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In this task, you need to read each of these articles, and then post comments underneath, as if this was the comments section of the original website. It is not anonymous.

You are being marked on your use of the article as evidence, and your ability to critique the ideas presented in it. You can choose to comment from your own perspective, or from the perspective of your political party's ideology (what they would say  if they wanted to convince people their ideology is "correct" on the issue). You need to comment on all the articles, and need to comment from both perspectives at least once.

The first article is one that we examined in class to give you a bit of a head-start on making your comments. Good luck!

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President Trump's tweets now come with a warning label. Below his recent tweet dismissing mail-in votes as "substantially fraudulent" is a linked advisory from Twitter: "Get the facts about mail-in ballots" - a message that both flags Trump's tweet as fake news and reminds users that Twitter is the arbiter of public speech.

Trump and his supporters howled "censorship!" accusing the social media company of silencing conservative voices. An enraged Trump quickly set about crafting an executive order to limit Twitter's ability to "selectively censor." The order, currently being drafted, aims to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which enables social media companies to avoid "intermediary liability" for the things people say or do on their platforms and, on the flip side, allows them to act as "Good Samaritans," policing their sites as they see fit.

Twitter, meanwhile, threw fuel on the fire by hiding a later tweet published by Trump that advocated shooting protesters in Minneapolis. Trump's tweet, the social media company announced, "violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence."

The spat is just the latest go-round in the Twitter-Trump dance. For the most part, the president loves Twitter. Sean Spicer, Trump's former White House press secretary, once boasted that Twitter is "the official mouthpiece of the US president" who uses it to announce news of national importance, personal gripes, conspiracy theories, and everything in between.

But it's a tumultuous relationship. A few years ago, for example, a group of Twitter users represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sued Trump in a class-action lawsuit, arguing that his penchant for blocking users who mocked or disagreed with him on Twitter was a violation of their First Amendment rights. The judge sided with the plaintiffs.

Twitter, for its part, is happy to have Trump and any number of high-profile political figures use its website. A little bit of controversy can be quite lucrative, attracting eyeballs, clicks, and ad dollars. But the social media company also has to keep users and investors happy, and regulators at bay; it can't allow millions of people to write off the platform as the domain of bots and cranks, nor does it want regulations attached to its role as "official mouthpiece."

So, like other social media platforms, Twitter maximizes its flexibility through regular, minor tweaks to its community standards. Last summer, for example, the company promised that it would add disclaimers to tweets from elected officials that proved too divisive. The recent warning label on Trump's tweet stems from a new "civic integrity policy" adopted this month to protect "civic processes" from "interference and manipulation."

Trump's tweet about mail-in votes appears to fall under the category of "suppression and intimidation," because it makes "misleading claims about process procedures or techniques which could dissuade people from participating."

Twitter's newfound willingness to police Trump's tweets is no doubt fueled by growing criticism of the platform. Voices from across the political spectrum argue that the president's persistent use of the platform to stoke fear (like when he threatened to start a nuclear war with North Korea last year) and delight his devotees with vicious gossip and loony conspiracy theories needs to stop.

More broadly, observers are concerned about social media's role in driving political polarization. They worry that algorithmically personalized content, fake news, and the proliferation of bots are causing Americans to hate each other.

One such critic, Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein, likens social media to a disease vector that is "potentially dangerous for democracy and social peace." Historian-geographer-anthropologist Jared Diamond echoed this sentiment in a recent episode of "Talks at Goldman Sachs." Drawing from his "work in the jungles of New Guinea for the last fifty-five years," where digital communication technologies are far less present, Diamond contends that "the breakdown in civility, including political compromise, in the United States in the last couple of decades has been because of our decline in face-to-face communication, that we're experiencing people not as people but as words on a screen."

Trump's tweets are generally awful and scholars are right to be critical of the relationship between social media and political polarization. But the way the popular narrative is often framed muddies the waters, preventing clarity about the nature of the problem.

Firstly, we should be wary of technologically determinist explanations of the current political landscape. Our digital technologies and behaviors reflect the current political landscape much more than they shape it.

