Going live today with Washington Post refusenik Jen Rubin & Facebook whistleblower Yael Eisenstat

Discussing all things politics & tech at 5pm BST, 12pm ET

Right, with apologies, it’s been a while!! But there’s been a lot going on and many updates to bring you, more in coming days. But to kick things off, I’ll be moderating a Substack Live today organised by the Citizens with two big beasts, Jen Rubin and Yael Eisenstat.

I’ve been hugely admiring of Jen’s efforts from afar. She was one of the Washington Post’s big name columnists for years: a trenchant conservative commentator who became an outspoken never Trumper. But a series of decisions by Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, including refusing to allow the editorial board to publish an endorsement of Kamala Harris led to her deciding to leave. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, she dramatically jumped ship and launched The Contrarian, here on Substack.

It arrived with a bang, a new self-consciously pro-democracy outlet anchored by Rubin and Norm Eisen, a high-profile lawyer who was co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment and trial of President Donald Trump in 2020 and who’s now actively trying to hold the line, filing hundreds of cases against Trump.

The Contrarian has been hugely successful plugging an opinion and analysis vacuum that WaPo and other outlets have created, an inspiring model of what a new, insurgent news brand can do in the new spaces that have opened up in the wake of mainstream media failures. (Talking of which, it’s worth checking out the news today about Paramount electing to settle a frivolous $16m lawsuit - aka extortion attempt - that Trump brought against CBS News.)

I’m really looking forward to talking to Jen all about this and her kaleidoscopic understanding of the ongoing attrition of America’s core democratic principles and hearing also from Yael Eisenstat, an ex-CIA officer turned Facebook whistleblower who I got to know in 2020 when we joined forces with a bunch of other tech critics and civil rights groups to put pressure on Facebook ahead of the US presidential election.

Yael is a tenacious critic and advocate who knows what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with Mark Zuckerberg. She was Facebook’s global head of elections integrity for political ads in 2018 and as such she saw up close how the company reneged on its promises and whitewashed its complicity in amplifying hate speech and misinformation. Yael refused to sign an NDA when she left, has found herself targeted by the Facebook machine and is still striving to make our online environment safer both at an individual and society level. She is now a senior fellow at Cybersecurity for Democracy.

In this conversation, we’ll look at how Big Tech is contributing to the democratic backslide, what the tech companies want from Trump, and how we can change our relationship with these platforms for the better.

When? Wednesday, July 2nd, 12pm EST / 5pm BST (less than two hours’ time!)

Where? Live on Substack. Make sure to subscribe to be notified when we go live.

The Irish connection

I love chance meetings almost as much as I love a festival. And this event was cooked up after I met a Contrarian editor after a speaking gig at the Borris festival in Ireland with the great Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole and the equally great expert in global corruption, Misha Glenny (who gave us the term and TV show, McMafia). Thank you Borris for the random encounters and to Domenica Aliloto for the chat and plotting. More to come hopefully.

Think of this Substack Live as a bit like a event at an Irish Festival only the castle will be in your mind

See you soon! Carole