"It's Legalized CORRUPTION And It's Unacceptable"

 

US adults are getting worse at reading and math

Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

Americans are increasingly flustered by words and numbers, according to a test that measures adult literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills in 31 industrialized countries. The report card revealed an expanding gap between the most and least adept Americans in their ability to handle everyday tasks—from calculating an average to understanding a government email. See me after class The 2023 assessment of 4,600 US adults showed: The share of Americans scoring at the lowest level (1 out of 5) or below in literacy rose to 28% from 19% in 2017. And 34% scored at the lowest numeracy level or below, compared to 29% six years prior. That means that over a quarter of Americans can reliably gauge info only from a simple text, while more than a third might struggle to perform tasks beyond basic arithmetic. But the decline wasn’t even: The 90th percentile score didn’t drop for literacy and numeracy but the 10th percentile score for both decreased. The US isn’t alone: Average literacy and numeracy scores dropped in 20 and 11 countries, respectively, which some researchers blame on less reading and more scrolling, though some of it could be due to aging populations and language difficulties stemming from increased immigration. Finland ranked No. 1 in both literacy and numeracy, while sharing first place with Japan in problem-solving.—SK

BlueTriton — formerly Nestlé — closing Ontario operations

 

By Fatima Syed

Nov. 13, 2024  4 min. read

Since 2021, BlueTriton has operated a facility in Guelph, Ont., and two wells in the Town of Erin and Wellington County to collect groundwater to bottle and sell.

Photo illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

BlueTriton, a water bottling company formerly known as Nestlé Waters North America, is ending its operations in Ontario. 

Since 2007, the U.S. based-company has operated a facility in Guelph, Ont., and two wells in the Town of Erin and Wellington County, where it collects groundwater to bottle and sell. In 2017, the former Ontario Liberal government imposed a moratorium on new permits to take water for bottling, in order to study its impacts on the environment and quantity of water available for other users. The province allowed Nestlé to continue extracting up to 4.7 million litres of water a day from the two wells. Over a week, that would fill 13 Olympic swimming pools.

In 2021, Nestlé sold its North American water divisions to venture capitalists that renamed the business BlueTriton. A day after the name change was announced, the Doug Ford government lifted a moratorium on new permits for water extraction for bottling, saying the province’s studies concluded water taking did not adversely impact the environment or other users. In lifting the moratorium, it introduced new regulations, including a need for municipalities to approve new permits to take more than 379,000 litres of water per day. 

This did not, however, apply to BlueTriton as a few months later, in November 2021, the province granted BlueTriton a five-year renewal on Nestlé’s permits.

The company is leaving Ontario before its permit expires. “We have initiated a public sale process for our Guelph facility and will wind down our operations in Ontario by the end of January,” Carrie Ratner, a spokesperson for BlueTriton, told The Narwhal in an email. 

Ratner did not specify the reasons behind this move. 

BlueTriton, and Nestlé previously, faced significant and persistent opposition from residents in Guelph and surrounding areas, who are celebrating the company’s exit from Ontario. The company operates in the traditional territory of Six Nations of the Grand River, where water insecurity is severe, with just one aquifer to draw from, and residents often have to purchase clean drinking water due to boil advisories. Read More

Already, a Revolt Within Rustad’s Party

 That was fast. Less than a month after Conservative Party of British Columbia MLAs were sworn in, leader John Rustad is facing a caucus rebellion.

It’s not surprising the new Conservative MLAs, many with a deep distrust of all authority, would turn on their own leader.

But this seems a clear warning to Rustad and other Conservative MLAs that a significant faction in caucus is ready to pounce on any deviation from their definition of conservative values.

CKNW’s Jas Johal broke the news that 13 MLAs had written a sharp letter accusing Elenore Sturko, the party’s public safety critic, of betraying Conservative principles around free speech and “cancel culture.”

The MLAs — almost a third of caucus, all without legislature experience — were “dismayed” that Sturko had said the Vancouver Police Board was right to accept the resignation of vice-chair Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba. Read More

Amazon joins Meta in donating $1 million to Trump inauguration

Amazon joins Meta in donating $1 million to Trump inauguration

Amazon.com is planning a $1 million donation to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, as founder Jeff Bezos and other tech leaders shore up ties with the incoming administration, according to WSJ reporting.

Space Force is having companies like Astranis build GPS

The U.S. Air Force began deploying the Global Positioning System — more commonly known as GPS — nearly 50 years ago, satellites which have become critical infrastructure for both the military and the economy. Since then, GPS is estimated to have generated more than $1.4 trillion in economic benefits, according to a Commerce Department study. But the agency warned that an “outage could potentially have an economic impact of $1 billion a day.” Pentagon leaders believe those losses are a conservative estimate, leading the U.S. Space Force to kick off a roughly $2 billion satellite program known as the Resilient Global Positioning System. Called R-GPS for short, the program is intended to provide an alternative, backup network for the current satellite system. ″[GPS is] vitally important to everything we do day-to-day, from the stock market, for timing of every transaction, to the crops we field,” Lt. Col. Justin Deifel, leader of R-GPS at the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told CNBC. “It’s like water and electricity. … It’s a utility of the economy and a utility of a warfighter that we need to make sure is available,” Deifel added.

Nenshi Has Wanted to Run in Edmonton. Notley Just Made It Possible

Nenshi Has Wanted to Run in Edmonton. Notley Just Made It Possible

After languishing for the past six months in the role of Opposition leader without a legislative seat, Nenshi appears poised to run in a yet-to-be called byelection in Edmonton-Strathcona.

Yes, that’s the seat held by former NDP leader Rachel Notley who announced this morning she’d resign her seat Dec. 30.

No, as I write this Nenshi has not confirmed he will run to succeed Notley. But it’s just a matter of time.

