You might see fewer political ads on Facebook this year, but they might contain the same number of lies.
The company announced Thursday that it was adding "a new control that will allow people to see fewer political and social issue ads on Facebook and Instagram." But the company also stood by its policy of allowing politicians to run ads that contain false claims. Rob Leathern, director of product management, touted Thursday "the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public." Twitter, in contrast, decided last year to ban political advertising entirely.
Facebook will also not restrict the microtargeting of political ads, despite Google's decision last year to limit politicians' ability to reach people based on their political affiliations. Leathern said Facebook based its decision on "a wide range of NGOs, non-profits, political groups and campaigns, including both Republican and Democrat committees in the U.S.” who told the company microtargeting let them reach "key audiences." Critics argue the practice is "ideal for spreading divisive or misleading information," The New York Times notes.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been doubling down on not fact-checking politicians in ads for months. In December he said that "people should be able to judge for themselves the character of politicians" and "I don't think that a private company should be censoring politicians or news." Some Facebook employees have objected to his stance. More than 250 signed an October letter to Zuckerberg that claimed this policy "doesn't protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy." Brendan Morrow
The American economy is on the mend — at least through a pandemic-tinted lens.
New unemployment claims finally dipped below 1 million for the first time since March in the past week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Still, the total of 963,000 new claims is well more than the pre-pandemic record of 695,000, and shows that layoffs are still happening even as the Trump administration touts an economic recovery.
Unemployment claims first jacked up at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March, hitting a peak of nearly 7 million. They've dropped significantly since then, but recovery recently slowed as unemployment claims lingered over 1 million for weeks on end. A total of 15.5 million people are still receiving unemployment benefits, per the Labor Department's numbers. That's well above the pre-pandemic record of 6.6 million, The Wall Street Journal notes.
Unemployed Americans were receiving an extra $600/week boost to the their unemployment benefits until the federal government's coronavirus stimulus package expired at the end of July. Democrats, Republicans, and the White House have failed to agree on a way to continue the boost — and some unemployed Americans say they haven't gotten any benefits yet at all due to filing backlogs. Kathryn Krawczyk
Officials are warning that the worst of the coronavirus is definitely not over.
"The fall could be incredibly gruesome," Yale School of Medicine epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves told Politico on Thursday. COVID-19 is still spreading rapidly, and coupled with colder weather that will push people indoors and coincide with flu season, it could make for an entirely new round of brutal months.
Gonsalves said he didn't understand why the Trump administration didn't take advantage of the summer months to tamp down on swirling outbreaks. Squandering this key period means the country is in no better shape than it was a few months ago when the initial spike slowly began to flatten. "Somebody's going to have to explain it to me, 10 years from now, why they would make all these bad choices," Gonsalves said.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, meanwhile, says "this could be the worst fall from a public health perspective we've ever had." He urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance.
On Wednesday, the U.S. reported 1,493 coronavirus deaths, the highest single-day total since mid-May. Despite the increasingly grim outlook, Politico reports the Trump administration is feeling good. "Aides are increasingly assured about their response — feeling like they're finally getting a handle on how to fight the disease," the report reads. But one anonymous senior Republican said "I don't feel like they kind of know what 'under control' would look like." Summer Meza
AMC Theatres hopes to bring consumers back to the movies amid the COVID-19 pandemic by giving tickets away almost for free — at least for a day.
The theater chain has announced it will begin reopening its U.S. locations, which closed nationwide in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, on Aug. 20. And on that first day back open, it will sell tickets for just 15 cents. The company framed this as its way of celebrating the 100-year anniversary of its founding by offering 1920 prices, although it's clearly also an effort to entice moviegoers to return to theaters that have been shuttered for months. Following this 15 cent promotion, AMC will sell tickets to classic movies like Back to the Future and Ghostbusters for $5.
