Washington, United States:

The gesture was controversial enough, but now come the sub-controversies: Elon Musk is trolling Wikipedia and encouraging its defunding after a description of his recent flourish, seen by some as a Hitler salute, appeared on the encyclopedic website.

The fight pits two of the internet’s best-known tech giants against each other — and highlights the starkly different ethos behind Musk’s X social media site and Wikipedia, founded by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales.

Musk, as the majority owner of X, is behind recent easing of content moderation rules, which has allowed for rampant disinformation across his social media platform, while simultaneously positioning himself as President Donald Trump’s right-hand man.

While Musk’s animosity towards Wikipedia may focus outwardly on the hand gesture, Wikipedia’s goal of factual neutrality makes it a natural adversary to X, a platform increasingly synonymous with heated culture wars, hate speech and disinformation.

Wikipedia and the media at large — which Musk has increasingly criticized — also pose a threat by holding him accountable as he thrusts himself into the center of US politics.

In a December interview with New York magazine’s Intelligencer, Wales said the aim at Wikipedia is for editors to create content that is “clear and acknowledges the different viewpoints out there” even amid “the rise in divisive feelings, partisanship, culture wars, all of that.”

At present, the site is regarded as generally reliable despite being written by a community of volunteers.

The dustup between Musk and Wales began after the billionaire raised eyebrows Monday with his gesticulation at a Trump inauguration event.

Thanking a crowd for returning Trump to the White House, Musk tapped the left side of his chest with his right hand and then extended his arm with his palm open. He then turned around to the crowd behind him and did it again.

As of Wednesday, both Musk’s biographical Wikipedia page as well as the page on the “Nazi salute” mention the episode.

‘Defund’ Wikipedia

On Tuesday, Musk reposted what appeared to be part of that Wikipedia entry, although the wording found on Wikipedia as of Wednesday was slightly different.

The reposted text read: “In his speech during the second Trump inauguration, Musk twice extended his right arm towards the crowd in an upward angle. The gesture was compared to a Nazi salute or fascist salute. Musk denied any meaning behind the gesture.”

Alongside the repost, Musk attacked both Wikipedia and the news media, another favorite target, suggesting that each is a purveyor of disinformation.

“Since legacy media propaganda is considered a ‘valid’ source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!” Musk wrote.

He additionally called on his supporters to “defund” Wikipedia.

Trolling Musk for his 2022 purchase of X for $44 billion, Wales shot back that: “I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale.”

Run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia is an outlier among today’s internet landscape, dominated by the likes of Google and Meta — instead harking back to the web’s early, idealistic days when the open-source movement harnessed the talents of volunteers to offer free access to tools and knowledge.

Wales asked Musk whether there was “anything you consider inaccurate in that description?” and added that it wasn’t propaganda but “fact. Every element of it.”

‘Trying to be clear’

Founded on January 15, 2001, the Wikipedia website started in English but within two months had already launched in German and Swedish. It is now available in hundreds of languages.

“I would say the decline of trust in journalism and politics is quite severe, which then, in some cases, translates into people feeling more angry and lost,” Wales told Intelligencer.

But among the Wikipedia community, he said, “we just plug away, trying to be neutral, trying to be clear.”

After Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter, rebranded as X, he gutted trust and safety teams and introduced Community Notes, a crowd-sourced moderation tool that the platform has promoted as the way for users to add context to posts.

But researchers say the lowering of the guardrails on X, and the reinstatement of once-banned accounts of known misinformation peddlers, has turned the platform into a haven for misinformation.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Donald Trump will issue a raft of executive orders aimed at reshaping how the United States deals with citizenship and immigration, he said on Monday minutes after his inauguration.

The 47th president will set to work almost immediately with a series of presidential decrees intended to drastically reduce the number of migrants entering the country.

“First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” Trump said.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.

“I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country,” he said.

Trump, who campaigned on a platform of clamping down on migration and whose policies are popular with people who fret over changing demographics, also intends to put an end to the centuries-old practice of granting citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States.

“We’re going to end asylum,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told reporters, and create “an immediate removal process without possibility of asylum. We are then going to end birthright citizenship.”

The notion of birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution, which grants anyone born on US soil the right to an American passport.

Kelly said the actions Trump takes would “clarify” the 14th Amendment — the clause that addresses birthright citizenship.

“Federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,” she said.

Kelly said the administration would also reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed under the last Trump administration.

Under that rule, people who apply to enter the United States at the Mexican border were not allowed to enter the country until their application had been decided.

“We’re going to… reinstate Remain in Mexico and build the wall,” she said.

Kelly said Trump would also seek to use the death penalty against non-citizens who commit capital crimes, such as murder.

“This is about national security. This is about public safety, and this is about the victims of some of the most violent, abusive criminals we’ve seen enter our country in our lifetime, and it ends today,” she said.

Court challenges 

Many of Trump’s executive actions taken during his first term were rescinded under Joe Biden, including one using so-called Title 42, which was implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic preventing almost all entry to the country on public health grounds.