Canada's Conservative leaders break the bank while preaching prudence

“Fix the budget.” It’s one of Pierre Poilievre’s patented “verb-the-noun” formulations for what he’d do as Canada’s next prime minister, and it remains an article of faith among many conservatives in Canada. But like most acts of faith, this is far more about belief than reality. For all their talk about being fiscally prudent, Conservative politicians in Canada have more or less abandoned the idea of balancing the budget. Take Ontario’s Doug Ford, whose government has added $86 billion to the province’s debt since it was first elected in 2018. Even if you strip out the debt associated with COVID-19, his government has still added $66.5 billion to the provincial debt, which is $22.5 billion more than Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals during their five years in power. Even conservative think tanks are getting nervous: as the Fraser Institute noted earlier this year, Ford’s government has overseen the second- and third-highest years of per-person (inflation-adjusted) spending in Ontario’s history. “At every turn,” Jake Fuss and Grady Munro wrote, “the Ford government has demonstrated that it’s an irresponsible steward of Ontario’s finances.” As if to really prove that point, the Ford government recently decided to spend $48 million ripping up bike lanes in Toronto in order to deliver what city staff describe as “minor” improvements in traffic. It also dedicated $100 million to a new program that will bring SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system to 15,000 households and businesses in rural Ontario at a per-unit cost of more than $6,600. “The province will cover equipment and installation costs, but not monthly fees,” the Globe and Mail noted.

Alberta kept oil a secret for 3 years

 At least 16 fossil fuel companies operating in Canada’s oilsands allegedly broke rules requiring them to pay for environmental monitoring by independent scientists, according to newly released data from the Alberta government.

Alberta’s Environment and Protected Areas Ministry released the data to The Narwhal in November, about a month after the government lost a three-year battle to keep the names of 16 oilsands companies secret.

The companies paid financial penalties for allegedly flouting rules surrounding a joint Canada-Alberta scientific monitoring program, according to the newly released data. Federal and provincial officials introduced the program in 2012 to measure the cumulative effects of oilsands development on air, water, land and biodiversity.

The names of companies with late or unpaid fees include firms that wound up under bankruptcy protection or had their operations shut down for serious environmental infractions, such as Everest Canadian Resources and Sunshine Oilsands. They also include some larger multinational companies, including Koch, Imperial Oil, ConocoPhillips and MEG Energy, which faced fines for paying fees late.

For some critics, the late and unpaid fees cast doubt on how seriously Premier Danielle Smith’s government is taking its responsibility to manage the monitoring program.

Shannon Phillips was the environment minister in the former NDP government during a period when some of the fees went unpaid. She said she asked public servants to use all the tools of the government to collect the money after they informed her about the problem.

But she noted there was an internal government culture to cut the industry some slack.

“The default setting was to lay down and die in the face of corporate whining and tantrums,” she said. “But the public service knew that might not be the response if they brought me a problem to solve.”   

Read More

Far Right is evolving and growing in Canada

 In early 2022, thousands of Canadians descended on Ottawa as part of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” in protest of the government’s pandemic-related restrictions. Many were opposed to the government’s power to impose lockdowns, masking and vaccine mandates.

Wittingly or not, they were also taking part in a vast communications effort from various groups and individuals on the far right.

Our new book on the far right in Canada, The Great Right North, shows that events like the Freedom Convoy are representative of where the far right is going, how it is recruiting, how it is communicating internally and with Canadians at large, and how it is progressing in the national political discourse.

Historically, Canada has always had a few active far-right groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and Nazis and fascists before the Second World War.

It also saw various semi-successful attempts at federating smaller formations during the 1980s and, in the 1990s, under the umbrella of the Heritage Front, which turned out to be co-founded and led by a CSIS operative.

But that was then. Now, the far right has a different strategy.

Canadian MP DESTROYS Trump in FLOOR SPEECH

Banning Iinternational Medical Students 2026

Scapegoating international medical students won’t solve Ontario’s health-care crisis By: Dat Nguyen. The news that Ontario will no longer allow international students to study medicine in the province starting in 2026 struck me profoundly as someone who recently immigrated to Canada with the hope of becoming a doctor. Pursuing a medical education is challenging enough, but the obstacles are especially daunting for international students. I understand this firsthand, having had to make the difficult choice to delay my medical school application until I could secure permanent residency. Canada already offers limited opportunities for foreign nationals who aspire to become doctors –in fact, the number of international students admitted to medical schools nationwide each year is so small it could be counted on two hands. So, scapegoating foreign nationals is not a solution to Ontario's health-care challenges but rather a tactic to distract from the provincial government’s neglect of long-term investment in medical care and education. Premier Doug Ford’s decision is deeply offensive and devoid of any substantial policy justification. It exploits the frustrations of Ontarians with the province’s health-care system, using a divisive, populist narrative. If such nativist political gestures go unchecked, they threaten to erode Canada’s long-standing values of acceptance and inclusion. Ford should reconsider this divisive policy and instead invest in solutions that address the real problems in our health-care system, such as the shortage of family doctors, the lack of medical education funding and long hospital wait times. Our future as a province should be unity and growth, not exclusion and division. Having chosen Canada after more than a decade of commitment to the United States, I can offer insight into the motivations of other international students seeking medical education in this country. My journey began at 15, leaving my home country of Vietnam to pursue my dream of becoming a doctor. During my 12 years in the U.S. — from high school through a bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s from Johns Hopkins University – I encountered racial prejudice and discrimination, which intensified as the U.S. embraced Trumpian ideologies. With the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, marking a painful turning point, I chose to leave America, seeking a country that values tolerance and inclusion even though I knew this decision came with professional sacrifices. As of October 2024, Canada offers limited opportunities for those pursuing a medical career, with only 17 institutions, and only six in Ontario, granting medical degrees – an alarmingly low number for a developed nation of its size. By contrast, the United States has more than 150 medical schools. Individual U.S. states such as New York and California have 15 and 12 medical schools respectively, while Maryland, which is a fraction the size of Ontario, hosts three. Seven students According to the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) in its 2024 admissions report, Canadian medical schools accepted just seven international medical students in the 2021-22 academic year. To put this in perspective, that’s a mere 0.35 per cent of the 1,980 offers issued that year. While this report excludes data from five Canadian schools that admit foreign applicants, a more complete dataset from the 2016-17 cycle (excluding only the University of Toronto) shows Canada admitted just 16 international medical students that academic year. This data starkly highlights the theatrical nature of the Ford government’s decision. because even without a ban, international students were never a significant presence in Canadian medical schools. Yet, the Ontario government chose to stage a press conference blaming foreigners instead of addressing the actual shortages of health-care providers and funding for medical education. Rather than taking concrete steps to address these issues, this policy stirs distrust and plays on nativist sentiments. By scapegoating foreigners, Ford’s government exploits Ontarians' fears and frustrations for electoral gain while offering no tangible solutions. Let me emphasize that aspiring doctors rarely choose Canada solely due to the education system. In terms of tuition costs, post-graduate salaries and research funding opportunities, the United States and other European nations offer equally or more appealing options. Many international applicants, myself included, chose Canada because of its commitment to inclusivity and the values that Canadian society represents. This decision to ban international students is a direct affront to those values. As an Ontarian, a taxpayer, an aspiring physician and simply as a decent human being, I urge Premier Ford to stop playing political games and abandon fear-mongering tactics.

