Facebook stuff
Facebook is extremely important to the conservative media ecosystem because that’s where the Boomers are. So the Israelis are very keen on controlling it. This thread from Itai Leshem is very interesting and confirms many of my suspicions, that Facebook is the mans by which much of the conservative media is kept in line when it comes to Israeli issues:
Also there’s a horrific report in the Wall Street Journal today about Instagram, which Sheryl Sandberg has declined to comment for:
Instagram’s Reels video service is designed to show users streams of short videos on topics the system decides will interest them, such as sports, fashion or humor.
The Meta Platforms-owned social app does the same thing for users its algorithm decides might have a prurient interest in children, testing by The Wall Street Journal showed.
The Journal sought to determine what Instagram’s Reels algorithm would recommend to test accounts set up to follow only young gymnasts, cheerleaders and other teen and preteen influencers active on the platform.
Instagram’s system served jarring doses of salacious content to those test accounts, including risqué footage of children as well as overtly sexual adult videos—and ads for some of the biggest U.S. brands. …
The Journal’s test accounts found that the problem even affected Meta-related brands. Ads for the company’s WhatsApp encrypted chat service and Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses appeared next to adult pornography. An ad for Lean In Girls, the young women’s empowerment nonprofit run by former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, ran directly before a promotion for an adult sex-content creator who often appears in schoolgirl attire. Sandberg declined to comment.
Elon Musk
The bad guys in Silicon Valley are continuing to have trouble, and all their links to Israel are being exposed right now. Elon Musk even now is there with Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s under fire in the U.S. with people calling him an anti-semite, so he’s running to the arms of Papa Bibi. Probably doesn’t work this time.
Further evidence is also emerging that Elon Musk’s autopilot is killing lots of people. Lex Fridman, of course, got his start promoting Tesla’s autopilot capabilities.
A Florida judge found "reasonable evidence" that Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker's vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.
Judge Reid Scott, in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, ruled last week that the plaintiff in a lawsuit over a fatal crash could proceed to trial and bring punitive damages claims against Tesla for intentional misconduct and gross negligence. The order has not been previously reported.
Sam Altman
Sam Altman got bounced out of OpenAI, but then was returned thanks to the efforts of Microsoft, Tiger Global, and Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, which exposes one of the Jewish mob links there, Kushner’s father being Charles Kushner, a mobster.
Josh Kushner is married to Karlie Kloss, the model and former friend of Taylor Swift. Given that Taylor is such a role model to young women, it would be nice if she spoke up about her former friend’s poor choice of a husband, marrying into Bibi’s fascist mob. If we lived in France, this might end with Kloss being shaved and marched through the streets. Since it’s the U.S. she gets to feast on the corpse of Vice Media.
Poor Annie Altman has been bravely speaking up against her made-man brother, who is in control of one of the most dangerous superweapons in human history. These OpenAI people are clearly nuts and clearly dangerous.
A key character in the spectacle has been OpenAI chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever — who, according to The Atlantic, likes to burn effigies and lead ritualistic chants at the company — and appears to have been one of the main drivers behind Altman's ousting.
But clearly, he almost immediately regretted his decision in a bizarre attempt to save face just days later.
"I never intended to harm OpenAI," he tweeted Monday morning, not long after Microsoft, which owns a 49 percent stake in the company, offered Altman a CEO position. "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions."
The recent flap has sort of gathered all the bad guys there in one place. Maybe what comes next is someone locks the doors and burns the place down. That would be a happy ending.
In large part the Altman drama is about his attempted end-run around the CHIPS Act called Project Tigris, which by going to bat for Altman, Microsoft has made their problem. And the Israelis don’t really know what they’d do if he weren’t there. Something’s going to give here.
Binance’s Changpeng Zhao
… who had a Forbes cover, of course, must stay in the U.S. now that he’s pled guilty:
Former Binance chief Changpeng Zhao must stay in the United States for the time being, a federal judge said on Monday, after the founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
Zhao will be required to stay in the United States until the Seattle court considers whether he should remain through his sentencing hearing in February, or if he should be allowed to return to the United Arab Emirates, where he is a citizen.
Zhao, who is also a citizen of Canada, stepped down as CEO of Binance last week after pleading guilty to willfully causing the exchange to fail to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program.
U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle said he would review whether Zhao should have to stay in the United States after the U.S. government appealed a decision by another judge allowing Zhao to return to the UAE before his Feb. 23 sentencing hearing. Zhao agreed to a $175 million bond as part of the bail agreement.
Binance also agreed to pay a $4.3 billion settlement.
Short items
“China Dave” Horowitz cuts Candace Owens loose, but nobody is listening
Bari Weiss’s Free Press is doing PR for Andreessen Horowitz
Harlan Crow’s brother facing a sex trafficking suit
SEC sues Kraken, another crypto exchange
FT: Israeli intelligence ‘dismissed’ detailed warning of Hamas raid
Pope Francis, David Cameron speak out on behalf of Palestinians
Crooked Kevin McCarthy has been farting around decrying isolationism, the last refuge of the criminal
Fox is doing that Bush-era thing where they repackage Hamas’s governing documents and pretend they’re scoops
We’ve been over the Eliyahu Weinstein pardon here, which looks like a mob pardon of a guy who was preying on Orthodox Jews. I guess somebody kicked Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman in the ass and finally pointed them in the right direction, because their bylines are on a story today about another mob pardon, of an exploitative lender, who threatened a rabbi, and is involved in the drug trade. This is what Jared Kushner did to the clemency process.
On the Gaza War
Israeli influencers had been pooh-poohing the figure of around 14-15,000 Palestinians dead, about 40 percent of them children, but they admitted it’s probably pretty close. If anything, it’s conservative. About a third to half of Gaza City has been leveled by shelling, and the knock-on effects of hunger, disease, and displacement will cause many thousands more. All of this has harmed American standing in the world immensely.
Important stuff, but I'd stay away from violent imagery (burning down the building) 😟