JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, as the campaign season ramps up, we examine the role that social media and tech companies are playing in this year's elections.

Then what a wave of German protests against the rise of the far right means for the nation, and its politics and dating with disabilities, how people in the disability community are navigating relationships and finding love I think.

WOMAN: Nondisabled people really buy into a lot of the notions that have been perpetuated around disability and disabled people.

There's this idea that we should feel grateful to be asked on a date or grateful to be partnered with, which is totally not the case.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening.

I'm John Yang.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signals an impending ground assault on Rafah along Gaza's southern border with Egypt, Israel continues bombarding the city from the skies.

Hospitals say 44 Palestinians were killed, including more than a dozen children.

Israeli military officials said two Hamas operatives were among the dead.

Families of the victims say they dread what may lie ahead.

MAN (through translator): The ground operation is looming, and they will do in Rafah like what they did in the north.

There were massacres, and the world was silent.

JOHN YANG: Rafah has become a haven for about half of Gaza's more than 2 million people who fled fighting in the rest of Gaza.

U.S. officials have become openly critical of Israel.

President Biden said the military campaign in Gaza has been over the top.

An overnight Russian drone attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city has killed seven people, including three young children.

A massive blaze from an oil depot that was hit spread to homes.

More than 50 people were evacuated.

Meanwhile, in Washington, senators are pressing ahead with a $95 billion foreign aid bill that includes money for Ukraine.

And in Pakistan, a surprising outcome from the national elections has thrown the country into political chaos.

Candidates backed by the imprisoned opposition leader Imran Khan have won the most seats in parliament, though they fell short of a majority.

Khan supporters gathered outside the election commission in Karachi.

They say vote rigging in Thursday's balloting denied them enough seats to form a government by themselves.

Three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose party won the second most number of seats, said he would begin talks in a bid to form a governing coalition.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, rising political tensions in Germany over the growing popularity of the far right and how people with disabilities navigate the dating world.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Earlier this week, as the 2024 election campaigns picked up steam, Meta announced it would start labeling AI generated images that appear on Facebook, Instagram and threads to help users better judge what they're seeing.

In December, an advocacy group called Free Press said Meta, YouTube and X have rolled back a total of 17 policies intended to protect against hate speech and misinformation.

The group also said layoffs at the three companies make it harder to enforce the safeguards that remain.

Katie Harbath is the chief global affairs officer at Duco, which is a technology consulting firm.

She's also a former public policy director at Facebook.

Katie, this announcement from Meta, how big a deal is it?

How helpful is this going to be, and is it enough?

KATIE HARBATH, Chief Global Affairs Officer, Duco: So I think that this is just one of many important steps that all online platforms have to take when thinking about safeguarding elections, not only here in the United States, but around the globe.

And so we are facing new challenges with AI, as well as existing challenges that have been around for a long time, such as misinterpretation, foreign interference, transparency around political ads.

And I think one of the challenges as we go into this cycle is that question of whether or not these platforms are prepared is we just don't know because they are also putting in a lot of investment, they're making a lot of changes, as you mentioned.

But we also don't know the twists and turns that await for us over the course of this next year.

And so the real proof of this will be how these companies act as these different elections happen and as we see different forms of nefarious interference happen.

JOHN YANG: Given those unknowns, do we start this election season more vulnerable or less vulnerable than were in 2020?

KATIE HARBATH: It's kind of hard to say if it's more or less.

It's just different.

You know, on top of the legacy platforms like Meta and Google, you also have a lot of newer platforms that, for the first time are having to write the policies and build the tools for elections such as these.

And so it's more of a kaleidoscope of a myriad of different policies that we're looking at.

And so that's what makes some of this so uncertain and uncomfortable as we go into this.

But I think at the bare minimum, we at least know that these companies are paying attention to it.

JOHN YANG: Talk about those differences the sort of new boys on the block, the new fellas on the block, as opposed to the legacy platforms.

Do you have any sense of how they are developing their policies and how they compare to the legacy companies?

KATIE HARBATH: Absolutely.

Some, such as TikTok have invested a lot into this.

In a recent hearing, their CEO mentioned they're going to invest 2 billion into trust and safety.

Meta has said that they've spent 20 billion over the last, I think, five or six years.

You also have some platforms like TikTok deciding just to not allow political ads altogether.

Others are choosing to try to also deemphasize politics, whereas platforms like Substack are trying to lean into politics.

Some are taking a very hands off approach to content moderation, and others are putting a lot more time and effort into it.

And so this makes it really challenging to understand the differences between all of these platforms, as they're all trying to learn the lessons from the past, but also understand the responsibility that they have going into this.