Kash Patel has so-called 'enemies list' in 2023 book

Kash Patel has so-called 'enemies list' in 2023 book

Kash Patel, Donald Trump's pick for FBI director, published a so-called 'enemies list' in his 2023 book 'Government Gangsters,' and the list includes Democrats, Biden admin officials and Trump appointees like Bill Barr, Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Hur among others.

Poilievre’s Free Ride to Power Has to Stop

Poilievre’s Free Ride to Power Has to Stop When will Pierre Poilievre’s free ride with Canadians end as he cruises toward taking over the country with a large majority? Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners Providing Essential Support for Street-Based Sex WorkersProviding Essential Support for Street-Based Sex Workers This DTES non-profit is commemorating 40 years of non-judgmental support to women and gender-diverse people in need. It is well past time for some answers from the Conservative leader that amount to more than populist epigrams slavishly repeated by the bobble-head brigade he has made of his caucus. For more than a year now, Poilievre and the Conservatives have gotten away with punching their ticket to power by vilifying one person, Justin Trudeau. For most of that time, the Conservative Party of Canada has enjoyed a double-digit lead in the polls. That advantage now stands at a gaping 21 points. Pollster Nik Nanos recently told CTV news that Poilievre has “the easiest job in the country.” All he needs to do is the opposite of whatever Trudeau does. Just so low has the PM fallen, and just so superficial have our politics become.

War on Democracy

By Thom Hartmann We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have follow it. It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them. As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising — particularly if you are willing to lie — you can sell anybody pretty much anything. Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies. America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked. Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1500 hate talk radio stations. Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by five corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court. They are responsible for our crises of gun violence, the drug epidemic, homelessness, political gridlock, our slow response to the climate emergency, a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare, the situation on our southern border, even the lack of affordable drugs, insurance, and healthcare. All track back to a handful of Supreme Court justices who’ve sold their votes to billionaires in exchange for extravagant vacations, luxury yachts and motorhomes, private jet travel, speaking fees, homes, tuition, and participation in exclusive clubs and billionaire networks that bar the rest of us from entry. For over two decades, Clarence Thomas and his wife have been accepting millions in free luxury vacations, tuition for their adopted son, a home for his mother, private jet and megayacht travel, and entrance to rarified clubs. Sam Alito is also on the gravy train, and there are questions about how Brett Kavanaugh managed to pay off his credit cards and gambling debts. John Roberts’ wife has made over $10 million from law firms with business before the court; Neil Gorsuch got a sweetheart real estate deal; Amy Coney Barrett refuses to recuse herself from cases involving her father’s oil company. None of this is illegal because when five corrupt Republicans on the Court legalized members of Congress taking bribes they legalized that same behavior for themselves. As a result, we have oligarchs running our media, social media, and buying our elections, while the Supreme Court, with Citizens United, even legalized foreign interference in our political process. Our modern era of big money controlling government began in the decade after Richard Nixon put Lewis Powell — the tobacco lawyer who wrote the infamous 1971 “Powell Memo” outlining how billionaires and corporations could take over America — on the Supreme Court in 1972. In the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the Court ruled that money used to buy elections wasn’t just cash: they claimed it’s also “free speech” protected by the First Amendment that guarantees your right to speak out on political issues. In the 200 preceding years — all the way back to the American Revolution of 1776 — no politician or credible political scientist had ever proposed that spending billions to buy votes with dishonest advertising was anything other than simple corruption. The “originalists” on the Supreme Court, however, claimed to be channeling the Founders of this nation, particularly those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, when they said that “money is the same thing as free speech.” In that claim, Republicans on the Court were lying through their teeth. In a letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1816, President and author of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson explicitly laid it out: “Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government.” But Republicans on the Supreme Court weren’t reading the Founders. They were instead listening to the billionaires who helped get them on the Court in the first place. Who had bribed them with position and power and then kept them in their thrall with luxury vacations, “friendship,” and gifts. Two years after the 1976 Buckley decision, the Republicans on the Supreme Court struck again, this time adding that the “money is speech and can be used to buy votes and politicians” argument applied to corporate “persons” as well as to billionaires. Lewis Powell himself wrote the majority opinion in the 1978 Boston v Bellotti decision. Justices White, Brennan, and Marshall dissented: “The special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only our economy but the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process.” But the dissenters lost the vote, and political corruption of everything from local elections to the Supreme Court itself was now virtually assured. Notice that ruling came down just two years before the Reagan Revolution, when almost all forward progress in America came to a screeching halt. It’s no coincidence. And it’s gotten worse since then, with the Court doubling down in 2010 with Citizens United, overturning hundreds of state and federal “good government” laws dating all the way back to the late 1800s. Thus, today America has a severe problem of big money controlling our political system. And last night it hit its peak, putting an open fascist in charge of our government. No other developed country in the world has this problem, which is why every other developed country has a national healthcare system, free or near-free college, and strong unions that maintain a healthy middle class. It’s why they can afford pharmaceuticals, are taking active steps to stop climate change, and don’t fear being shot when they go to school, the theater, or shopping. It’s why they are still functioning democracies. The ability of America to move forward on any of these issues is, for now, paralyzed with the election of Trump and the GOP taking over the Senate. This is not the end, though; hitting bottom often begins the process of renewal. Many Americans will continue to speak out and fight for a democracy uncorrupted by the morbidly rich. And so will I.

