OSLO, December 10, 2020 — Fresh off a surprise ballot-box victory in November that stunned pundits and pollsters back home, and by turns baffled and enraged his Democratic opponents, a newly re-elected President Trump accepted the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday in the Norwegian capital.The Norwegian Committee awarded the prize to the 45th president for his role in brokering in August — and, “more generally, for not launching idiotic invasions, not drawing the United States into bloody quagmires and not ponderously lecturing other countries about liberal democracy.” (The language of the award...…OSLO, December 10, 2020 — Fresh off a surprise ballot-box victory in November that stunned pundits and pollsters back home, and by turns baffled and enraged his Democratic opponents, a newly re-elected President Trump accepted the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday in the Norwegian capital.The Norwegian Committee awarded the prize to the 45th president for his role in brokering in August — and, “more generally, for not launching idiotic invasions, not drawing the United States into bloody quagmires and not ponderously lecturing other countries about liberal democracy.” (The language of the award...WW…

China is one of the most censorious societies on Earth. to recruit social media censors?There are at least half a dozen “Chinese nationals who are working on censorship,” a former Facebook insider told me last week. “So at some point, they [Facebook bosses] thought, ‘Hey, we’re going to get them H-1B visas so they can do this work.’ ”The insider shared an internal directory of the team that does much of this work. It’s called Hate-Speech Engineering (George Orwell, call your office), and most of its members are based at Facebook’s offices in Seattle. Many have Ph.D.s, and their work is...…China is one of the most censorious societies on Earth. to recruit social media censors?There are at least half a dozen “Chinese nationals who are working on censorship,” a former Facebook insider told me last week. “So at some point, they [Facebook bosses] thought, ‘Hey, we’re going to get them H-1B visas so they can do this work.’ ”The insider shared an internal directory of the team that does much of this work. It’s called Hate-Speech Engineering (George Orwell, call your office), and most of its members are based at Facebook’s offices in Seattle. Many have Ph.D.s, and their work is...WW…

This is what totalitarianism looks like in our century: not men in darkened cells driving screws under the fingernails of dissidents, but Silicon Valley dweebs removing from vast swaths of the Internet a damaging exposé on their preferred presidential candidate.That’s what Facebook and Twitter on Hunter Biden, revealing why the illustrious vice-presidential son was hired by a shady Ukrainian energy firm in exchange for at least $50,000 a month.According to e-mails , Hunter introduced the firm’s executives to his father — just when Joe Biden was the second-most powerful man on earth, with...…This is what totalitarianism looks like in our century: not men in darkened cells driving screws under the fingernails of dissidents, but Silicon Valley dweebs removing from vast swaths of the Internet a damaging exposé on their preferred presidential candidate.That’s what Facebook and Twitter on Hunter Biden, revealing why the illustrious vice-presidential son was hired by a shady Ukrainian energy firm in exchange for at least $50,000 a month.According to e-mails , Hunter introduced the firm’s executives to his father — just when Joe Biden was the second-most powerful man on earth, with...WW…

Last week shattered all my sense of stability and permanence in New York, the city I’ve called home since 2012 (though I’ve spent some of those years in London). The looting mobs that rampaged through Gotham’s streets — including my block — put me in mind of my native Middle East; it’s a phenomenon I thought I’d left behind ‘over there’, not to be encountered except on the occasional reporting trip to Iraq or Egypt. But no. An unjust police killing in Minneapolis — combined, no doubt, with the effects of a prolonged lockdown — Arab Spring’d the United States, if you will. Or rather, the...…Last week shattered all my sense of stability and permanence in New York, the city I’ve called home since 2012 (though I’ve spent some of those years in London). The looting mobs that rampaged through Gotham’s streets — including my block — put me in mind of my native Middle East; it’s a phenomenon I thought I’d left behind ‘over there’, not to be encountered except on the occasional reporting trip to Iraq or Egypt. But no. An unjust police killing in Minneapolis — combined, no doubt, with the effects of a prolonged lockdown — Arab Spring’d the United States, if you will. Or rather, the...WW…