As Brazil gears up for a pivotal presidential election, a new investigation from Amnesty International has sounded a stark alarm about the integrity of online discourse. The human rights organization has released findings that suggest Meta’s advertising systems, the digital engine behind Facebook’s vast reach, are dangerously vulnerable to exploitation by those seeking to spread election-related disinformation. Through a carefully constructed experiment, Amnesty discovered that more than half of the deceptive political ads they submitted to the platform were approved for publication without question. While the remaining ads were flagged for review, they were not rejected for containing false information,…

In the coastal city of Marina, California, where the ocean breeze carries the salt of the Monterey Bay and the history of a decommissioned military base hangs in the air, a quiet digital revolution has begun. For years, the city’s residents have navigated a frustrating labyrinth of municipal bureaucracy—shuffling through dense, jargon-filled council packets, scrolling through endless meeting minutes, and piecing together fragmented social media posts to understand the decisions shaping their daily lives. The city, once defined by the sprawling Fort Ord Army base, has reinvented itself into a vibrant and diverse residential community, yet the communication gap between…