Trump can't travel to these 38 countries now that he's a convicted felon

 Felons lose various rights upon being convicted, from their right to own a firearm to serving on a jury or voting — and former presidents aren't excluded from those restrictions.

Former President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying records in his New York hush money trial, making him a convicted felon. Now he'll have to navigate what that status means for his rights as any other American felon — but also as one worldwide.

That's because traveling is another right affected by felonies, with 38 nations — including the U.S. — either denying felons entry upfront or denying them if their criminal record is discovered, according to World Population Review. And with the public stage that Trump is on, that latter scenario would probably occur few and far between.

This may affect the Republican presidential front-runner's ability to fulfill his foreign duties if he's reelected come November. And although worldly leaders could make an exception in their travel bans for Trump, it's unclear which countries would be willing to do so, particularly as some of them have been on rocky ground with the former president.

For example, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former President Trump clashed publicly, and Canada reserves the right to refuse entrance to felons upfront. Similarly, with Ukraine, felons are denied if discovered, and Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship escalated into the former's impeachment.

Countries that don't allow convicted felons to enter:

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Canada
4. China
5. Cuba
6. India
7. Iran
8. Israel
9. Japan
10. Kenya
11. Macau
12. New Zealand
13. South Africa
14. Taiwan
15. United Kingdom
16. United States

Countries that will deny entry to felons if discovered:

1. Brazil
2. Cambodia
3. Chile
4. Dominican Republic
5. Egypt
6. Ethiopia
7. Hong Kong
8. Indonesia
9. Ireland
10. Malaysia
11. Mexico
12. Morocco
13. Nepal
14. Peru
15. Philippines
16. Singapore
17. South Korea
18. Tanzania
19. Tunisia
20. Turkey
21. Ukraine
22. United Arab Emirates

Norway hits pause on controversial deep-sea mining

Norway has shelved plans to open a vast ocean area at the bottom of the Arctic for commercial-scale deep-sea mining. The decision, which was confirmed late Sunday, comes after the country’s Socialist Left Party said it would not support the minority government’s budget unless it dropped the first licensing round, initially scheduled for the first half of next year. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the move was a “postponement,” while environmental campaigners hailed what they described as a “huge win”.

27-year old Bremda Acosta has had four jobs in six years

27-year old Bremda Acosta has had four jobs in six years. Courtesy of Bremda Acosta Story by ehopkins@insider.com (Ella Hopkins) Bremda Acosta has worked for four different organizations since she graduated in 2018. She told Business Insider she is not loyal to a company if its benefits and pay don't work for her. Having been a job-hopper in her 20s, she says she expects to stay in jobs longer in her 30s. This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with 27-year-old New Yorker Bremda Acosta about job-hopping. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I'm a job-hopper. It doesn't make sense to be loyal to a company that isn't loyal to you. I understand why sticking to a job was important for previous generations. For my mom, for example, she'd get benefits at work, such as a pension. I've never been offered a pension. It's much harder now to purchase a home with our salaries than for previous generations. If you can leave for a higher salary rather than waiting for a raise, you should. If the economy were better, I'd have stayed in roles for longer. I started working as a teacher after college I graduated in May 2018, majoring in sociology and public health. Since then, I've worked in four places. I'm a program manager for a nonprofit organization based in New York City. I focus on community organizing for schools in the area. I've been in this position for eight months. Money Talks News 9 Top Remote Jobs for Retirees: Leverage Your Experience and Skills I found the job on Indeed. Before that, I worked in schools and other jobs. Working in schools helped me get the job I have now. I left my first job after 7 months After college, I decided to become a teacher. I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and spoke Spanish. I landed a job as a Spanish teacher for 11th grade at a charter school in Brooklyn in June 2018. I didn't go to school to train as a teacher because it was a charter school. I was 22 and felt very inexperienced. It was the hardest job I've had. My days started at 7:30 a.m. I'd often not finish until 7.30 p.m. I left after seven months with no plan about what to do next. I quit my 2nd job because I couldn't see a future there I started searching for jobs in the nonprofit sector. I'd always wanted to work with immigrant communities. After two months of being unemployed, I found a position at a cancer charity. I worked as a program associate, offering support groups to Spanish-speaking women who had breast cancer and ovarian cancer. The job was good for me. Talking to people helped me come out of my shell. But I felt micromanaged and didn't see a path for professional growth. I went back to studying But, in the back of my mind, I started to feel as though I wanted to go back to teaching. I decided I wanted to become a sociology professor but knew I'd have to do a Ph.D. for that. I left my job in 2019 to pursue a master's in sociology at Syracuse University in 2020. I loved learning. I didn't have to pay my tuition and got a stipend for my rent and utilities. I finished my master's, but I left before I completed a Ph.D. because I was worried that I wouldn't have control over where it was based. I'd have had to apply for grants based on available positions in the country. I didn't want to be in isolated places like Montana or Iowa. I wanted to be in New York. I got a job as a business operations coordinator at another charter school in Brooklyn. The school only taught kindergarten to third grade. I learned a lot in the role, but when I asked for a salary raise, they couldn't offer me more. I worked additional days on the weekends, sometimes alone, without extra pay. I felt like I was doing so much. The job wasn't giving me the benefits I wanted, so I started looking for something else after 19 months. My mantra is to leave a job when it no longer works for me An employer wants to get what they can out of you. As an employee, you should focus on what you want. If something happening at your job isn't beneficial for you, you should move on. Get all the experience you can and then move forward. But you should be careful not to burn any bridges. I always leave on good terms. I was asked why I had moved jobs so often in an interview I think job-hopping is good for your 20s. But moving around so much at a certain point makes you look unreliable. In an interview once, I was asked why I had had so many jobs. They asked me to walk through why I left each one. I didn't want to be in that position where I had to explain that. I worry about people looking at my résumé and thinking I'm not going to stay for a long time. Job-hopping doesn't work forever I'm only job-hopping because I'm able to take more risks at this stage in my life. I've learned that if you're thinking of leaving a company, make sure the next place is aligned with the salary and values you're looking for. In my 30s, I'll want more consistency and for people to see me as reliable. I'm planning on staying longer in future roles and plan to be more cautious when accepting new roles in the future. But I'm grateful I explored many different organizations and had experience in different sectors, teams, and managers. I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone.