JOHN YANG: Two of the legacy platforms, YouTube and Meta, say they're allowing ads now that do question the validity of the 2020 election, which, of course, led to the January 6 assault on the Capitol.

At the same time, Meta says they are not allowing ads that would weaken or question current ongoing elections or future elections.

Is that slicing it pretty thin, do you think?

I mean, can they really make that distinction?

KATIE HARBATH: All of these policies are all about nuance and trade offs.

Even defining what is political is a very difficult thing in which to do.

And it's in these nuances where you actually see more of the difficult calls and more of the disagreement around it, and where you see challenges for these companies in enforcement of trying to determine what is or is not allowed.

And so we should never expect that there will ever be 100% perfection by these companies in order to try to find it.

And it's really hard to do a blunt approach to this, because if you do so, you actually end up taking down more legitimate speech than probably what many people would want.

JOHN YANG: This is 2024 is one of the greatest concentrations of elections around the world in a long time.

Are platforms doing enough to protect those international elections, as well as the elections here in the United States?

KATIE HARBATH: This is one of the biggest open questions for me.

Some of the platforms, such as Meta, have actually announced things that they're doing for the upcoming Indonesian elections, for the Mexico elections coming up, but they're just not being as transparent about that of what that means around the globe.

Traditionally, we have seen just a lot more time, money and effort put into the English language, into elections in the U.S. and the EU.

And I am worried that so much attention is going to get sucked into those elections that we will forget about these elections all around the globe that will have just as much impact in sort of the future of the global world order and how we handle issues on everything from climate change to other geopolitical issues.

JOHN YANG: Do you think this sort of self-regulation, this self-policing by these platforms, is going to be enough, or do you think the government's going to have to step in with regulation?

KATIE HARBATH: Everyone has a role.

This technology is moving so fast that you kind of have to start with self-regulation.

You're seeing that with AI issues right now.

But we absolutely need the government, too.

And I think one of the problems or challenges with all of this is that no one's quite comfortable with the tech companies being in charge.

No one's comfortable with the government being in charge or others.

And instead, I think we need to build a system of checks and balances so that we're holding all these different entities accountable for the role that they need to play in safeguarding our information, environment and elections overall.

JOHN YANG: Katie Harbath of the technology consulting forum Duco, thank you very much.

KATIE HARBATH: Thank you.

JOHN YANG: For weeks, Germans have been flooding into streets, squares and parks protesting the increasing influence of far right parties.

It comes as Germany's leading far right party suffered a narrow defeat in regional elections in one of its strongholds.

Ali Rogin explores the impact of this increasingly tense political atmosphere.

ALI ROGIN: The catalyst for the protests came from a recent report by the media outlet Correctiv.

It details a meeting between leaders of the far right AfD, or the Alternative for Germany Party, and members of a separate extremist movement.

In that meeting, they discussed a plan for re migration involving mass deportations of immigrants, including some with German citizenship.

The AfD has since distanced itself from the meeting, but that hasn't slowed the demonstrations.

Some protesters are calling for an outright ban of the AfD, which is seen as too aligned with Germany's Nazi past.

James Angelos is an editor for POLITICO, based in Berlin.

Thank you so much for being here.

Tell us about who the members of the AfD party are and how much influence do they have in Germany right now?

JAMES ANGELOS, Editor, POLITICO: The party has been rising in polls leading up to this report.

It is second right now, polling second behind the opposition conservatives.

So right now, the party is more popular than any of the parties that are currently in the German government.

There are three parties making up the ruling coalition, and the AfD is more popular than all three of them.

ALI ROGIN: And so what is happening politically in Germany right now that is making them more popular?

JAMES ANGELOS: There has been a rise again recently of asylum seekers entering Germany from countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

And they are anti-migration party.

That's their sort of core issue.

There are other issues that they're taking advantage of at the moment.

Energy prices skyrocketed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, inflation and the economy right now is not doing well.

So there is a general unease in the population that's also helping the party.

And they are particularly strong in the former East Germany, where there is also more sympathy, perhaps for taking on a friendlier stance toward Russia.

ALI ROGIN: And of course, the flip side of rising popularity is, as we've been seeing, rising opposition and more people speaking out against them.

So why are these protests happening now?

JAMES ANGELOS: Well, the catalyst really was this report, and combined with the fact that the party has been rising in polls even as it has grown more extreme, I think this struck a nerve for multiple reasons, this gathering.

People saw echoes of the Nazi past, and you know, some politicians even called it a Nazi party.

These protests are ongoing.

They're large.

There's no sign that they're winding down.

And the people who are organizing them see themselves really as standing up for the survival of the republic against a very acute and immediate threat.

ALI ROGIN: Are these protests articulating any specific demands, or is it more about showing up and speaking up against the AfD?

