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July 18, 2021, 6:55 PM
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| Dana Priest / Washington Post: |
Investigation finds NSO Group's malware infected at least 23 smartphones belonging to government officials, journalists, execs, and activists, out of 67 checked — Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues.
Tweets: @jsrailton, @billmarczak, @snowden, @jsrailton, @billmarczak, @jsrailton, @jslaternyc, @dangillmor, @arvindgunasekar, @noupside, @noupside, @evacide, @shanehuntley, @wcathcart, @josephfcox, @fs0c131y, @amnesty, @smaurizi, @pbhushan1, @vidyakrishnan, @cat_zakrzewski, @snowden, @occrp, @utwitily, @omerbenj, @billmarczak, @mairavz, @milanv, @omthanvi, @billmarczak, @abuhilalah, @andraslederer, @wcathcart, @panyiszabolcs, @wcathcart, @salmansoz, @billmarczak, @rdanielkelemen, @immortaltech, @galffy, @billmarczak, @ericgarland, @crubiomartinezu, @jsrailton, @migueldeicaza, @wcathcart, @haaretzcom, @billmarczak, @moonofa, @snowden, @cyalm, @drewharwell, @jsrailton, @marietjeschaake, @haaretzcom, @alok_bhatt, @wcathcart, @billmarczak, @saketgokhale, @anthony, @avischarf, @shaunwalker7, @mihirssharma, @khalafroula, @billbrowder, @drewharwell, @wcathcart, @ihackbanme, @narangvipin, @billmarczak, @davidbelle_, @glcarlstrom, @josephmenn, @valeriein140, and @brhodes
More:
Amnesty International USA: THE PEGASUS PROJECT: MASSIVE DATA LEAK REVEALS ISRAELI NSO GROUP'S SPYWARE USED TO TARGET ACTIVISTS, JOURNALISTS, AND POLITICAL LEADERS GLOBALLY
Kim Lyons / The Verge: Pegasus spyware used to target phones of journalists and activists, investigation finds
Haaretz: In the News- COVID Israel- Iran drones- Netanyahu - Iran- NSO - journalists- Dictators' weapon of choice- Most promising Israeli startups- JNF- Tisha B'Av- McFalafel- Alerts
Miles Kruppa / Financial Times: Probe claims spyware used to hack journalists, activists and executives
Washington Post: Q&A: A guide to ‘spyware’ … The Pegasus Project, an investigation by The Washington Post …
Connor Perrett / Insider: Israeli military-grade spy software was used to hack phones of journalists, activists, executives, and 2 women connected to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a report says
Bill Marczak / The Citizen Lab: Independent Peer Review of Amnesty International's Forensic Methods for Identifying Pegasus Spyware
Mychael Schnell / The Hill: Military-grade spyware found on journalists' and activists' phones: report
Nathan Ord / HotHardware.com News: Massive Global Pegasus Spyware Campaign Covertly Stalked Politicians, Activists, Journalists
Tweets:
John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton: BREAKING: massive, global leak of the targets of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware. *huge deal.* Forensic investigation by @AmnestyTech in collaboration with @FbdnStories reporters. We @citizenlab conducted peer review. Here's an explainer THREAD. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: @AmnestyTech (1) @AmnestyTech saw an iOS 14.6 device hacked with a zero-click iMessage exploit to install Pegasus. We at @citizenlab also saw 14.6 device hacked with a zero-click iMessage exploit to install Pegasus. All this indicates that NSO Group can break into the latest iPhones.
Edward Snowden / @snowden: Stop what you're doing and read this. This leak is going to be the story of the year: (LINK: https://t.co/...) https://twitter.com/...
John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton: 3. More about leaked numbers & targets in a sec, but first you need to know: @AmnestyTech just released a report with technical analysis of NSO's infrastructure... & analysis validating w/forensics that some phones were infected with Pegasus. https://www.amnesty.org/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: THREAD with a couple of interesting bits from @AmnestyTech's new report on what they learned from looking for NSO Group's spyware on phones https://www.amnesty.org/...
John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton: 5. Now, to the findings: >50k numbers were leaked that are reportedly part of the infection & targeting workflow with Pegasus. To help validate the relationship between these numbers & infections @AmnestyTech got consent to forensically examine a subset of the devices. https://twitter.com/...
Joanna Slater / @jslaternyc: Introducing the Pegasus Project: a collaborative investigation involving more than 80 journalists on 4 continents showing how powerful spyware licensed only to governments targeted journalists, activists and more. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... 1/
Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor: WashPost has key “takeaways” from a great global journalistic collaboration — exposing, in more detail than before, the rancid operations of the world's most notorious spyware company. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... But read it all. Chilling, dangerous, and infuriating.