American society is deeply polarized because, after decades of betrayal by elected officials, declining living standards for working families, unparalleled corporate greed, and a ballooning billionaire class, ordinary people have lost faith in the status quo. Neoliberal capitalism has lost its legitimacy.

This legitimacy crisis is not an artifact of our filtered social media streams, nor is the political unrest and polarization that characterizes the present moment algorithmically generated.

Secondly, in framing the battle as Twitter vs. Trump we legitimize a deeply concerning imbalance of power. Trump's tweets are a problem. But so is the power of tech titans to shape and censor our digital experience and, by extension, our public voice.

Opposing the ability of the president to stoke violence or spread hateful lies on Twitter doesn't mean supporting the right of social media companies to control public speech.

As a society we've come to rely on platforms like Twitter and Facebook as places to share and receive information, news, and ideas. Yet we have little control over these spaces.

Our public conversations occur in digital spaces that are controlled by a handful of tech billionaires and software engineers. Beyond a basic standard of decency, they get to determine what speech is allowed and what isn't, what content gets flagged or buried in the feed.

Tech companies operate in a largely unregulated landscape. Assured of our reliance upon their technology and eager to avoid official interventions, they promise to self-regulate. They make minor changes, to much fanfare, and engage in publicity campaigns that highlight their dedication to "serv[ing] the public conversation."

There is a deep conflict of interest at work in this self-regulation, however. The decisions of tech companies like Twitter and Facebook are shaped by the overriding goal of keeping as many people as possible on their platforms so they can harvest their personal data and make money from advertising. Unsurprisingly, their self-regulation strategies, for the most part, further this goal by maintaining tech executives' near-absolute control over the content on their platforms.

Social media platforms have become an important element of modern political life, and as such, public social media content should absolutely be constrained by societal norms, values, and standards.

But the rules governing public speech in the digital age should be decided democratically. Neither tech bosses nor an unbalanced president should have free rein to determine what these norms, values, and standards are.

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Social Media Companies Can't Be Trusted to Protect Our Democracy

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Social media platforms have become a central element of modern political life - too important to allow them to be run according to the whims of either an unbalanced president like Donald Trump or a few tech billionaires like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

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For the past three nights, Minneapolis shook with so much grief and anger that the rest of the world felt quivers from the images alone.

The city's buildings were looted, graffitied, broken and burned. Its air filled with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, live bullets fireworks, smoke, chants and cries.

A local Target was pilloried and gutted. The local police precinct was commandeered and set aflame.

Police have used various means to disperse protesters, including tear gas.(AP: Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune)

The National Guard and state patrol marched through the streets with face shields and batons. A crew of journalists was arrested on live television. One man was shot and killed, while countless others were bruised.

The protests have spread to cities like New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Memphis and Louisville. It's unclear whether they'll stop today, tomorrow or anytime soon.

With the future still uncertain, the question turns to how we landed here, in this moment, with a city struggling to stand.

The protesters were pressing for charges

By now you know about George Floyd, a black American who died shortly after a Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground on Monday (local time).

Mr Floyd was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $US 20 bill to buy cigarettes, which reads like a crime of poverty at a time when pandemic-related financial hardship is everywhere.

Despite being unarmed and handcuffed, Mr Floyd was held on the ground by the weight of the arresting officer. Mr Floyd audibly struggled to breathe for roughly eight minutes, pleading, while three other officers stood by.

The incident, captured on video and shared widely on social media, swiftly triggered the firing of all four officers.

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WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE: Video shows a US police officer kneeling on a man's neck as he pleads for help

But now protesters, heartbroken about the death, are outraged over the lack of justice.

They believe that the police officers involved should not just be fired, but punished through the same system that sweeps up a disproportionate number of black Americans.

The stated aim is to see the officers arrested, tried and convicted for murder.

Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Mr Floyd's neck, has been taken into state custody and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

What it's like on the ground during riots in Minneapolis

Bang after bang sounds as fires burn across the city and smoke billows into the sky above, while protesters holding placards flee screaming and police fire non-lethal rounds. This was Minneapolis on Thursday evening.

