What's Going On Around The World Today?

Armed with its own set of facts, the right has created a parallel media universe that’s risen all the way with Donald Trump to the White House. We step inside the private chat rooms Trump supporters are using to manipulate French voters. And the UK’s Supreme Court has ruled that Prime Minister Theresa May must consult parliament before triggering Brexit.

HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES

President Donald Trump has reinstated an anti-abortion rule that’ll affect women worldwide.

Here’s how it works: Foreign organizations that take US family planning money can’t use any money — from any other donor — on abortion-related services. It’s a restriction on how they use their other, non-US government money, and it applies to providing abortions or giving any information about abortion, including medical advice or referrals — even in countries where abortion is legal.

Conservatives welcomed the move, while some Democrats and public health experts see the change as dangerous.

More on President Trump

The president’s new Washington, DC, hotel has lost more than $1 million in two months. It’s also in violation of his lease, Democratic lawmakers say. Citing a clause in his lease that says that no “elected official…shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or any benefit that may arise therefrom,” a letter to the General Services Administration, which manages the building, said the president is in violation of his contract.

The right is building a new media “Upside Down” to tell Trump’s story — armed with its own set of facts, the right has created a parallel media universe that’s risen all the way with Trump to the White House.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer laid out misleading and confusing numbers on Monday to claim — for the second time in two days — that Trump’s inauguration was the most watched in history.

WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON

Inside the private chat rooms Trump supporters are using to manipulate French voters.

BuzzFeed News was recently given access to a chat room called “The Great Liberation Of France,” which is hosted on a Slack-like messaging platform called Discord. The large majority of the work being done in the room is based around creating fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to manipulate French social media users.
The users in “The Great Liberation Of France” want to create as much chaos on social media as possible to make right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen and her party, the National Front, seem like the most legitimate voice in French politics. BuzzFeed News’ Ryan Broderick has the story.

And a little extra.

Fake news in British politics: There is a very limited appetite for overtly fake news in British politics, thanks to the UK’s highly partisan newspapers, according to an analysis by BuzzFeed News. The most popular dubious news stories on British politics were almost always the work of long-established news outlets and relied on exaggeration at most rather than fakery. The evidence suggests that rather than reading outright lies, British audiences appear to prefer stories that contain at least a kernel of truth, even if the facts are polluted or distorted.

Meanwhile, Snapchat will crack down on misinformation in its Discover section. The company introduced guidelines requiring publishers to start fact-checking Discover content. The rules also prohibit misleading and unnecessarily shocking headline images.

QUICK THINGS TO KNOW

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