JAMES ANGELOS: I think it's more about showing up and speaking out and showing the country that there is this sort of mass resistance against the party.

There has been a small drop in support for the party, so it does seem to be having some kind of impact.

But the question then is whether the core support for this party arose as a result of this.

Many people believe it won't affect that core group of supporters.

ALI ROGIN: And it also seems that this is all happening all around Europe right now.

Of course, in neighboring Austria, there have also been protests against far right parties.

Sort of that same dynamic of a rise in a party is bringing out more resistance.

Certainly there are far right parties entrenched in other parts of the European continent, in Italy and Hungary.

So should we be viewing all of this as a whole, or should we be paying more attention to the individual context of what is happening in each of these separate countries?

JAMES ANGELOS: The things that are happening in Germany are not exclusive to Germany.

There are similar trends across Europe and in the United States.

I think what makes Germany special case is this cognizance of the Nazi past.

And within the German constitution, there are all these safeguards to prevent far right or extreme parties from using democracy, using the ballot box to gain power, and then undermining the.

So, you know, there's a big debate going on in Germany right now about whether the best way forward would be to try to ban this party, and that's actually legally possible to do in Germany's post war constitution.

The question then is whether that's tactically a smart thing to do, because the AfD, of course, comes back and says, well, you're going to try to ban us.

That itself is anti-democratic and you're disenfranchising our supporters.

The legal hurdles for trying to ban the party are very high, and people are afraid if the effort fails, then it will just strengthen the party.

ALI ROGIN: James Angelos with POLITICO, thank you so much for joining us.

JAMES ANGELOS: Thank you.

JOHN YANG: With Valentine's Day just around the corner, love is on a lot of people's minds.

But the course of true love never did run smooth.

Or in the case of some of the people on our next story, roll smooth.

As Stephanie Sy tells us, for people living with disabilities or chronic illnesses, dating can come with unique challenges.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Clare Smith and Iman Rahman have been dating for over a year.

IMAN RAHMAN: I was like, so when are we going to go out?

And she was like, whenever you ask me.

So then I was like, oh, I guess I gotta ask her now.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): They met on Instagram, and while the couple lives on opposite coasts, their mutual experience with chronic illnesses tied them together.

CLARE SMITH: Within the first, I don't know, month or so of us dating.

I had my headphones and listening to her just like, vomiting over the toilet.

IMAN RAHMAN: So the next thing I know, my mom's like, hey, you got a package.

I think it's from her.

And it was just a package of a ton of vomit bags.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Not exactly your traditional romantic gesture.

But Clare and Iman found a special intimacy by sharing their health challenges early on.

CLARE SMITH: We have to get over the uncomfortable parts in the beginning really fast, and you don't have a choice.

Either that person is going to be somebody that you're comfortable doing this with, or it's not.

IMAN RAHMAN: Cheers.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): But not everyone is ready to put it all out there from the start.

SHANNA KATTARI, University of Michigan: One of the biggest challenges is even to decide when to come out or disclose your disability, especially if you either have a non apparent or invisible disability or you're using something like a dating profile.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Shanna Katz Kattari is a sexuality researcher at the University of Michigan.

Kattari is chronically ill and know if.

SHANNA KATZ KATTARI: You know, if you're a wheelchair user, do you put a picture of your chair in the profile?

Or do you wait until you roll up to the cafe where you're both going on the first date and see if somebody turns around and walks out?

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Roughly one in four adults in the United States has a disability, and they are half as likely as non-disabled people to ever have been married.

We talked to more than a dozen people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, each navigating the dating world in their own way.

CHELSEA BEAR: I remember there was a time at the very beginning when I wouldn't put my disability at all anywhere on my profile.

Even in chatting with a match, I wouldn't tell them.

And I would even just show up to the date walking how I do and hope for the best.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Over time, Chelsea Baer, who has cerebral palsy, has changed her approach.

CHELSEA BEAR: Now I'm very open.

I have it right there on my profile.

I personally make a little joke out of know.

I say I have princess parking or make something fun about my mobility scooter just because that's my personality, and I want them to know it's okay to talk about it.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Maxine Starr weeds out poor prospects with efficiency.

MAXINE STARR: It doesn't make sense to invest in a week or two or whatever and then tell the person, and then they're not interested.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): She gets a lot of questions about her visual impairment.

MAXINE STARR: How do you get dressed?

You know.

How'd you get here?

You know.

Can you see that glass right there in front of you?

I've had some where it might have went to an actual date after that, but the reality kicked in once I brought the cane and took it out.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Russell Lehmann says telling dates that he is on the autism spectrum can quickly end the conversation.

RUSSELL LEHMANN: Once they found out I was autistic, they just unmatched me.