Read more

One county lawyer called for patience in the wait for a trial as local, state and federal authorities continue to conduct investigations.

"My job in the end is to prove he violated a criminal statute. [...] We need to wade through all of that evidence and come to a meaningful decision and we are doing that to the best of our ability," he said during a press conference on Thursday.

The Minneapolis Police Chief, echoing those calls for patience, added that the protesters were operating under a "deficit of hope" following years of tension with the local police department and two decades' worth of national police killings of unarmed black men.

Many protesters are still aiming for peaceful demonstrations in the face of frequent police killings of black Americans.

Some even expressed gratitude that the state chose to call in the National Guard to maintain a sense of order.

But for others in Minneapolis and beyond, the "deficit of hope" created by generations of compounding pain just couldn't hold for another day.

Coronavirus preys on existing racial inequality

There's an old saying that sums up the disparities in the US with a health metaphor: "When white America catches a cold, black America gets pneumonia".

And right now, white America isn't just catching a cold - it's getting ravaged by coronavirus on nearly every front.

The virus has claimed the lives of 103,000 Americans, registered 1.7 million positive cases and cost the country 40 million jobs.

By each measure of hardship, black Americans are bearing more of the burden but getting less attention.

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Protesters take over Minneapolis police precinct

Most staggering is the mortality rate, which is roughly 2.4 times higher than it is for white Americans.

You'd think that a virus dubbed "the great equaliser" might help some Americans see the morbid risk of sustained racial inequality.

But the national conversations around the discrepancy of death rates tend to stop at saying that black Americans are more likely to have pre-existing health conditions such as obesity, in effect putting the blame for catching the virus back on black Americans.

Even the advice of the US Surgeon-General, a black American, focused on telling black Americans to "avoid alcohol, tobacco and drugs".

Good health is something that black Americans, 22 per cent of whom live in poverty, disproportionately have less means to achieve.

Donald Trump calls protesters in Minneapolis "thugs" and vows that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" after rioters angered by the death of African-American man George Floyd break into a city police station and set it on fire.

The conversations don't mention that years of intentional housing discrimination, known as redlining, has relegated more black Americans to spaces with poor air and water quality.

The conversations don't explain that black Americans have long been subject to discrimination within the healthcare system, even as personal examples of unequal treatment for COVID-19 are spreading.

The national conversation doesn't do a lot to highlight that black Americans may be more susceptible to COIVD-19 simply because they spend more time in the spaces where it's known to spread.

They're more likely to work service jobs, live in tightly compacted housing and rely on public transportation.

Black Americans are also five times more likely than white Americans to be kept in jails, which have been the sites of the top three biggest outbreaks in the country.

As one writer put it, "If there were ever questions about whether working-class African-Americans were disposable, there can be none now".

Police killings continued despite pledges to decrease arrests

Instead of using this moment to rally around equality, America is producing example after example of ugly racial tension.

A video of a white woman calling the police on a black bird-watcher went viral as an example of how white Americans can knowingly and intentionally weaponise racism for their own gains.

Meanwhile, at least two recent police killings of unarmed black people serve as chilling reminders of what police intervention too often means.

Protests have spread to cities including New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Memphis and Louisville.(AP: Mark Vancleave)

Many have pointed out that these killings, like that of Mr Floyd, happened at a time when police pledged to decrease arrests, especially for minor offences, in order to focus on pandemic-related measures like social distancing.

It feels to many like the Government could be helping to make life safer for black Americans, but in so many ways, they're failing to see the danger or even exacerbating it.

Local leaders expressed sympathies with the protesters but also authorised the use of tear gas against them.

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Donald Trump defends use of civil-rights era phrase

The President, who described white armed anti-lockdown protesters as "very good people", described the multiracial Minneapolis protesters as "thugs".

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts," he tweeted in reference to an infamous phrase from an era many had hoped was long gone. The tweet drew a sanction from Twitter for "glorifying violence".

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden joked last week that black Americans who did not support him "ain't black", which came off as both arrogant and ignorant of black Americans' disconnect with politics.

