Social Media and Traditional Media, A Marriage of Expediency: Sleaze Can Go Mainstream, Will Something Change in this Marriage with the Supreme Court case of Gonzales v. Google?

February 15, 2023

I met an American living in Tskneti in the Republic of Georgia who told me that one of the reasons he was not returning to the United States was because President Biden took showers with his daughter—obviously a difficult statement to take seriously and I wondered about its credibility. Someone half a world away from the United States bringing something up in a casual conversation that was disturbing to hear. This is something I knew nothing about, and it took some amount of time on the Internet to try to piece together what I think the story involves.  This salacious information is supposed to have come from a diary that seemed to have been proven to be Ashley Biden’s, daughter of the President.  A statement given on how the diary was obtained reads:

Ashley Biden was moving out of a friend's Delray Beach home in spring 2020 when she stored the diary, tax records, a digital device with family photos, a cellphone and other items there, prosecutors said in a court filing.

They said [Aimee] Harris then moved into the same room, found the items and got in touch with [Robert] Kurlander, who enthused in a text message that he would help her make a "ton of money" from selling it, adding an expletive before "ton."

The “ton” of money ($40,000) came from Project Veritas, an organization that has been known to produce questionable work.  As a Newsweek piece stated on the reputation of Project Veritas:

It's worth noting that Project Veritas, which describes itself as a “journalism enterprise,”, is a controversial organization that has previously produced investigations subsequently labeled as false or unevidenced by fact-checkers and other media.

Among other stories, in 2017, The Washington Post reported that [James] O'Keefe [founder of the organization] had tried to dupe the paper into publishing a false story about former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore.

In 2020, Project Veritas claimed that Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was linked to a "cash for ballots voter fraud scheme." An investigation by USA Today found no evidence of such a scheme.

In 2021, it also claimed that during the New Jersey gubernatorial election an election worker illegally allowed someone who said they weren't a U.S. citizen to fill out a ballot, which PolitiFact reported was false.

The first issue is where Ashley Biden was staying and then when she moved out, Aimee Harris moved in.  There are two different versions of where Biden’s daughter was living:

Ashley Biden was moving out of a friend’s Delray Beach home in spring 2020 when she stored the diary, tax records, a digital device with family photos, a cellphone and other items there, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Another article states:

[Harris] found the diary in a bed at a Florida halfway house Ashley Biden had stayed in after treatment for her compulsive sexual urges. 

Is it a friend’s house or a halfway house (I suppose it could be owned by a friend of Biden’s daughter). A friend’s house would not necessarily have people coming and going and staying for a short period of time, a halfway house seems more transient. Would Ashley Biden be so careless about her stuff in a halfway house? 

Somehow while moving into a house/apartment/room, Harris discovered that the former occupant was Ashley Biden and came “upon” (the best choice of words for now) Biden’s diary and other items that belonged to her.  In August 2022, a Department of Justice release addressed that Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander pleaded guilty to having “commit[ted the] interstate transportation of stolen property.”  The Justice Department statement simply refers to the “Victim” and states, “The Victim had stored the property.”  In the quote I have above how Aimee Harris came upon the diary, the first sentence says Biden’s diary was “stored,” while the second sentence says that Harris “found” the diary and other items.  I tried to piece some of that together, apparently Harris immediately saw money in her “find” (using a word other than stored or found).  Kurlander seemed to be the one that searched for a place to sell the diary, and, at some point, he offered it to Donald Trump, Jr., who refused to take Kurlander up on his offer.

Kurlander found his way to Project Veritas and James O’Keefe.  O’Keefe purchased the diary, obtaining it in September 2020 and then he said he could not confirm the diary was Ashley Biden’s. If O’Keefe was not sure of the accuracy of the diary when he paid $40,000 for it, why pay that much without some verification.  I do not get the feeling that the diary was verified until the federal court case against the two individuals who pleaded guilty to Federal charges, which is August 2022, well after the 2020 Presidential election.