And so I think a lot of people are just scared.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Scared or in Jacqueline Child's experience bigoted.

Child has a connective tissue disorder.

JACQUELINE CHILD, Co-Founder, Dateability: As a disabled woman, I experience so much discrimination on the mainstream dating apps.

The most offensive one was telling me to not have any biological children.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): This kind of discrimination against the disabled is referred to as ablism.

It was Child's experiences on dating apps that inspired her and her sister Alexa to create their own.

They called it Dateability.

ALEXA CHILD, Co-Founder, Dateability: We came up with a profile section called the Dateability deep section, and that is an extensive list of broad terms used to describe one situation, like immunocompromised wheelchair user food allergy.

It sends this signal to our users that we see you.

We don't view your chronic illness or disability with shame.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): But online dating apps aren't for everyone.

MAXINE STARR: I'm too scared to do the online thing because I wouldn't disclose online to somebody I don't know and can't see.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): More than three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, people with disabilities are often still excluded from and misunderstood by society.

Shanna Katz Kattari says that can create a lot of anxiety around dating.

SHANNA KATZ KATTARI: I hope that the tables aren't high tops because my body can't sit in.

It's very trendy now to have the high tops.

I hope we're not going to show up at a restaurant and I can't sit.

STEPHANIE SY: What do you feel like are some of the misconceptions that nondisabled people have about people with disabilities, their dating lives, their sex lives?

SHANNA KATZ KATTARI: I think nondisabled people really buy into a lot of the notions that have been perpetuated around disability and disabled people, such as disabled folks are all asexual, which is not true.

There is this idea that we should feel grateful to be asked on a date or grateful to be partnered with, which is totally not the case.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): And even with loved ones, the conversation of dating can be difficult.

Iman Rahman says she had to convince her family she was ready to date.

IMAN RAHMAN: I was asked a lot of questions that I don't know if a lot of my friends were when they were talking to their parents about dating.

Like, you know, do you really think you should be doing know if they're not?

Like, do you think they can take care of you?

SHANNA KATZ KATTARI: I think we really spend a lot of time focusing on the negative, the problems, what should be different?

Disabled folks, we are scrappy.

We are creative.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): Kattari believes people with disabilities are better at saying what they're looking for and what they need because they have to.

CHELSEA BEAR: So often I just want someone that knows who they are.

They're not afraid of to be themselves.

RICH BISKER: I need someone that I can say, like, the past few days have been high pain days for me and I can say to them, I'm having a high pain day, and they'll just hug me or something.

AKILHA CADET: I think the most important one is if I have my cane, they're still not afraid to hold my hand or put their hand on my back.

RUSSELL LEHMANN: If I start sobbing, people are going to be like, what the hell?

He's a man.

But when those few select special women can just hold me and embrace me and all that I am through the peaks and valleys.

EVELYN VALDEZ: And most of all that person not enabling me at all, like, just treating me as a human being and not as a person who's just blind, but just treating me like Evelyn, you know.

CLARE SMITH: Oh, my goodness, look at you.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): For Claire and Iman, just feeling seen by the other, whether long distance or in person, is key.

STEPHANIE SY: What are you doing when you feel the happiest together?

IMAN RAHMAN: I cannot express to you how many times I just feel grateful to be holding her hand.

Just like getting through this, getting through a day of just feeling so much pain or getting through a day of feeling so much anxiety about everything.

CLARE SMITH: I was just sitting here looking at her.

It makes me so happy, and it fills me with just so much pride and joy when I just sit here and hear her talk.

It's been so rewarding and so lovely to just be on this journey with her.

STEPHANIE SY (voice-over): For PBS News Weekend, I'm Stephanie Sy.

JOHN YANG: And tonight we leave you with some stunning images.

The top five vote getters in the wildlife photographer of the year People's Choice Awards.

It's annual competition run by London's Natural History museum.

In first place, Icebed.

A polar bear napping on a small iceberg off Norway's Svalbard archipelago.

A reminder of animals' connection with their habitats and the effects of climate change.

One of the other finalists is also from Norway.

Moon jellyfish swarming in a fjord outside Tromso, illuminated by the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights.

Starling swirling together in what's called a Murmuration into the shape of a giant bird.

The photographer spent hours following starlings around Rome until he saw this.

Shared parenting.

Lionesses performed morning grooming one of the pride's cubs in Kenya's Maasai Mara.

The mothers had been out hunting overnight and on their return called the cubs out from their hiding place.

And the photographer who took this image spotted a Balkan pond turtle walking through shallow water in an Israeli swamp when a dragonfly landed on its nose.

A serendipitous moment of symbiosis.

And that is PBS News Weekend for this Saturday.

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us and happy Lunar New Year.

See you tomorrow.

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