Of course, AMC will only be reopening its theaters in areas of the country where it's permitted to do so, excluding numerous major cities. The company had pushed back its reopening date multiple times, but its plan now is to have more than 100 locations reopened on Aug. 20 and then another 300 or so reopened in the following two weeks. AMC previously announced safety policies it's putting in place to reopen, including enhanced cleaning measures and requiring customers to wear masks.
It remains unclear whether consumers will feel safe returning to the movies in the areas where they can do so, though, as well as if they'll even be interested during these first days of operation when major new blockbusters won't yet be playing. The New Mutants is scheduled to open on Aug. 28, while Tenet is to be released in select cities on Sept. 3, by which point AMC says it will have two-thirds of its locations opened. But on the same weekend that Tenet opens, Disney will be enticing consumers to stay home as Mulan, which was originally intended for a splashy theatrical release, hits streaming instead. Brendan Morrow
Subscription bundles from Apple may be coming this fall.
The company plans to start offering consumers bundles of its various subscription services, such as Apple TV+ and Apple Music, for one price beginning "as early as October," according to a new report from Bloomberg.
The bundles are reportedly being referred to as "Apple One" inside the company, and there would be several tiers at different prices. The cheapest would give users access to both Apple Music and Apple TV+, with the next tiers adding on Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and more iCloud storage. While no price point has been revealed, the report says they're intended to save customers between $2 and $5 or more a month.
Apple had been expected to roll out subscription bundles, especially as the price tag of subscribing individually to its growing number of services continued to rise. Bloomberg also describes this as a "major bid by Apple to achieve the same loyalty" that Amazon has with Prime, which sees users subscribing for one recurring fee and getting various services from Amazon like free shipping as well as access to Amazon Prime Video. Apple's own streaming service, Apple TV+, launched last November.
In addition to the bundles, Apple is also developing a "new subscription for virtual fitness classes," which would be included in one of the pricier subscription bundles and "rival virtual classes offered by companies" like Peleton and Nike, Bloomberg reports. While the report notes there's a possibility that Apple's plans change, the Apple One bundles could reportedly launch alongside the next line of iPhones later this year. Brendan Morrow
College football has fractured into at least two camps, with the Big Ten and Pac-12 canceling their fall seasons on Tuesday due to COVID-19 and the other three Power Five conferences — the SEC, Big 12, and ACC — confirming Wednesday that they will try to plow ahead with their truncated schedules. At least two smaller conferences have also scrapped their seasons and as of now, 53 of America's 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams will sit this autumn out.
Fans are despondent, and "the loss of college football will have a crushing impact on bars, restaurants, and other businesses that rely on football fans," The Associated Press notes.
Ohio State devotee Jeff Hewitt, a Democratic strategist in Texas, called Politico's Renuka Rayasam with a theory, she wrote Tuesday night: "If college football gets canceled in the Midwest it would cost Trump the presidency. I laughed, but Hewitt was serious." And he's not alone. The Big Ten conference covers seven key battleground states with massively popular college football teams, and Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray told The New York Times the loss of their Saturday fix could push Republican voters away from Trump, especially the tiny sliver of undecideds. "It's just one of those markers that reminds people of how much has been disrupted in their life," he said.
Politics is simply "not as important as college football in Ohio, in Georgia, in Alabama," ESPN college football radio host Paul Finebaum tells the Times. "And without it, people will be lost and people will be angry." He said he has strained to keep politics out of his program this summer, but "we don't have a day that doesn't pass where someone doesn't call up and blame the president. Even from the South, I've heard more anger directed at the president than I thought."
Some Republican operatives said Trump will be insulated from the anger because he has publicly urged colleges to play football and even called up some players and coaches to enlist their help salvaging the season. But the loss of college football on Saturdays feels like "yet another piece of fabric was being torn from American life," the Times notes, and especially in the rural areas of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio where Trump's support runs deepest, "losing football may be a political stain that the president is unable to blame on his enemies in the Democratic Party or on the media." Peter Weber