Trump SELLS OFF His PRESIDENCY Before He Steps Foot in Office

Trump threatens 100% tariff on the BRIC bloc of nations

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100% tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRIC alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. While the U.S. dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system. The dollar represents roughly 58% of the world’s foreign exchange reserves, according to the IMF and major commodities like oil are still primarily bought and sold using dollars. The dollar’s dominance is threatened, however, with BRICS’ growing share of GDP and the alliance’s intent to trade in non-dollar currencies — a process known as de-dollarization. Trump, in a Truth Social post, said: “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.” At a summit of BRIC nations in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake.” “It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.” Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT, and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners. Trump said there is “no chance” BRIC will replace the U.S. dollar in global trade and any country that tries to make that happen “should wave goodbye to America.” Research shows that the U.S. dollar’s role as the primary global reserve currency is not threatened in the near future. An Atlantic Council model that assesses the dollar’s place as the primary global reserve currency states the dollar is “secure in the near and medium term” and continues to dominate other currencies. Trump’s latest tariff threat comes after he threatened to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% tax on goods from China, as a way to force the countries to do more to halt the flow of illegal immigration and drugs into the U.S. He has since held a call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said Thursday she is confident that a tariff war with the United States can be averted. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned home Saturday after meeting Trump, without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on Canada. Read More

Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads

Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election

by Craig Silverman, ProPublica, and Priyanjana Bengani, Tow Center for Digital Journalism

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Reporting Highlights

• Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish.
• Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.
• Spotty Enforcement: Meta removed some ads after first approving them, but it failed to catch others with similar or identical content — or to stop networks from launching new pages and ads.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

In December, the verified Facebook page of Adam Klotz, a Fox News meteorologist, started running strange video ads.

Some featured the distinctive voice of former President Donald Trump promising “$6,400 with your name on it, no payback required” just for clicking the ad and filling out a form.

In other ads with the same offer, President Joe Biden’s well-known cadence assured viewers that “this isn’t a loan with strings attached.”

There was no free cash. The audio was generated by AI. People who clicked were taken to a form asking for their personal information, which was sold to telemarketers who could target them for legitimate offers — or scams.

Klotz’s page ran more than 300 of these ads before ProPublica contacted the weather forecaster in late August. Through a spokesperson, Klotz said that his page had been hacked and he was locked out. “I had no idea that ads were being run until you reached out.”

Klotz’s page had been co-opted by a sprawling ad account network that has operated on Facebook for years, churning out roughly 100,000 misleading election and social issues ads despite Meta’s stated commitment to crack down on harmful content, according to an investigation and analysis by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, as well as research by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that researches large tech platforms. The organizations combined data and shared their analyses. TTP’s report was produced independently of ProPublica and Tow’s investigation and was shared with ProPublica prior to publication.

The network, which uses the name Patriot Democracy on many of its ad accounts, is one of eight deceptive Meta advertising operations identified by ProPublica and Tow. These networks have collectively controlled more than 340 Facebook pages, as well as associated Instagram and Messenger accounts. Most were created by the advertising networks, with some pages masquerading as government entities. Others were verified pages of people with public roles, like Klotz, who had been hacked. The networks have placed more than 160,000 election and social issues ads on these pages in English and Spanish. Meta showed the ads to users nearly 900 million times across Facebook and Instagram.

The ads are only a fraction of the more than $115 billion Meta earns annually in advertising revenue. But at just over $25 million in total lifetime spend, the networks collectively rank as the 11th-largest all-time advertiser on Meta for U.S. elections or social issues ads since the company began sharing data in 2018. The company’s failure to block these scams consistently highlights how one of the world’s largest platforms struggles to protect its users from fraud and deliver on its nearly decadelong promise to prevent deceptive political ads.

Most of these networks are run by lead-generation companies, which gather and sell people’s personal information. People who clicked on some of these ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges, among many other schemes. Some, for example, were conned by an unscrupulous insurance agent into changing their Affordable Care Act health plans. While the agent earns a commission, the people who are scammed can lose their health insurance or face unexpected tax bills because of the switch.

The ads run by the networks employ tactics that Meta has banned, including the undisclosed use of deepfake audio and video of national political figures and promoting misleading claims about government programs to bait people into sharing personal information. Thousands of ads illegally displayed copies of state and county seals and the images of governors to trick users. “The State has recently approved that Illinois residents under the age of 89 may now qualify for up to $35,000 of Funeral Expense Insurance to cover any and all end-of-life expenses!” read one deceptive ad featuring a photo of Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois state seal.

More than 13,000 ads deployed divisive political rhetoric or false claims to promote unofficial Trump merchandise.

Meta removed some of the ads after initially approving them, the investigation found, but it failed to catch thousands of others with similar or even identical content. In many cases, even after removing the violating ads, it allowed the associated Facebook pages and accounts to continue operating, enabling the parent networks to spawn new pages and ads.

Meta requires ads related to elections or social issues like health care and immigration to include “paid for by” disclaimers that identify the person or entity behind the ads. But its rules for verifying advertisers and publicly disclosing who paid for such ads are less stringent than those of its main competitor, Google, ProPublica and Tow found. Many of the disclaimers on Facebook ads listed nonexistent entities.

A Meta spokesperson said it invests heavily in trust and safety and uses a mix of humans and technology to review election and social issues ads.

“We welcome ProPublica’s investigation into this scam activity, which included deceptive ads promoting Affordable Care Act tax credits and government-funded rent subsidies,” spokesperson Margarita Franklin said in an emailed statement. “... [A]s part of our ongoing work against scams, impersonation and spam, our enforcement systems had already detected and disabled a large portion of the Pages — and we reviewed and took action against the remainder of these Pages for various policy violations.”