His prepared comments on Mr Floyd's death delivered on Friday were grave in tone, but filled the same talking points about police reform and a wounded nation that politicians have trotted out for years.

You don't have to be a protester to look at America and see why centuries of waiting for change might spark a messy public display.

NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick repeatedly made headlines for attempting to peacefully protest systemic racism by kneeling during the US national anthem in 2016, sparking protests in the process.

And as one resident reminded the Washington Post, Minneapolis' reaction has "been peaceful before" too.

"This is the first time I feel like we're actually taking action, showing our anger."

Mr Chauvin had seen 18 complaints filed against him, and all but two were closed without discipline. The "discipline" was a letter of warning.

Despite long cries from the black community about policing, Mr Floyd is now dead and a city is shaken.

Anger prevails because hope is nowhere to be found.

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Minneapolis protesters fuelled by a 'deficit of hope' after generations of pain

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Black Americans, already reeling from a virus that disproportionately affects them, have engaged in days of protests after an African-American man's death in police custody was caught on tape. The anger rose so quickly because there's little hope to be found, writes Emily Olson.

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A key Australian intelligence agency says it needs expanded powers to question suspected foreign spies and their helpers, because there are more currently operating in the country than at the height of the Cold War.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) has also defended a proposal to gain the power to quiz children as young as 14 over terrorism matters, saying the agency holds significant concerns about the trend of Australians being radicalised increasingly early in life.

A bill introduced to parliament this month would expand Asio's existing powers to subject people to compulsory questioning - which it has used 16 times since 2003 but only for terrorism-related intelligence gathering.

The bill would remove more intrusive detention powers that allow a person to be held for up to seven days for questioning of up to 24 hours during that time - a highly controversial measure that Asio says it has never actually used.

At the same time, though, the reach of the compulsory questioning power is to be extended beyond terrorism to include espionage and acts of foreign interference along with politically motivated violence.

The bill would enable the attorney general to approve questioning warrants directly without the involvement of a judge - an easing of the hurdles the agency faces in the current law.

"The threats posed today by espionage and foreign interference operate at a scale, breadth and ambition that has not previously been seen in Australia," Asio says in a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which is reviewing the proposed laws.

"Espionage and foreign interference are affecting parts of the Australian community previously untouched by such threats, even during the Cold War.

"There are more foreign intelligence officers and their proxies operating in Australia now than at the height of the Cold War, and many of them have the requisite level of capability, the intent and the persistence to cause significant harm to our national security."

The submission builds on Asio's recent warnings about the heightened threat of foreign interference. The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said earlier this year that the nations included China, Iran and Russia.

Dennis Richardson, a former defence department and Asio chief, has also previously warned China was "very active in intelligence activities directed against us" including in the cyber realm but also keeping "a watchful eye inside Australian Chinese communities" and deploying other soft-power levers.

According to the new submission - which doesn't name any particular countries - Asio investigations have discovered foreign interference operations directed at government and industry figures, the media, members of diaspora communities and commercial investment decision-makers.

Australia's military modernisation program is one of the "attractive targets for espionage by foreign states seeking to gain an advantage to the detriment of Australia's security and prosperity".

Asio says it has also seen foreign states "seeking to monitor and control the activities, opinions and decisions of sections of the Australian community in a way that impinges on freedom of speech, association and action".

It is understood Asio regards the compulsory questioning power as "another tool in our toolbox" to target espionage and foreign interference.

While it often needs to monitor such activities covertly, it says there may also be a need to disrupt activities and seek information through direct questioning. Australia would want to gain an understanding of the damage done, including what had been provided to a foreign adversary and the potential flow-on effects.

It is believed that in some cases the security services may not mind if the questioning of a suspected spy prompted the country involved to rapidly extract the person from Australia, because disrupting the threat may be Asio's top goal. But the legislation would provide the ability for authorities to seize a person's passport and travel documents if required.

While people would not be "detained" as such, the bill would allow the person to be searched for safety reasons and to ensure they did not destroy evidence or tip people off. If they fled they would be committing an offence and the police could be called.

