Society

As one of his first acts after being sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency by reorganizing and renaming an existing entity, the US Digital Services (USDS), as the US DOGE Service. And while some have noted that this version of DOGE moves away from the sweeping…

Just before the presidential election last November, Carolyn Fisher was in her living room in Birmingham, Alabama, when her nonbinary child walked in and said that he, along with four other transgender kids, were planning on dying by suicide if Donald Trump won the upcoming election. Fisher and her husband were both lifelong Republicans and…

Mere moments after his swearing in Monday, President Donald Trump made a proclamation to attendees of his inauguration: “It shall henceforth be the policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” Trump then signed an executive order disparaging what the White House called “gender ideology” and claiming that…

Donald Trump’s executive order designating cartels as terrorist organizations could give his administration greater power to impose economic sanctions, restrict travel, and potentially take military action abroad. On Monday, when signing the executive order in the Oval Office, Trump said that “Mexico probably won’t be happy.” But this proposal is not new—in his first term…

The wheels are already beginning to turn on Donald Trump’s plan to make the US into the “crypto capital of the planet” following his return to the White House. In an executive order signed Thursday, Trump established a “working group on digital asset markets,” which will be responsible for weighing the possibility of the US…

It would be inaccurate to refer to Enrique Tarrio, who was the leader of the Proud Boys on January 6, 2021, when dozens of members stormed the Capitol, as the gang’s “ex–chairman.” Within hours of being sprung free from a federal prison in Pollock, Louisiana, on Tuesday, Tarrio called into Infowars to speak with conspiracy…

In the first 48 hours of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, he has taken action on virtually every single culture war topic that has excited his base for the last 12 months, including the signing of dozens of executive orders targeting immigrants, gender expression, the environment, and DEI policies. Trump has also pardoned…

With the news that Meta is ending its third-party fact-checking program, we dig into the future of content moderation. From Community Notes to automated systems, how do you manage trust and safety for a site with two billion daily active users? You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at…

About a year ago, security researcher Sam Curry bought his mother a Subaru, on the condition that, at some point in the near future, she let him hack it. It took Curry until last November, when he was home for Thanksgiving, to begin examining the 2023 Impreza’s internet-connected features and start looking for ways to…

Over the weekend, I went to DC to meet with all of the right-wing influencers and content creators who made President Donald Trump’s 2024 win possible. They were everywhere. The 2024 election was the influencer election and inauguration was no different: There were dozens of pre- and post-inaugural parties and balls this weekend, as well…