Our analysis showed that while Meta had removed some pages and ads, its enforcement often lagged or was haphazard. Prior to being contacted by ProPublica and Tow, Meta had taken action against roughly 140 pages affiliated with these eight networks, representing less than half of the total identified in the investigation.

By then, the ads on those pages had been shown hundreds of millions of times, resulting in financial losses for an untold number of people.

Meta ultimately removed a substantial portion of pages flagged by this investigation. But after that enforcement, ProPublica and the Tow Center found that four of the networks ran more than 5,000 ads in October. Patriot Democracy alone activated two pages a day on average in the first half of this month.

“Their enforcement here is just super spotty and inconsistent, and they’re not actually attacking root problems,” said Jeff Allen, the chief research officer of the Integrity Institute, a nonprofit organization for trust and safety professionals.

He said networks like Patriot Democracy exploit the fact that a single Facebook page can be connected to multiple ad accounts and user profiles, creating a complex challenge for enforcement. “But these cracks have existed for the past eight years,” said Allen, a former Meta data scientist who worked on integrity issues before departing in 2019.

“There are a lot of gaps in the system, and Facebook’s overall strategy is to play Whac-A-Mole.”

Franklin noted that scammers use a variety of tactics to conceal their activity. Meta constantly updates its detection and enforcement systems and works with industry and law enforcement partners to combat fraudulent activity, she said.

“This is a highly adversarial space, and we continue to update our enforcement systems to respond to evolving scammer behavior,” Franklin said. She added that Meta has taken legal action against several operators.

Meta’s Rules

Misleading election ads have posed a challenge for Meta since at least 2016, when Russian trolls purchased thousands of Facebook and Instagram ads targeting Americans ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Amid public outcry and pressure from Congress, Meta has created special rules for political and social issues advertisers, launched a public Ad Library to archive such ads and hired additional people to review ads. An integrity team has been tasked with enforcing Meta’s community and advertising standards.

In 2022 and 2023, Meta laid off over 20,000 employees, including members of its integrity team. The company said it has more than 40,000 people working on safety and security around the world, an increase since 2020. It declined to say whether it has more people working on election ad reviews this cycle compared with the last presidential election.

One of the team’s key responsibilities is to verify that election and social issues advertisers are who they say they are, and that their ads adhere to the company’s rules. Since 2019, Meta has required political and social issues advertisers to submit an Employer Identification Number, a government or military website and an associated email address, or a Federal Election Commission registration number.

Meta also allowed state and local organizations and candidates who aren’t federally registered to run ads by providing a corresponding website and email address, a “valid” phone number and a mail-deliverable address. It later relaxed the rules to allow advertisers to simply display the name of their Facebook page as the entity that paid for the ad.

Google, Meta’s main U.S. election ads competitor, doesn’t have similar carve-outs for ad disclaimers. It accepts only an FEC registration number, state elections ID or EIN to verify an organization. Google’s political ad disclaimers list the organization name or the name of a person who completed the ID verification process.

Franklin said Meta has rules to ensure that page name disclaimers aren't abused. The company’s guidelines say that regardless of how much information advertisers disclose, the ads must “Accurately represent the name of the entity or person responsible for the ad.” But more than 100,000 ads identified by ProPublica and the Tow Center did not.

Patriot Democracy

The “paid for by” disclaimers on the ads that mysteriously started appearing on weather forecaster Klotz’s hijacked page listed “Klotz Policy Group” as the advertiser. Klotz Policy Group is not affiliated with Adam Klotz, and the email and website address in the disclaimer do not point to a dedicated website. The group is also not listed in OpenCorporates or other business registration databases.

The advertiser disclaimer information for Klotz’s page listed the email admin@patriotdemocracy.com and the website patriotdemocracy.com/klotzpolicygroup. That URL led to a page that promoted dental coverage for Medicare recipients and used the branding of a site called Saving Tips Daily. Similar URLs with the patriotdemocracy.com domain appeared across other pages in the network, which enabled ProPublica, Tow and the Tech Transparency Project to link them to the same network. (For more details on how the ads and networks were identified, see the methodology section at the end of this story.)

Patriot Democracy is the biggest of the eight networks identified during the course of the investigation and has been active on Meta’s platforms for nearly five years. It includes 232 pages that have spent more than $13 million on more than 110,000 ads.

Allen said operations like Patriot Democracy spend millions on Meta ads because it helps them find victims.

“If they gave over $10 million to Facebook, then they may have extracted $15 million from American seniors with this garbage,” he said. “The harms add up.”

The pages often have official-sounding names such as “Government Cash Program,” “US Financial Relief” and “USA Stimulus Fund,” and their ad disclaimers list organization names that do not correspond to registered entities or websites.

Meta also allowed the page owners to falsely identify themselves as affiliated with the federal government. If a user looked up the page details of “Government Cash Program,” they would see a notation showing that it’s a “Government Website.” US Financial Relief is listed as a “Government organization.” More than 20 pages claimed to be a “Public Service.”

One of the most common types of ads run by Patriot Democracy pages is for Trump merchandise, including coins, flags and hats.

One of these ads ensnared Sam Roberson, a 57-year-old Texas resident, last month. While browsing Facebook, Roberson was drawn to an offer for a Trump coin from a page called Stars and Stripes Supply. The coin was embossed with an image of the former president raising his fist after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. One click took him to the site patriotprosnetwork.com, where Roberson paid $39.99 for 11 coins that he planned to give to his grandkids. He received the coins. But two weeks later, his card was charged another $29.99.

Roberson told ProPublica that he didn’t realize that he had signed up for a subscription. He contacted customer support to request a refund, but is skeptical the company will follow through.

“With these knuckleheads and how deep they are dug in, I may end up having to cancel the card,” he said.

When ProPublica called the site’s customer service line, a person who did not give their name said that customers who choose the “VIP” checkout option receive a discount on their purchases and are automatically enrolled in a monthly membership. The spokesperson said that customers are informed on the site and by email “how they got involved [in the membership] and how they can cancel.”