Arvind Gunasekar / @arvindgunasekar: Govt cannot deny the fact that phones of Indian citizens were hacked by Pegasus through WhatsApp. This was Cert-in (under MeiTY) ‘Vulnerability Notes’ dated May 2019 on WhatsApp-Pegasus. In Oct 2019, WhatsApp sued NSO in US court for “surveillance of specific WhatsApp users”. https://twitter.com/...
Renee DiResta / @noupside: But, Facebook *did improve*. And now, despite the focus on the Disinformation Dozen, perhaps the largest amplifier of COVID health misinfo has been figures like MTG & Tucker Carlson. Media. Politicians with huge platforms. That must be emphasized.
Renee DiResta / @noupside: So just to be clear: social media had major impact here in a foundational sense. And as COVID took off, the anti-vax apparatus - Groups, Pages, etc- and its affinity circles pivoted to denigrating the COVID vaccine. We have been documenting how at https://viralityproject.org/
Eva / @evacide: This is a really important story and I suggest that everyone read it, but this headline is cringe. “Military-grade spyware” is not a thing. https://twitter.com/...
Shane Huntley / @shanehuntley: Continuing evidence of the harm done by companies like NSO. What will it take for governments to stop these vendors operating with impunity? https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: This groundbreaking reporting from @Guardian, @WashingtonPost, and many others demonstrates what we and others have been saying for years: NSO's dangerous spyware is used to commit horrible human rights abuses all around the world and it must be stopped. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Joseph Cox / @josephfcox: Apps that are installed by default on iOS are being leveraged by NSO to install their malware; apps that people would not ordinarily see as a threat, or may not even use, so likely haven't removed from their devices https://www.amnesty.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Baptiste Robert / @fs0c131y: Insane work of @amnesty on the activity of the NSO group. They also released IOCs and the tools they used. #DFIR folks this article is made for you. https://www.amnesty.org/...
@amnesty: Here's how our Security Lab analysed the phones 👇 #PegasusProject https://www.amnesty.org/...
Stefania Maurizi / @smaurizi: Congrats to #PegasusProject media partners and @botherder @amnesty for these important revelations https://twitter.com/...
Prashant Bhushan / @pbhushan1: “Revealed: leak uncovers global abuse of cyber-surveillance weapon. Spyware sold to authoritarian regimes used to target activists, politicians and journalists, data suggests.” Many activists, journalists, politicians& judges are targets in India. #Pegasus https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Vidya / @vidyakrishnan: This is a bomb shell of a story. #PegasusProject #ModiHaiTohMumkinHai https://twitter.com/...
Cat Zakrzewski / @cat_zakrzewski: “Humanity is not in a place where we can have that much power just accessible to anybody.” https://twitter.com/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: HUGE: Israel's NSO group has repeatedly denied having had anything to do with Khashoggi's killing — but astonishing new evidence confirms the phones of the central women in his life were hacked right around his murder. https://twitter.com/...
@occrp: Loved ones and colleagues of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi had their phones compromised with NSO Group software both before and after Khashoggi's 2018 killing. Read the full story in @washingtonpost, one of 17 reporting partners in the #PegasusProject 👇 https://twitter.com/...
@utwitily: Haha wow that's wild Oh well I'm sure someone is going to face some consequences for this, let's just wait https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Omer Benjakob / @omerbenj: Snowden calls to hold NSO directly accountable for abuse of its spy tech software after @PhineasJFR's bombshell report for @FbdnStories comes out across the world as part of massive global investigation https://twitter.com/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: BlastDoor is a great step, to be sure, but it's pretty lame to just slap sandboxing on iMessage and hope for the best. How about: “don't automatically run extremely complex and buggy parsing on data that strangers push to your phone?!”
@mairavz: Potential targets of surveillance included the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, France 24, Radio Free Europe, Mediapart, El País, AP, Le Monde, Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse, the Economist, Reuters and Voice of America https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Milan Vaishnav / @milanv: “The minister first moved the meeting..at the last moment, then switched off his phone & told Varadarajan to do the same Then “the two phones were put in a room and music was put on in that room..and I thought: ‘Boy, this guy is really paranoid. But maybe he was being sensible’” https://twitter.com/...