Asio has indicated the extended questioning power could also be useful in addressing the growing threat posed by neo-Nazis and rightwing extremists.

It is understood there was some discussion within the agency of potentially extending the compulsory questioning power to all of Asio's security responsibilities - which also include sabotage, acts promoting communal violence, and serious threats to Australia's borders. However, a decision was made to limit the reach to threats that can cause significant harm: espionage and acts of foreign interference and politically motivated violence including terrorism.

In its submission, Asio says the terrorist threat remains unacceptably high, with three counter-terrorism disruptions in the past year: two cases motivated by Islamist extremism, and one by extreme rightwing ideology.

Since May 2015, it says, one terrorist attack - the murder of NSW police employee Curtis Cheng by a 15-year-old shooter - and three disrupted plots have involved teenagers under the age of 18. Asio is worried "that vulnerable and impressionable young people will continue to be at risk of being ensnared in the streams of hate being spread across the internet by extremists of every ideology".

The agency argues it is not asking for "a fishing licence" to question minors. In those cases the attorney general has to be satisfied the person poses a direct threat of committing politically motivated violence - not that they merely know someone else planning an attack. The attorney general must also weigh up the child's best interests.

The bill would also allow Asio to use tracking devices with internal authorisation in certain circumstances, rather than requiring a warrant. Given the trend towards lone actors or small groups using easy-to-acquire weapons, Asio argues surveillance teams need flexibility to move quickly.

Critics say the bill represents a further widening of national security powers. The dean of law at the University of New South Wales, George Williams, argues aspects of the bill - including the ability to question 14-year-old children - were "troubling" and a case of "overreach".

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Asio seeks expanded powers saying more spies are operating in Australia than during cold war

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A key Australian intelligence agency says it needs expanded powers to question suspected foreign spies and their helpers, because there are more currently operating in the country than at the height of the Cold War.

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The Morrison government is being urged to apologise to the thousands of Australians who suffered distress because of its failed robodebt scheme.

The government announced on Friday $720 million will be refunded that had wrongly been sought for around 470,000 welfare debts thrown up by the scheme because of faulty income assessments made by the Australian Taxation Office.

470,000 Australians to be refunded $721M of Robodebt. This doesn't help families who lost victims to suicide, or heal other harms, stresses & inconveniences caused.

An apology? Not this Govt.

For Stuart Robert, sorry seems to be the hardest word. https://t.co/aQW9Ut3rTl
- Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) May 29, 2020

Opposition government services spokesman Bill Shorten said people won't get their money back until July, money the government was never entitled to take.

"There's been a lot of harm done here and the class action isn't over," he told the Nine network on Saturday.

"They're now facing a court trial courtesy of the class action ... so when the ministers have to appear in court - that's what's motivating them."

Liberal backbencher Fiona Martin defended the actions of Government Services Minister Stuart Robert, saying he was first aware of the problem in November 2019 and immediately paused the scheme.

"The issue has now been addressed. So he has acknowledged that the ATO data was not sufficient and he is making steps to rectify it," she told ABC television.

But NSW Labor senator Tim Ayres is unhappy about the timing of Mr Robert's announcement, coming shortly after Prime Minister Scott Morrison had finished a major press conference where he had made no reference to it, avoiding scrutiny of assembled journalists.

"Last Friday was an announcement late on Friday afternoon about a $60 billion error in the government's JobKeeper scheme," Senator Ayres told ABC television.

So where did #Robodebt come from? "One of the chief proponents was Morrison himself. He announced the biggest part of the welfare crackdown as treasurer in the Turnbull government in the closing days of the 2016 election campaign." https://t.co/8WMiC0J4sC
- Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) May 29, 2020

"This Friday afternoon it is a $720 million bungled robodebt scheme. I really worry about what next Friday afternoon is going to bring."

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Government urged to apologise for $720 million Robodebt mistake

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The Morrison government is being urged to apologise to the thousands of Australians who suffered distress because of its failed robodebt scheme. The government announced on Friday $720 million will be refunded that had wrongly been sought for around 470,000 welfare debts thrown up by the scheme because of faulty income assessments made by the Australian Taxation Office.