They said that someone else from the company could answer questions about advertising but hung up when asked how often they receive customer complaints about the membership fee.

ProPublica also sent an email with detailed questions about the coin offer and the subscription but did not receive a response.

The Stars and Stripes Supply page spent over $700,000 on Meta ads for Trump merchandise and ran ads as recently as Sept. 28 before it was removed by Meta. The page and the store have received onlinecomplaints about the billing scheme. It’s unclear who controls the page or the store, or how they are connected.

In addition to the billing schemes, the Trump merchandise ads often draw clicks with false claims and divisive language. Stars and Stripes Supply ran ads for Trump and JD Vance yard signs that falsely claimed “liberal activists are ripping Trump-Vance yard signs from the ground, sparking a wave of controversy across the nation.”

A page called Truly American ran a video ad for a “free” Trump flag and coin offer that was narrated by a female voice claiming to be Melania Trump. “Today we see free thinkers and independent voices like gay conservatives and Log Cabin Republicans silenced, censored and bullied by cancel-culture mobs. Donald stood against this and they tried to silence him for good,” the voice intoned, as the ad showed an image of Trump with his bloodied ear.

It’s unclear who ultimately controls the Patriot Democracy pages and associated Instagram accounts or who paid for the ads. Along with listing fake advertiser names, Patriot Democracy ad disclaimers show addresses that often correspond to WeWork co-working spaces or UPS stores. And the phone numbers, which are shared among multiple pages, led to generic voicemail messages — with one exception.

A man who answered one number said he’d never run ads on Meta and didn’t know why his phone number was listed. He said he was on his way to court and asked the reporter to call back later. He did not answer a subsequent call, and the phone number was soon disconnected.

The ownership information for patriotdemocracy.com and its related domains is also private, making it impossible to know who registered the domain. Meta did not answer specific questions about the network.

Before ProPublica and Tow reached out, Meta had removed less than half of Patriot Democracy pages for violating its advertising standards. It also failed to take action against the larger network, even after some of its pages were exposed in earlier reports by Forbes and researchers at Syracuse University.

Of the more than 110,000 ads on Patriot Democracy pages identified by ProPublica and Tow, Meta stopped just over 7,000, or roughly 6%, from running for violating standards. These ads were shown nearly 60 million times before Meta took action. Meta also consistently failed to detect and remove copies of ads it had previously banned due to policy violations, according to the analysis.

Franklin said Meta uses a variety of automated approaches to detect and remove duplicate ads. This includes training systems to recognize the images and videos used in previously removed ads in order to prevent them from running again. It also looks at a variety of signals, including user and payment information and the devices used to access accounts, to restrict or ban people who break its rules, she said.

One of the most popular lures used by Patriot Democracy and other networks is the promise of free government cash.

More than 30,000 ads across the networks identified by ProPublica and Tow falsely claimed that nearly all Americans could receive government subsidies or are eligible for a “FREE Health Insurance Program.” People who clicked were often directed to unethical insurance agents who altered their existing ACA plan details or signed them up for plans they weren’t eligible for, pocketing a commission in the process. These ads were shown to users at least 38 million times.

The scheme has caused victims to lose their existing ACA health insurance or to be hit with unexpected tax bills from the IRS. In those cases, the agent falsely reported a lower income to enroll clients and secure a commission. In response to the surge in fraudulent enrollments, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that administers the ACA, implemented stricter rules this summer for insurance agents.

A CMS spokesperson declined to comment on specific ads or platforms. But insurance marketers and other industry experts told ProPublica that Facebook ads are a scammer’s preferred method for ensnaring victims. Meta declined to comment on whether it’s in touch with CMS.

“It’s clear from speaking with a lot of different consumers that were ripped off that the Facebook ads played a big part,” said Jason Doss, an Atlanta lawyer who filed a class-action suit against a group of companies and individuals who allegedly used online ads, high-pressure insurance call centers and other methods to commit mass ACA enrollment fraud. The companies have moved to dismiss the case, citing a lack of jurisdiction and failure to show that any laws were broken, among other defenses. “We deny the allegations made and will be defending the case,” the CEO of one company named in the suit told ProPublica. The suit is ongoing.

Since 2021, Google has required U.S. health insurance advertisers to verify their identity and license status prior to running ads. Meta does not have this requirement. The company did not respond to questions about health insurance advertisers.

Taking on a Network

Meta’s failure to stop deceptive ads about government programs has forced some state and local officials to step in.

In January 2023, investigators in the Alaska Division of Insurance received complaints from consumers who said they were shown misleading ads on Facebook.

The ads used the state seal of Alaska and in some cases a photo of the governor to falsely claim that the state was offering new funeral and burial benefits. “The State of Alaska approved NEW affordable Funeral programs, designed to cover 100% final expenses up to 25,000 or more. Not just a portion,” read one ad.

As with other types of deceptive ads, the burial ads tricked people into filling out a form. In this case, they often ended up on the phone with someone trying to sell life insurance.

Alex Romero, Alaska’s chief insurance investigator, was alarmed. There weren’t any “new” state benefits. It’s also illegal in Alaska, and just about every state, to use a state seal without permission.

Searching the Meta Ad Library, he found hundreds of deceptive ads that used state seals. Romero warned his fellow state insurance investigators on a scheduled conference call soon after his discovery. “There was a proliferation of advertising using the same deceptive marketing,” Romero told ProPublica.

Around the same time, officials in Ventura County, California, were alerted to the unauthorized use of its county seal in Facebook ads. A local news outlet sent the county examples of burial insurance ads that used the Ventura County seal. Tiffany North, the county counsel, began an inquiry. She and Romero connected last spring and realized the same person was connected to the Facebook ads: a lead-generation marketer and insurance broker named Abel Medina.

Public records show that Medina, 35, owns companies such as Heartwork Global and Kontrol LLC, which have run election and social issues ads on several Facebook pages.

Romero said his research showed that Kontrol LLC was a key source of Facebook ads with state seals and images of governors. “Practically every state, a bunch of counties, several cities, they’re all getting tagged by this guy Medina,” he said.