Om Thanvi / @omthanvi: NSO Group claims that its Pegasus spyware is only used to “investigate terrorism and crime” and “leaves no traces whatsoever”. This Forensic Methodology Report shows that neither of these statements are true. ~ @amnesty https://www.amnesty.org/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: DataUsage.sqlite is a file in an iTunes backup that records process names accessing the mobile data, as well as bytes uploaded and downloaded. Information can persist in here for *years* unless cleaned up. So, in around 2019, NSO Group decided to try their hand at cleaning it up.
Andras Lederer / @andraslederer: 300+ HUN targets identified, incl @direkt36's investigative stars @AndrasSzab & @panyiszabolcs. No surprise #pegasus spyware targets civil society figures as well. In the first 3,5 mths of 2021, Judit Varga approved on avg 5 surveillance reqs/day. Govt reaction speaks for itself https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: In 2019, @WhatsApp discovered and defeated an attack from NSO. They rely on unknown vulnerabilities in mobile OSes, which is one of the reasons why we felt it was so important to raise awareness of what we'd found. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Szabolcs Panyi / @panyiszabolcs: 200 journalists worldwide were selected as targets for surveillance by authoritarian & corrupt regimes. My phone was hacked for 7 months with a spyware called Pegasus, forensic analyses by @amnesty & @citizenlab confirmed. That's life.😬 #PegasusProject https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Human rights defenders, tech companies and governments must work together to increase security and hold the abusers of spyware accountable. Microsoft was bold in their actions last week https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
Salman Anees Soz / @salmansoz: The Indian contingent at the #pegasus olympics includes “ministers, opposition leaders, business executives, senior officials, scientists, activists and others”. Is there anyone Modi & Shah are not scared of? Thread👇 https://twitter.com/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: Also, (3) as @AmnestyTech observed and we @citizenlab can confirm, NSO Group's Pegasus spyware delivered via 0-click exploits is no longer “persistent” in the strict sense of the word (i.e., doesn't come back when you reboot). Persistence is achieved via firing the 0-click again
R. Daniel Kelemen / @rdanielkelemen: Must read by @shaunwalker7 on how the Orbán autocracy in Hungarian is hacking phones of investigative journalists and targeting owners of independent media 👇 cc: @VeraJourova https://twitter.com/...
Immortal Technique / @immortaltech: Here we go... https://twitter.com/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: Because the 0-clicks they're using appear to be quite reliable, the lack of traditional “persistence” is a feature, not a drawback of the spyware. It makes the spyware more nimble, and prevents recovery of the “good stuff” (i.e., the spyware and exploits) from forensic analysis
Eric Garland / @ericgarland: IT GETS WORSE: Israel's NSO Group also sold surveillance tech to pro-Putin dictator Viktor Orban in Hungary for the harassment of journalists. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Carlos Rubio / @crubiomartinezu: I was the victim of the spyware, and ended up running from Dominican Republic to USA, and even in the US, the Dominican Republic Government, leaked to narco traffickers my location in the USA. Had to move a few times. https://twitter.com/...
John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton: 4. We @citizenlab independently peer reviewed @AmnestyTech's forensic methodology, including how they identify an infected phone. Our review, led by my colleague @billmarczak, judged their forensics & research methodology to be SOUND. https://citizenlab.ca/... https://twitter.com/...
Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza: Another explainer thread: https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: We need more companies, and, critically, governments, to take steps to hold NSO Group accountable. Once again, we urge a global moratorium on the use of unaccountable surveillance technology now. It's past time.
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: Phone logs show that (at least some of) the iOS 13.x and 14.x zero-click exploits deployed by NSO Group involved ImageIO, specifically the parsing JPEG and GIF images. ImageIO has had more than a dozen high-severity bugs reported against it in 2021.
@moonofa: “Other prominent journalists whose phones were selected by NSO's clients include Gregg Carlstrom, a Middle East reporter at the Economist, whose Egyptian and Qatari phone numbers were selected as possible targets by an NSO client, believed to the UAE. ” https://twitter.com/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: The Israeli company behind this — the NSO group — should bear direct, criminal liability for the deaths and detentions of those targeted by the digital infection vectors it sells, which have no legitimate use. https://twitter.com/...
Cyril Almeida / @cyalm: Pegasus spyware gives NSO clients complete device access and thereby the ability to bypass even encrypted messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. Pegasus can be activated at will until the device is shut off. As soon as it's powered back on, the phone can be reinfected https://twitter.com/...
Drew Harwell / @drewharwell: @SallyBuzbee @FbdnStories @guardian @lemondefr @SZ @OCCRP @thewire_in @zeitonline @direkt36 @haaretzcom @AristeguiOnline @radiofrance @proceso @Knack @Daraj_media @lesoir @frontlinepbs @AmnestyTech Reactions to #PegasusProject: * @Snowden: https://twitter.com/... * @jsrailton: https://twitter.com/... * WhatsApp head @wcathcart: https://twitter.com/...
