way many experts had feared. Many election deniers on the ballot, particularly for secretary-of-state roles, lost their races.
🧠 How it works: Platforms, governments and the media took countermeasures — based on lessons from 2016, 2018 and 2020 — that were at least partially effective, Axios' Ashley Gold and Sara Fischer write. - Here's how online mis- and disinformation were curbed:
- De-platforming: Efforts by big tech firms to explicitly ban misinformation about voting helped shove falsehoods to small platforms where those narratives couldn't spread as widely.
- Too many new apps: A slew of social and messaging apps have sprung up since the Capitol siege. So memes and voting misinformation spread on alternative platforms instead of to the masses.
- Deniers denied: Election deniers were rejected in the midterms, with notable wins for secretaries of state Brad Raffensperger in Georgia and Katie Hobbs in Arizona.
- Defamation fears: Fox News faced a defamation lawsuit by voting machine company Dominion after airing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who spread the narrative that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was fake, was fined $1.44 billion in a lawsuit brought by victims' families.
- More education: Nonprofits, departments of state, media organizations and campaigns ran voter education initiatives in an attempt to "pre-bunk" misinformation ahead of the midterm elections.
Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. Twitter chaos, exodus |  | | | Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios | | | | Employees and the world are waking up to a vastly slimmed-down Twitter, a day after a deadline for workers to sign on to a new "hardcore" culture within the company, or leave with severance. - Hundreds of engineers and other workers are estimated to have quit instead of agreeing to Elon Musk's ultimatum, which promised "long hours at high intensity." (Reuters)
Why it matters: The exodus added to worries over the service's short-term reliability — especially during the stress test of the World Cup, which begins Sunday in Qatar. Although it's unclear just how many took the offer, the service and internal forums were filled with employees posting goodbye messages using the "salute" emoji, Axios Login reports. - Twitter has already laid off half its staff, including the gutting or elimination of teams responsible for human rights, accessibility and communications.
The latest: - Musk issued new memos putting managers on notice that their jobs are at stake if he's not satisfied with the performance of anyone working remotely.
- Many Twitter employees believe it's a matter of time before the service encounters major technical problems. (The Verge)
- Musk and his advisers met with some Twitter workers whom they deemed "critical" to try to stop them from leaving. (N.Y. Times)
Get Axios Login, Ina Fried's daily tech newsletter. | | | | | | | | 3. 🏛️ Madam Speaker's farewell | | Madam Speaker wields the gavel for one of the last times. Screenshot: CNN "When I first came to the [House] Floor at six years old, never would I have thought that someday I would go from homemaker to House Speaker," Speaker Pelosi, 82, said yesterday as she announced she will remain in Congress but won't seek re-election to Democratic leadership. Speaker Pelosi is surrounded by staff, Capitol Police and journalists as she walks back to her office after her announcement. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images "In this room," she said, "our colleagues across history have abolished slavery; granted women the right to vote; established Social Security and Medicare; offered a hand to the weak, care to the sick, education to the young and hope to the many." | | | | | | | | A message from The Boeing Company | | Dedicated to your success: That's our duty to you | | |  | | | | Our commitment to veterans is part of who we are. Together with our partners, we support hundreds of programs for veterans and their families. That includes the DoD Skillbridge program, which gives veterans the opportunity to gain valuable civilian work. Because that's our duty to you. Learn more. | | | | | | 4. GM: EVs to be profitable by '25 | The all-electric 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST, revealed in Detroit in January. Photo: Paul Sancya/AP GM expects its portfolio of electric vehicles to turn a profit in North America by 2025, as it boosts battery and assembly plant capacity to build over 1 million EVs per year. - CEO Mary Barra used the pledge to kick off the company's investor day in New York, AP reports.
The profit figure includes vehicle sales revenue, benefits from emissions tax credits, and revenue from software and parts sales. - Barra said the company's EV portfolio appeals to a broad range of customers, with a small SUV for $30,000 — plus a luxury SUV, pickups and Hummer SUVs in the next two years.
Read the announcement. | | | | | | | | 5. Worse than Enron |  | | | Photo illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios. Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images | | | | FTX's new CEO, John Ray III — who cleaned up the Enron accounting scandal of 2001 — says in a court filing that Sam Bankman-Fried's bankrupt crypto empire is worse, Kate Marino writes in Axios Markets. - "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls," he writes.
- "From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented."
Between the lines: The filing reads like the tale of a guy haphazardly running a scam with some friends — rather than an account of the inner workings of a global financial empire, which some of the world's most sophisticated investors recently valued at tens of billions of dollars. | | | | | | | | 6. ⚽ Qatar bans beer sales at World Cup | | Cans of Budweiser beer featuring the FIFA World Cup logo on display in Doha today. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images The King of Beers will be noticeably absent at the World Cup, which runs from this Sunday through Dec. 18: - Qatari officials are moving to ban alcohol sales at the tournament's eight stadiums — a last-minute reversal of a plan that would've allowed fans to purchase Budweiser, The New York Times reports (subscription).
Between the lines: Beer will still be available in suites for FIFA officials and wealthy guests. - Other fans will be able to purchase nonalcoholic beer.
The plan has "increased tensions between FIFA ... and Qatar, a conservative Muslim nation where the sale of alcohol is tightly controlled," The Times writes. | | | | | | | | 7. Remembering Mike Gerson: "18 years is not enough" | | Mike Gerson, 38, outside the White House in 2002 after being promoted to Assistant to the President for Speechwriting and Policy Advisor. Photo: Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post via Getty Images Michael Gerson — the famed speechwriter for President George W. Bush, who helped craft messages of grief and resolve after 9/11 — died yesterday at a hospital in Washington at 58, from complications of cancer. - As a Washington Post columnist for the past 15 years, Gerson explored conservative politics and faith, and wrote candidly about his own struggles with depression and cancer, The Post reports.
Worthy 0f your time ... The Post yesterday re-posted this Gerson column from 2013, "Saying goodbye to my child, the youngster," about how it felt to drop off his son at college: - "Eighteen years is not enough."
"The emotions of a parent, I can attest, are an odd mix: part pride, part resignation, part self-pity, even a bit of something that feels like grief. The experience is natural and common," Gerson continues: His life is starting for real. I have begun the long letting go. Put another way: He has a wonderful future in which my part naturally diminishes. I have no possible future that is better without him close. Keep reading. | | | | | | | | 8. 📷 Parting shot | | Photo courtesy Robert A. Reeder This is Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her rival House Democratic leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, at a DNC gala, date unknown. - Robert A. Reeder — a Washington Post photographer from 1990-2006, then for Politico — kindly shares his photo with AM readers.
| | | | | | | | A message from The Boeing Company | | Dedicated to your success: That's our duty to you | | | | | | | | Our commitment to veterans is part of who we are. Together with our partners, we support hundreds of programs for veterans and their families. That includes the DoD Skillbridge program, which gives veterans the opportunity to gain valuable civilian work. Because that's our duty to you. Learn more. | | | | 📬 Thanks for starting your morning with us. Please invite your friends to sign up to get their daily essentials — Axios AM, PM and Finish Line. |  | | Are you a fan of this email format? Your essential communications — to staff, clients and other stakeholders — can have the same style. Axios HQ, a powerful platform, will help you do it. | | | |
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