O’Keefe did not immediately take action to use the diary, and, in fact, he seemed hesitant to reveal that it existed.  It was through his organization, however, that the diary made its way onto the Internet. An employee of the organization was suspected of passing the diary to National File which published excerpts on October 24 and the full diary two days later, so both postings were less than ten days before the 2020 Presidential election.  Regarding the actual diary a New York Times article stated, “[O’Keefe] said that Project Veritas gave the diary to “law enforcement” and attempted to return it to a lawyer representing Ms. Biden, who he said, ‘refused to authenticate it.’”  But apparently, copies were made by someone which made its way onto the National File site. I wonder if O’Keefe was able to determine who in his organization gave the diary to National File and if they were fired. Noel Fritsch, head of National File believes O'Keefe did not authorize the release of the diary. When National File published the diary, complete in pdf form, assuming O'Keefe did not authorize its release, did he at that time believe the diary was authentic, or did he still have doubts.

Here was an “October Surprise,” an issue to try to suddenly rattle undecided voters.  The release of the diary, again in its pdf format was, no doubt, a move to help tip the election in Donald Trump’s direction.

Regarding Harris and Kurlander, they come across as two individuals who wanted to make a quick buck, or even more than that.  After obtaining the items they wanted to sell, they went back to the house to see if they could find more items that might be valuable, with Kurlander believing he could get up to $100,000, I assume for any other items that they might find.  A statement by a U.S. Attorney goes:

After the meeting, and at the Organization's request, HARRIS and KURLANDER returned to Florida to obtain more of the Victim's property in order to provide it to the Organization. 

The organization is Project Veritas, and the implication is that O’Keefe knew that the duo went back to a house in search of more items to sell. Did it occur to Harris and Kurlander to return to the house on their own, or was the suggestion something that came from O’Keefe?  I wonder, if by that time, was Harris still a resident or just stopping by the house for a visit?  Furthermore, the statement by the U.S. Attorney reads:

[Harris and Kurlander] are in a sketchy business and here they are taking what's literally a stolen diary and info ... and trying to make a story that will ruin [the Victim's] life and try and effect the election. [The Victim] can easily be thinking all her stuff is there and not concerned about it. ... we have to tread even more carefully and that stuff needs to be gone through by us and if anything worthwhile it needs to be turned over and MUST be out of that house.

This is a story with no good ending.  As one can tell from having read this far, I am confused, concerned, and uncomfortable about it.  Hunter Biden might or might not have left a laptop at a computer repair shop in Delaware and then never returned to pick it up.  The shop’s owner said he did not see Biden’s son drop off the computer, but it had a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on it.  Add that to the diary of Biden’s daughter ending up on the Internet and you have the children of one high profile political family just accidentally leaving behind useful items for political enemies to easily get their hands on. It is certainly, very fortunate that both the contents of the laptop and the contents of the diary were copied so they could be of use to those only interested in what is best for America (narrowly defined for political exploitation purposes). Maybe Jill Biden will just casually leave the nuclear codes at a restaurant on that afternoon when it’s her turn to carry them around.

Regarding the diary, I do not get the feeling this is an issue that is in the past, stuff on the Internet seems to have no expiration dates.  For example, a Tucker Carlson show on Fox News addressed the diary on June 18, 2022, with Carlson stating, “Biden should explain immediately why he inappropriately showered with his own daughter...by her own account.” Notice, Carlson’s show predates the August Justice Department statement, I assume Carlson must have felt confident he was on some solid ground regarding the diary’s authenticity when he decided to do this piece.

With the House of Representatives now under the control of Republicans, expect all-news-all-the-time on Hunter Biden, who appears to be an easy person to go after.  It is not difficult to read about Biden’s son and see anything but a troubled individual who seems like he has done little to try to turn his life around.  Unlike conservative sites that want to make it look like something called the “Mainstream Media” does not want to cover anything to do with Hunter Biden, all you need to do is to go to those Mainstream Media sites to read all about Hunter Biden.  The House of Representatives hearings that will feature Hunter Biden 24/7 will be prominently addressed on Fox News, News Max, OAN, as well as any assortment social media sites.  This reminds me of Hillary Clinton appearing before a committee in the House of Representatives that addressed an attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi that led to the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador in 2012: Eleven hours of testimony.  It was apparent the hearings were designed to weakened her politically, since Republicans assumed she would become the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2016.  Interesting, the attack was September 2012, but the hearings were not until October 2015. Republicans were the majority party in the House all those years. In other words, those hearings were less than four months from the first caucus and primary in 2016.  We can expect Hunter Biden should get well more than eleven hours of attention.

In the case of the diary of Biden’s daughter, here is where the worse of the Internet and any assortment of media sites will do its disgustingly most unpleasant to reach readers who want to absorb this information in greater detail, if there is anything left to add.  That vast entity called the social media with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as, perhaps, the most recognizable, but also, those sites where QAnon got its start and festered before making the leap to daylight, are there to influence readers and what they end up believing and determine matters to them.