John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton: 2. Background: the already-notorious NSO Group makes mercenary spyware to silently & remotely hack iPhones & Androids. Many of their government customers are authoritarians. Most cannot resist the temptation to target their critics, reporters, human rights groups etc. https://twitter.com/...
Marietje Schaake / @marietjeschaake: Read this thread and research about the targets of NSO Group's spyware. Spoiler: it's ugly! I hope this straw breaks the camel's back of the complete reluctance to stop these toxic, private, high-tech intelligence services ↘️ https://twitter.com/...
@haaretzcom: Here's how NSO's Pegasus software is used to infect journalists phones in what is called “zero clicks” https://www.haaretz.com/...
Alok Bhatt / @alok_bhatt: Introducing Govt response - “However, questionnaire sent to GoI indicates that story being crafted is one that is not only bereft of facts but also founded in pre-conceived conclusions. It seems you are trying to play the role of an investigator, prosecutor as well as jury” https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Thank you to @Microsoft, @Google, @Cisco, @VMWare, the @InternetAssn and others who have spoken up against the perils of giving spyware firms like NSO immunity.
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: It also indicates that Apple has a MAJOR blinking red five-alarm-fire problem with iMessage security that their BlastDoor Framework (introduced in iOS 14 to make zero-click exploitation more difficult) ain't solving.
Saket Gokhale / @saketgokhale: The Pegasus Project investigation just out on @washingtonpost https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@anthony: Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using hacking software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, according to an investigation into a massive data leak https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Avi Scharf / @avischarf: Israeli firm NSO's Pegasus software is used to infect journalists phones utilizing ‘zero click’ exploits. Here's how they did it and what we found out https://www.haaretz.com/...
Shaun Walker / @shaunwalker7: My piece on how some of the world's most invasive spyware is being used against independent Hungarian media - the result of a long, enriching and very collaborative investigation with various outlets. A small part of the upcoming #PegasusProject https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Mihir Sharma / @mihirssharma: One of the most important news stories of the year. GoI has denied it has used this spyware. That denial simply doesn't hold up when faced with this leak. https://twitter.com/...
Roula Khalaf / @khalafroula: Press freedoms are vital, and any unlawful state interference or surveillance of journalists is unacceptable. FT editor among 180 journalists identified by clients of spyware firm https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Bill Browder / @billbrowder: A number of journalists I have dealt with on Magnitsky case among the 180 journalists identified by clients of spyware firm. They include @bradleyhope @Khadija_Ismayil & many others. The firm supplying this spyware should face consequences https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Drew Harwell / @drewharwell: @SallyBuzbee @FbdnStories @guardian @lemondefr @SZ @OCCRP @thewire_in @zeitonline @direkt36 @haaretzcom @AristeguiOnline @radiofrance @proceso @Knack @Daraj_media @lesoir @frontlinepbs How @AmnestyTech found Pegasus. Huge breakthrough. Their forensic analyses discovered traces of successful and attempted infections as recently as *this month*: https://www.amnesty.org/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: At the time, we worked with @CitizenLab, who identified 100+ cases of abusive targeting of human rights defenders and journalists in 20+ countries. But today's reporting shows that the true scale of abuse is even larger, and with terrifying national security implications.
Zuk / @ihackbanme: [Important thread 1/N]: Let that sink in for a second: almost all respected publications were under espionage. All the sources of journalists, were exposed. If you ever spoke to a journalist (even with “Signal"/"Whatsapp") you are exposed. THIS IS A MAJOR THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! https://twitter.com/...
Vipin Narang / @narangvipin: Government surveillance of journalists and opposition leaders isn't new. What's new is the speed, stealth, and totality of ownage by the Pegasus tool, which requires no user interaction whatsoever. It's like the nuclear weapon of government surveillance. https://twitter.com/...
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak: (4) One of the other interesting bits here is just how much of pain it is to do phone forensics. @AmnestyTech couldn't do much w/ Android (as a lot of logs that are easy-to-access are wiped on device reboot), and the highest-signal iPhone analysis was limited to DataUsage.sqlite
David Belle / @davidbelle_: You journos are brave. After the Panama Files I would have done this anon. https://twitter.com/...