The changes under Biden led to an influx of people crossing into the United States, and images of thousands of people packing the border area.

Trump and his allies characterized this as Biden’s “open border” policy, and spoke regularly of an “invasion.”

The incoming president frequently invoked dark imagery about how illegal migration was “poisoning the blood” of the nation, words that were seized upon by opponents as reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

While US presidents enjoy a range of powers, they are not unlimited.

Analysts say any effort to alter birthright citizenship will be fraught.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow American Immigration Council, said the 14th Amendment was “crystal clear” in granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States, with the exception of children of foreign diplomats.

“We have had birthright citizenship for centuries, and a president cannot take it away with an executive order,” he told AFP.

“We expect rapid court challenges.”

Reichlin-Malik said all sides of the immigration debate recognized that the laws needed reform, but presidential orders were unlikely to achieve lasting change.

“Instituting new travel bans will make the US legal immigration system even more complex and expensive and difficult to navigate than ever,” he said.

“Our immigration system is badly out of date, and executive actions aiming to restrict it even further will harm the United States.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Washington, United States:

Every four years America’s president is sworn in on Inauguration Day, whether newly elected or returning to office, in a long-established ceremony held amid pageantry shaped by the incoming leader’s personal flourishes. What does that mean for the inauguration of Donald Trump? Cue the Village People and social media titans — and leave the mittens and scarves behind, following a last-minute decision to move the inauguration indoors.

Here is a preview of the pomp and circumstance that will unfold Monday when Trump is sworn in as the 47th president.

The oath

The US Constitution mandates that each new president’s term begin at noon on January 20 (or the day after if it falls on a Sunday) and that the president take the oath of office.

In recent years, presidents have been sworn in from an enormous temporary platform on the Capitol’s scenic West Lawn. This year, owing to a frigid forecast, it will take place inside in the Capitol Rotunda.

The oath is most often administered by the Supreme Court chief justice, and Monday would mark John Roberts’s second time officiating for Trump.

The new president also delivers an inaugural address, laying out his plans for the next four years. The Republican rang in his first term in 2017 with a particularly dark speech evoking “American carnage.”

Incoming vice president JD Vance will also be sworn in.

The guests

In a particularly Trumpian twist, the Republican has invited a number of tech titans to attend the inauguration, joining more traditional guests such as his cabinet nominees.

Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg will attend as will Shou Chew, the head of Chinese social media giant TikTok, according to US media.

Trump has courted closer ties with the tech moguls, and his campaign benefited from disinformation spread on social media platforms such as TikTok, Musk’s X and Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram.

Outgoing president Joe Biden will attend the ceremony — despite Trump’s refusal to appear at Biden’s swearing-in when he beat Trump in 2020. All living former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — will attend, as will their wives, except for Michelle Obama.

That means Hillary Clinton, whom Trump beat in the 2016 presidential election, in addition to Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he beat in November, will be there.

Heads of state are not traditionally invited, but Trump has sent invitations to a handful of foreign leaders, including some who share his right-wing politics. 

Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will attend, her office confirmed Saturday.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Argentine President Javier Milei and China’s Xi Jinping have also been invited, but not all will attend.

Xi sent Vice President Han Zheng in his place, who met Sunday with JD Vance, the transition office said. 

A move indoors

Crowd size is a preoccupation of Trump’s, but the last-minute switch to an indoor event may dent his bragging rights.

More than 220,000 tickets were being distributed to the public before Trump announced Friday that frigid temperatures meant the inauguration would shift to the Capitol Rotunda, which can accommodate only about 600 people.

Trump said supporters could watch a live feed from Washington’s Capital One sports arena, which holds up to 20,000 — and he promised to drop in later.

The orders

Trump has said he is preparing to sign around 100 executive orders on his first day in office, many of them aimed at undoing Biden administration policies.

“Within hours of taking office I will sign dozens of executive orders, close to 100 to be exact, many of which I will be describing in my address tomorrow,” Trump told supporters at an inauguration-eve candlelight dinner on Sunday.

Among his many promises, he has pledged to launch a mass deportation program and increase oil drilling. He has also said he might swiftly begin pardoning January 6 rioters — his followers who ransacked the Capitol in 2021.

Immediately after the inauguration, a meeting is planned between US officials and foreign ministers from Japan, India and Australia, the so-called “Quad” seen as a counterweight to China. 

The music

Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 was marked by a lack of celebrity power, with few A-list musicians willing to be associated with him.

Trump inauguration 2.0 is in better shape.

Country star Carrie Underwood will sing “America the Beautiful” during the swearing-in ceremony. Also performing will be country singer Lee Greenwood, whose patriotic anthem “God Bless the USA” is standard at Trump rallies.

A pre-inauguration rally Sunday included performances by Kid Rock as well as the Village People, with whom Trump danced on stage as they performed their 1970s-era hit “Y.M.C.A.”

The galas

Country musicians including Jason Aldean, Rascal Flatts and Gavin DeGraw plus the Village People will perform across Trump’s three official inaugural balls Monday night.

Trump is expected to attend all three invite-only affairs. Multiple other unofficial galas are also planned.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)