On more traditional news outlets (television stations, traditional newspapers), Hunter Biden will get a great deal of attention, while on the more removed/distant/conspiracy prone/lack-of-journalism-standards/maybe poor grammar and lack of proof reading/not-as-well-viewed parts of social media/, I suspect Ashley Biden will get attention. Since the August 2022 Justice Department statement on Harris and Kurlander, and that the diary was verified, unfortunately too many social media sites may feel they can use it to attack both Ashley Biden and her father Joe Biden—all with the aim of helping defeating Biden in the 2024 election (assuming he is running). The diary takes on a different level of political importance heading toward the 2024 election, unlike the 2020 election when questions were raised about its authenticity.

The more people get their news from social media sources, which has been underway for more than a decade—particularly among those 25-years old and younger, the more social media sites of varying degrees of credibility increase their importance.  As one article put it:

[A]s further evidence of the power of social media in driving news to consumers, social media as a news source, saw ongoing growth with news consumers, unlike platforms such as all online sources combined, TV, and print.

The Biden diary story may be the sort of story that more traditional news sources will find too distasteful to cover, except for Tucker Carlson, who might feel the urge to return to it at some point.  We can be sure, there will be sites on social media somewhere which will keep the diary story alive and well.  Internet searches can lead one to any number of sites that now try to display themselves as online news sources, but certainly have a decidedly political leaning and questionable journalism standards.  If there is enough online chatter regarding the diary, will it surface to more traditional news sources that feel obligated to cover it for any of a variety of reasons.  This creates a push-comes-to-shove situation, where a TV anchor says something to the effect that the station felt they had no choice but to address the issue-a way to absolve them of the stain of doing the story.

The Supreme Court has a pending case, Reynaldo Gonzales, et. al v. Google LLC, probably the Court’s opinion should be released in June.  At issue is whether Google can rely on a section (230) in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to plead immunity from charges brought against them by the parents of an American student killed in a Paris terrorist attack organized by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).  The suit argues that Google tailored its content through algorithm-generation suggestions toward the recruitment of individuals to join ISIS and that led to the killing of more than 130 in Paris in November 2015, including the couples' son.

We use this comprehensive term social media, but I wonder how broadly a ruling in this case can extend.  In the case of the situation regarding Ashley Biden, does she have privacy rights that were violated and could an opinion in this case open the door for her to set the stage where certain types of privacy issues can be related to the eventual ruling.  In the petition that is before the Supreme Court, part of it reads:

[O]ver the last two decades, many interactive computer services have in a variety of ways sought to recommend to users that they view particular other-party materials, such as written matter or videos. Those recommendations are implemented through automated algorithms, which select the specific material to be recommended to a particular user based on information about that user that is known to the interactive computer service. The public has only recently begun to understand the enormous prevalence and increasing sophistication of these algorithm-based recommendation practices.

Furthermore, the petition refers to a ruling by a lower court judge who stated:

[M]ounting evidence suggests that providers designed their algorithms to drive users toward content and people the users agreed with—and that they have done it too well, nudging susceptible souls ever further down dark paths.

What is interesting to read in this petition, is that it seeks to address the changes in technology that have taken place since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996: Time does not stand still, and we cannot reach back to 1996 and just assume it was written in anticipation of the technological changes that were to come. Are we to believe that there is a vast immunity cloth spread out over all that is called telecommunications from now on because of what was written 27 years ago.

Ashley Biden might not have a case against Tucker Carlson, who probably was salivating at the thought of presenting this diary on his show, despite his tailored look of always appeared puzzled, but as can be seen from the way the diary emerged to reach his show, there are a host of unsavory characters that live on the dark underbelly of social media.  It will be interesting to see how narrow or expansive the opinion that the Supreme Court delivers can matter to more than a grieving family.

I will add, this is probably an ongoing story. There is speculation that Project Veritas could face Federal legal problems. I guess that all comes down to conversations Harris and Kurlander are having with the Justice Department. In addition, to Project Veritas and whatever problems it may have associated with the two people who got their hands on Ashley Biden’s diary, there is the issue of an FBI raid on the home of O’Keefe and two other Project Veritas employees. If I have this correct, the raid came after O'Keefe told “law enforcement” (I am not sure what law enforcement organization that refers to) and after he tried to turn the diary over to Ashley Biden’s attorney. The ACLU statement supporting Project Veritas reads:

Project Veritas has engaged in disgraceful deceptions, and reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all. Nevertheless, the precedent set in this case could have serious consequences for press freedom. Unless the government had good reason to believe that Project Veritas employees were directly involved in the criminal theft of the diary, it should not have subjected them to invasive searches and seizures.