Gregg Carlstrom / @glcarlstrom: The charming folks at Israel's NSO Group were asked by a number of mostly authoritarian governments, among them Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to spy on the phones of more than 180 journalists around the world (myself included). https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
Joseph Menn / @josephmenn: The most important work to date exposing spyware vendor NSO's role in spying on human rights advocates, journalists and politicians in countries around the world. https://twitter.com/...
Valerie Hopkins / @valeriein140: There were 11 occasions when a Pegasus infection was confirmed within a few days of a comment request from @panyiszabolcs to the Hu Gvt, according to analysis. More than 50% of the comment requests he sent to the government during a 7 month period were followed up with an attack https://twitter.com/...
| Guy Rosen / About Facebook: |
Facebook says their data shows a 50% decline in vaccine hesitancy among US users, refuting Biden's claim that it's “killing people” by allowing COVID-19 misinfo — At a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies.
Tweets: @noupside, @dylanbyers, @rflaherty46, @brendannyhan, @thehill, @peteralexander, @sachabaroncohen, @juddlegum, @juddlegum, @evan_greer, @evan_greer, @ct_bergstrom, @housegop, @karaswisher, @ct_bergstrom, @ct_bergstrom, @juddlegum, @juddlegum, @sruhle, @rwmalonemd, @timcast, @rvawonk, @steveschmidtses, @steveschmidtses, @rvawonk, @mollyjongfast, @evelyndouek, @jesselehrich, @brendannyhan, @brendannyhan, @brendannyhan, @brendannyhan, @authorkimberley, @brianstelter, @bostonjoan, @rmac18, @brandonlive, @brianschatz, @jessreports, @brandee, @technicaladept, @kenvogel, @babydocanita, @quinnypig, @mmasnick, @rothschildmd, @ceciliakang, @badastronomer, @sheeraf, @ylecun, @mjaeckel, @reedgalen, @brandyzadrozny, @marietjeschaake, @lidskylidsky, @maya_sen, @matthewstoller, @andymstone, @caulfieldtim, @pinboard, @brianstelter, @moonalice, @steveschmidtses, @profgalloway, @jrubinblogger, @karaswisher, @lam_barrett, @datadrivenmd, @jbenton, @moonalice, @nicoleperlroth, @sivavaid, @rmac18, @karaswisher, @pinboard, @bryanrbeal, @govhowarddean, @stefanie2000, @steveschmidtses, @pinboard, @mariachong, @jeffschogol, @the12fthofnever, @davechensky, @pinboard, @sarthakgh, @sarahfrier, @sbyrnes, @jaronschneider, @soledadobrien, @mgsiegler, @emilydreyfuss, @drdavidley, @johnbattelle, @qjurecic, @dylanbyers, @jesselehrich, @repzoelofgren, @jason_kint, @anthony, @alastairmca30, @davewiner, @jesselehrich, @ceciliakang, @datadrivenmd, @ccadelago, @charlesarthur, @dylanbyers, @juddlegum, @kevincollier, @mattyglesias, @jason_kint, @ggreeneva, @ggreenwald, @benshapiro, @timwattsmp, @saracarterdc, @ggreenwald, @moonalice, @kari_jerge, @polisciprofhi, @chelseaclinton, @grady_booch, @micahgrimes, @redsteeze, @lemberg, @mc_of_a, @mattzeitlin, @thebrandonmorse, @xpangler, @karaswisher, @esaagar, @kurtwagner8, @alexthomp, and @dylanbyers
More:
Cecilia Kang / New York Times: Facebook Tells Biden: ‘Facebook Is Not the Reason’ Vaccination Goal Was Missed
Ronn Blitzer / Fox News: Surgeon general: Facebook's efforts to combat COVID misinformation ‘not enough’
Emma Newburger / CNBC: Facebook refutes Biden claim that it is ‘killing people’ with vaccine misinformation
Connor Perrett / Insider: Surgeon General doubles down on criticism of social media, says companies like Facebook need to ‘take responsibility’ for COVID-19 misinformation
Sami Khan / International Business Times: Facebook Reacts To Biden's “Killing People” Remark; Says Vaccine Hesitancy Sharply Declined In US
Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today: Facebook Clashes with the US Government Over Vaccine Misinformation
Dennis Romero / NBC News: Facebook suggests it's more effective than Biden on vaccinations
Jon Fingas / Engadget: Facebook rejects Biden claim it's ‘killing people’ with COVID-19 misinformation
Jack Shafer / Politico: What the White House Doesn't Get About Disinformation
Tweets:
Renee DiResta / @noupside: 🧵The last 48 hours on here have been all about The Vaccine Discourse. Is FB killing people? Is the govt passing the buck? Who even can tell what IS misinformation, and who watches the watchmen, anyway? I've spent ~7 years watching the AV movement evolve online and have thoughts
Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers: FACEBOOK official: “In private exchanges the Surgeon General has praised our work, including our efforts to inform people about COVID-19. They knew what they were doing. The White House is looking for scapegoats for missing their vaccine goals.”