Two other companies, Final Expense Authority LLC and American Benefits & Services LLC, ran similar ads on some of the same Facebook pages, ProPublica and Tow found. Their websites had text that was nearly identical to text on Heartwork Global’s site.

Corporate records show that Final Expense Authority LLC is registered to Tiffani Panyanouvong, a 24-year-old former insurance broker. She told ProPublica that Medina registered the entity in her name without her permission when they were dating.

American Benefits & Services LLC is registered in Delaware and does not publicly list an owner. Panyanouvong said that Medina used that company and Final Expense Authority to run ads on Meta and that she “had nothing to do with his lead-generation services.”

“This is all because of him, and I was just his girlfriend at the time,” Panyanouvong told ProPublica in a WhatsApp message. “And he used me as another person to hide behind to get through the Facebook advertising loop holes.”

On his LinkedIn profile, Medina touts his Facebook ad expertise. He says he generated “$1.6 Million in sales in under eight months with only Facebook Final Expense Media Buying and growing other verticals.”

He’s also teaching others how to do it — for a fee. His profile points to a website, Scale Kontrol, which promises to help clients create a “cash cow advertising machine” by using Facebook ads to generate customer leads. The site also assures customers that it knows “work arounds” to avoid having ads “flagged, banned, restricted.”

Medina did not respond to phone messages or to a detailed list of questions sent to three email addresses, his Facebook account and a home address.

ProPublica and Tow found that the four companies have operated at least 40 Facebook pages and spent $2.1 million on more than 21,000 election and issues ads. Thousands of ads reviewed by ProPublica and Tow across pages linked to the companies made deceptive claims and appeared to break one or more Meta rules.

The pages used deepfake audio of Biden to make false claims about government subsidies, ran deceptive auto insurance ads that promoted nonexistent “Biden Gas Relief Checks” using images of a U.S. Treasury check, and falsely claimed that “The State has approved a NEW Mortgage Protection Plan that protects your home and family in the event of an unexpected tragedy.” No such state plan exists.

Prior to being contacted by ProPublica, Meta had removed about half of the pages. Ten pages connected to these companies ran ads in the last three months.

In March 2023, North sent a cease-and-desist letter to Final Expense Authority. “Your use of the County’s official seal and your actions in misleading the public are unauthorized and unlawful,” she wrote.

The following month, Romero sent a similar letter to Medina, Panyanouvong and three of the companies. It cited five criminal and civil statutes that the state of Alaska believed they had violated and demanded they stop running ads with the state seal and images of the governor.

North and Romero said the ads with their respective seals stopped soon after the letters were sent. (Neither contacted Meta directly, telling ProPublica they focused on the companies running the ads.)

Final Expense Authority, the company registered to Panyanouvong, is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Monterey County district attorney’s office over its use of the California county’s seal. Emily Hickok, Monterey County’s chief deputy district attorney, confirmed the investigation to ProPublica and said her office reported the ads to Meta in February. She declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

Panyanouvong’s California insurance license was revoked in January. An attorney for the state Department of Insurance cited the use of Ventura County and Alaska seals in ads, among other alleged violations, state records show. Due to a prior criminal conviction for petty theft, records show that in 2019 Medina received a California insurance license on a probationary basis. It has been inactive since last November. He holds an active license in Texas.

Panyanouvong, who now works as a waitress, said she hopes to get her license back. “I’m pretty disheartened about this matter constantly haunting me,” she said.

The California Department of Insurance declined to comment on any investigations into the companies. “While we do not comment on open investigations, deceptive advertising on social media platforms can be a cause for licensing action or criminal prosecution,” it said in a statement to ProPublica.

Meta removed all of the active pages linked to the four companies after ProPublica and Tow shared them. It declined to say whether it had taken additional action. But as recently as early October, an ad from American Benefits & Services offered $100K to homeowners: “Claim cash back with these new home owners benefits programs that just became available.”

Still Locked Out

After ProPublica emailed Klotz, the meteorologist, in August to ask about the ads running via his page, his employer, Fox News, contacted Meta to get the ads removed and to restore his access. His verified page continued running ads promising easy money to Americans until early October. As of this week, he still doesn’t have access to his page.

“As far as I know the account is still hacked and in their control,” Klotz said.

Methodology

The pages and networks included in this investigation were identified by searching Meta’s Ad Library for keywords including “benefits,” “subsidy,” “stimulus,” “$6400” and “burial.” The initial keywords were chosen based on examples sourced from reports, FTC investigations and lawsuits. Each page added to the initial seed set was vetted by viewing its ads, advertiser disclaimer information, and page content and manager information.

Using this initial set, we expanded the list of keywords based on ads run by the pages and by searching the Ad Library for websites that the ads linked to. We then used the Ad Library Report interface to identify all pages for each advertiser. We also looked for pages that ran ads using the same advertiser disclaimer information.

Patriot Democracy

In the case of the Patriot Democracy network, we connected the pages and ads together via three domains that were used in “paid for by” ad disclaimers: informedempowerment.com, tacticalempowerment.com and patriotdemocracy.com. The disclaimers that used these domains often used the same phone numbers or addresses. Additionally, a Domain Name System analysis showed that all three domains resided on the same server.

Determining Metrics

To determine the total number of ads, ads removed and impressions, we relied on the Meta Ad Library application programming interface. For each page identified using the above methodology, we pulled all the ads via the API. To ascertain which ads had been removed, we filtered out ads that had the text “This content was removed because it didn’t follow our Advertising Standards.” However, if Meta had taken action at the page level, this ad text would not update.

Meta’s Ad Library does not offer exact numbers for impressions of individual election and social issues ads. Instead, it offers ranges. We used the most conservative number offered by Meta, the “lower bound.” This means that cumulatively, these ads likely had tens of thousands more impressions.

The Ad Library provides the total spending for election and social issues ads run on a page, which is the source of all of the dollar amounts cited in this investigation.

Mariam Elba contributed research.

Data collection and analysis for this story was done in conjunction with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School.