How the FBI raid might play into the O’Keefe/Harris/Kurlander situation is completely unclear. One concern is that Project Veritas may use the ACLU statement to create the impression that they are a legitimate news organization, which is not the case. O’Keefe’s interaction with Harris and Kurlander are separate from whether the FBI had a legitimate right to conduct the raid.

Separate from all the above, I still believe Joe Biden should not run for re-election, he is too old. In addition, with his children, not just Hunter, as likely “cannon fodder” in the political campaign to come, this will just be gut wrenching for both him and his wife. Donald Trump is also too old and should not be running for President, besides I see nothing good about a second go-around with Trump back in the White House. Trump made a comment in which the first fifteen words sound believable, the rest are a maybe:

I would be entitled to a revenge tour if you want to know the truth, but I wouldn't do that. I would want to straighten out our border, I would want to get inflation down, build our economy up, which is actually doing very poorly.

Update

Five days after this article was posted, it was announced that O’Keefe was removed as head of Project Veritas.

Notes

Luke Barr, “Pair pleads guilty to stealing Ashley Biden’s diary, selling it to Project Veritas,” ABC News (August 25, 2022): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pair-plead-guilty-stealing-ashley-bidens-diary-selling/story?id=88849834

Josh Boswell, Jose Lambiet, and Paul Farrell, “‘If that’s not child molestation, it is definitely close’: Tucker Carlson blasts Biden over daughter Ashley’s diary admission that taking showers with him as a girl may have contributed to her sex addiction after DailyMail.com revealed the extract,” MailOnline (June 18, 2022): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10929171/Tucker-Carlson-blasts-Joe-Biden-setting-FBI-woman-sold-Ashley-Bidens-diary.html

“Florida Residents Pleaded Guilty To Conspiracy To Commit Interstate Transportation Of Stolen Property,” The United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York (August 25, 2022): https:// www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/florida-residents-plead-guilty-conspiracy-commit-interstate-transportation-stolen

Ryan Grim, “A Project Veritas Employee Leaked Ashley Biden’s Diary,” The Intercept (September 7, 2022): https:// theintercept.com/2022/09/07/project-veritas-ashley-biden-diary-leak/

Dylan Housman, “ACLU, Journalism Advocacy Groups Come To Defense Of Project Veritas After FBI Raid,” Daily Caller (November 19, 2021): https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/19/aclu-committee-protect-journalists-project-veritas-fbi/

Alex Kasprak, “Did Ashley Biden Accuse Joe Biden of Inappropriate Behavior in a ‘Leaked Diary’?” Snopes (December 7, 2022): https:// www.snopes.com/fact-check/ashley-biden-leaked-diary-accusation/

Ankush Khardori, “What James O’Keefe Won’t Say He Claims he’s being railroaded over Ashley Biden’s diary, but he won’t answer questions to end the speculation,” New York (April 20, 2022): https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/what-james-okeefe-wont-say-about-ashley-bidens-diary.html

Tom Norton, “Fact Check: Does Project Veritas Video Show Pfizer Is Mutating COVID?” Newsweek (January 26, 2023): https:// www.newsweek.com/project-veritas-covid-mutations-pfizer-fact-check-1776845

Reynaldo Gonzales, et.al, v. Google, Inc., In the Supreme Court of the United States, Petition for a Writ of Certiorari: https:// www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/220254/20220404211548101_GonzalezPetPDF.pdf

Michael S. Schmidt, William K. Rashburn, Precious Fondren, and Adam Goldman, “People Tied to Project Veritas Scrutinized in Theft of Diary From Biden’s Daughter,” New York Times (November 5, 2021): https:// www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/us/politics/project-veritas-investigation-ashley-biden-diary.htm

Mike Vorhaus, “People Increasingly Turn To Social Media For News,” Forbes (June 24, 2020); https:// www.forbes.com/sites/mikevorhaus/2020/06/24/people-increasingly-turn-to-social-media-for-news/?sh=8521c833bcc0