First Thing: US leading global alliance to fight foreign government disinformation

Washington hopes more countries will join coalition to label and counter disinformation operations. Plus, air force serviceman sets himself alight outside Israeli embassy in DC

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Good morning.

A global coalition has been formed to fight disinformation campaigns by foreign governments, the US special envoy on the issue has said.

How does the US compare with others on this issue? As the US is constitutionally committed to freedom of speech, this raises difficult issues of relations with social media companies that do not arise in the same way in the more interventionist EU - which, for example, has passed the Digital Services Act and in December launched an inquiry into X over illicit content and disinformation. Similarly, the UK's media regulator, Ofcom, has been given powers over social media content through the Online Safety Act. Rubin stressed it was not for his organisation to tell social media companies how to behave, but said it was legitimate for it to unmask disinformation operations from foreign governments.

Has this happened before? A protester set themselves on fire in a separate incident in December outside an Israeli consulate office in Atlanta. The protester and a guard were hospitalized.

What is the death toll in Gaza? Israeli strikes have killed 29,692 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.