Rob Flaherty / @rflaherty46: I guess I'm left with a simple question: How many people have seen COVID vaccine misinformation on Facebook? https://twitter.com/...
Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan: The White House/Facebook debate over vaccine misinformation is incredibly frustrating and full of implicit false binaries. All of the following can be true: 🧵
@thehill: Reporter: “What's your message to platforms like Facebook?” President Biden: “They're killing people.” https://twitter.com/...
Peter Alexander / @peteralexander: JUST IN: @Facebook responds to Biden ("They're killing people") re: COVID misinformation: “The facts show Facebook is helping save lives. Period.” Full statement here. https://twitter.com/...
Sacha Baron Cohen / @sachabaroncohen: The President is right—Facebook is killing people. CEOs have been jailed for less. But under US law, social media CEOs have near total immunity, which is insane. Change the law. Hold Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook accountable for the death they cause. #StopDeathForProfit https://twitter.com/...
Judd Legum / @juddlegum: Guys, 2 BILLION PEOPLE have viewed accurate information about vaccines on Facebook and A SECRET NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT FACEBOOK KNOWS BUT WILL NOT DISCLOSE have viewed misinformation about vaccines on Facebook Let's stick to the FACTS and leave Facebook alone
Judd Legum / @juddlegum: Facebook sticking to their strategy of selectively releasing proprietary data — without providing the necessary context for anyone to evaluates its claims — and pretending it's transparency https://twitter.com/...
Evan Greer / @evan_greer: @BostonJoan @d1gi It just feels like at this point there is a whole industry built around reports and news stories that say “look at this terrible thing Facebook did or didn't do” that are easily co-optable by partisan pundits and authoritarians and I don't see how they bring us toward solutions
Evan Greer / @evan_greer: @BostonJoan @d1gi Genuinely asking: let's say we did know the answer to this. What would we do with that information? How would it actually inform our ability to craft policies that address this harm without causing even more harm?
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: Facebook concludes by asking to be praised for putting bandaid on the gaping wound they created. Don't fall for it. https://twitter.com/...
House Republicans / @housegop: Facebook is letting the White House dictate what is acceptable. Let that sink in. https://www.washingtontimes.com/ ...
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: It would be interesting to understand why Facebook did not have such a firm response to Trump, given how often he attacked social media: Moving Past the Finger Pointing - About Facebook https://about.fb.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: 3. Q: Where does a company find a VP of Integrity, anyway? A: You hire the cofounder and CEO of the spyware company (masquerading as a privacy-promoting service) that you acquired and used to collect information on competitors until you were exposed. https://news.ycombinator.com/ ...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: “Lots of people viewed true information on facebook.” Lots of people viewed disinformation, too Without knowing how many we can't possibly work out the balance sheet to know whether facebook helped or hurt. Problem is, only facebook has that information. https://twitter.com/...
Judd Legum / @juddlegum: Specifically, they know how many people have viewed vaccine misinformation on Facebook and they are not releasing it. Their refusal to do so gives you some insight into what those numbers show.
Judd Legum / @juddlegum: The idea that Canada's success reflects on Facebook is particularly silly. Brazil has a massive Facebook user base. Does Facebook want to take credit for Brazil's vaccine program too?
Stephanie Ruhle / @sruhle: Really Facebook? This is your strategy? https://twitter.com/...
Robert W Malone / @rwmalonemd: @politico My problem is that they define “misinformation” to include valid scientific discussion and debate which does not comport with “official” WHO or HHS interpretations. And “Who you gunna trust” at this point? Facebook? CDC? WHO? Reuters non-scientist fact checkers?
Tim Pool / @timcast: With the admission that the Biden admin is colluding with Facebook to censor people the “But muh private business” argument is over
Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D / @rvawonk: This is such a dishonest response and I am 100% certain Facebook knows that. https://twitter.com/...
Steve Schmidt / @steveschmidtses: The two behemoths function together, officially uncoordinated, yet perfectly harmonized in spreading the siren song of craziness that has done more damage to the fabric of this country, than any two companies in modern American history.
Steve Schmidt / @steveschmidtses: and insanity that has played an outsized role in both the poisoning of American democracy and the spread of Covid misinformation that has killed hundreds of thousands unnecessarily. But for @FoxNews and the malignancy of their propaganda, Facebook would be peerless.
Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D / @rvawonk: “Some people are still getting vaccinated” does not refute Facebook's impact among those who are not vaccinated. They're not even addressing the problem in their response; they're redirecting entirely.
Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast: Facebook is the Exxon of social media https://twitter.com/...
Evelyn Douek / @evelyndouek: Amazon and YouTube just loving this *whistling away in the corner looking nervous* https://twitter.com/...
Jesse Lehrich / @jesselehrich: per @crowdtangle data, this is the top Facebook post in the entire U.S. about vaccines today: https://twitter.com/...
Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan: Effect of exposure to dubious anti-vaccine claims on Facebook is likely to be smaller than critics assume both in terms of reach & effects as with so-called “fake news” https://gen.medium.com/.... I'm more concerned about cues from GOP, Fox, etc & state laws banning vaccine mandates
Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan: Exposure to misinformation can affect vaccine intention https://www.nature.com/.... The same is likely to be true on Facebook at least to some extent and the lack of transparency from the company on the reach of vaccine misinfo makes it impossible to assess the scope of the problem.
Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan: Role of online misinfo in creating vaccine hesitancy is overstated: -Exposure levels to vaccine-skeptical info online are low https://www.sciencedirect.com/ ... -Hesitancy long predates social media / Internet -Vaccine exemptions track more closely with state laws https://www.nytimes.com/...
Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan: None of this is to say that Facebook can't do better at combating vaccine misinformation. They should; every bit helps! They should also be more transparent. But evidence suggests the company is neither the principal cause of nor the primary solution to our vaccine problems.
Kimberley Johnson / @authorkimberley: Facebook is basically an arm of the Kremlin. And Biden is correct, @Facebook is killing people. https://twitter.com/...
Brian Stelter / @brianstelter: Multiple Facebook execs have been invited to come on @ReliableSources tomorrow. So far no one has agreed. https://twitter.com/...
Joan Donovan / @bostonjoan: Reporters should press FB to release the data on how many people engaged with, clicked, liked, shared, or dwelled on the 18 million pieces of misinformation they took down. Reminds me of @d1gi's excellent data grab of Russian disinfo in 2016, before FB deleted it. https://twitter.com/...
Ryan Mac🙃 / @rmac18: It's interesting watching which exec names Facebook puts on blog posts its comms team deem too hot for Zuckerberg https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Brandon Paddock / @brandonlive: It's technically a reduction in vaccine hesitancy if it becomes vaccine hostility, right? https://twitter.com/...
Brian Schatz / @brianschatz: Delete the misinformation accounts. You have a perfect legal right to do so but you have made a choice to allow them to continue to spread lethal lies. https://twitter.com/...
Jesselyn Cook / @jessreports: Reminder that Facebook-owned Instagram is *still* actively recommending anti-vax content to users who search for vaccine info. https://www.huffpost.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Brandee Barker / @brandee: I'm going to take a shot at a re-write: We appreciate the WH acknowledging Facebook's important role in spreading accurate information about the vaccine. We commit to vigilantly fight against & remove misinformation, especially that which may be leading to more death... https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Hardy / @technicaladept: For certain definitions of ‘refute’ that include ‘now killing half as many people as before’ https://twitter.com/...
Kenneth P. Vogel / @kenvogel: If you thought @ceciliakang would be relaxing after releasing “An Ugly Truth,” the must-read book she & @sheeraf just dropped on @Facebook, then you don't know Cecilia. Here's her day story on rising tensions between @Facebook & the BIDEN administration. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Anita Henderson / @babydocanita: Pediatricians have dealt with antivaxxers for years. This thread explains how and why this has become mainstream and what we can and must do to combat the deliberate assault on vaccines and public health @MSAAP1 @MSMA1 @TCBPubHealth @msdh @MSFamilyDocs @WCUCOMDO @LAWoodwardMD https://twitter.com/...
Corey Quinn / @quinnypig: And if you can't trust Facebook to tell the truth, who can you trust? https://twitter.com/...
Mike Masnick / @mmasnick: I get the thinking behind a tweet like this (though I'm uncomfortable with the 1st sentence appearing as an imperative from a govt official), but the issue that is ignored is this is *way* easier said than done. https://twitter.com/...
Mike Rothschild / @rothschildmd: This thread is as right on as you're ever going to get about vaccination, health freedom conspiracy theories, and social media. https://twitter.com/...
Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang: NEW: Over weekend, tensions escalate as Facebook accuses Biden admin of scapegoating. Biden admin says they are ducking on key efforts around vaccine misinformation. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Phil Plait / @badastronomer: The anti-vax movement has been killing people for years. Together with partisan weaponization and overlap with QAnon it's now center stage during a pandemic and has never been more dangerous. https://twitter.com/...
Sheera Frenkel / @sheeraf: Renee is the one to listen to on this. She was following and tracing anti-vaccine movements online long before the rest of us became aware of their growth and tactics. https://twitter.com/...
Yann LeCun / @ylecun: 85% of FB users have been or want to be vaccinated. Many countries that use FB as much as the US have much lower level of anti-vaxxers. The cause of anti-vaxx sentiment in the US is not social media. In fact FB has done a lot to promote vaccinations, as Guy Rosen writes here. https://twitter.com/...
MarleneJ / @mjaeckel: An incredibly informative thread to learn why and how anti-vaccine propaganda, medical disinformation, and pseudoscience have become a significant public health threat. Social media platforms played no small part. https://twitter.com/...
Reed Galen / @reedgalen: .@Facebook is a utility everyone hates, wishes they could get rid of and knows everything about you. https://twitter.com/...
Brandy Zadrozny / @brandyzadrozny: Few people know more about the way anti-vaxx organized online over the last decade. For a very good up-to-speed: https://twitter.com/...
Marietje Schaake / @marietjeschaake: US Government vs Facebook is heating up: White House Director of Digital Strategy asks Facebook what so many have sought independent research of ↘️ https://twitter.com/...
Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky / @lidskylidsky: Better ?s: How many people see but DON'T believe? How many believe, but only because they sought out confirmation of their intuition? How much info has been condemned as false that turned out to be true, suggesting our fallibility in applying the imprecise term “misinfo”? https://twitter.com/...
Maya Sen / @maya_sen: Is there any question at this point that Facebook is a net bad for society? https://twitter.com/...
Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller: Should be fairly obvious that Facebook is deeply hostile to Democrats. Doesn't make the Hunter Biden censorship or Trump deplatforming untrue, but allegations that Zuckerberg is aligned with the Dems should bring forth a chuckle. https://about.fb.com/...
Andy Stone / @andymstone: Important context: For people in the US on Facebook, vaccine hesitancy has declined by 50%. And vaccine acceptance on the part of US Facebook users has increased by 10-15% with racial and ethnic disparities in acceptance shrinking considerably. https://twitter.com/...
Timothy Caulfield / @caulfieldtim: This kind of analysis demos the TOP DOWN (prominent individuals pushing BS) and BOTTOM UP (people sharing on social media) nature of the #infodemic. “Majority of #Covid #misinformation came from 12 people, report” https://www.theguardian.com/ ... by @salamdogmillion #ScienceUpFirst
@pinboard: If you agree with me that propagating news through social networks and feeding user behavior back into automated recommendations engines is irredeemably harmful, then ban or regulate those. Personalizing it as Zuckerberg being some kind of malevolent supervillain is preposterous.
Brian Stelter / @brianstelter: Thread of the day >>> https://twitter.com/...
Roger McNamee / @moonalice: Epic thread dissects FB's response to criticism by @POTUS. https://twitter.com/...
Steve Schmidt / @steveschmidtses: The release came from, LOL, the Vice President of Integrity. I think the cigarette companies should name Vice Presidents for healthy lungs and clean air. https://twitter.com/...
Scott Galloway / @profgalloway: Would @Facebook ever accuse President Xi Jinping of “looking for scapegoats”
Jennifer ‘pro-voting’ Rubin / @jrubinblogger: two bipartisan issues : Facebook and China - both are a menace https://www.nytimes.com/...
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: What Joan says https://twitter.com/...
Lindsey Barrett / @lam_barrett: self-important exhortations that critics abandon “finger pointing” are the resort of those with no better argument than “criticizing me is inherently bad and *that's* what we should focus on [instead of conduct I can't plausibly defend on the merits].” grow up! https://twitter.com/...
Jorge A. Caballero / @datadrivenmd: @PeterHotez is the expert on the tactics used by the anti-vax movement online and offline. Everything else is second hand information. Period. Full stop. https://twitter.com/...
Joshua Benton / @jbenton: Has there ever been a case where “Let's move past the finger pointing” was not a synonym for “Please stop correctly blaming me”? https://about.fb.com/...
Roger McNamee / @moonalice: A short and essential thread from @noUpside, who has been studying online antivax conspiracy theories from way back ... https://twitter.com/...
Nicole Perlroth / @nicoleperlroth: This is a nuanced must read thread on the latest White House-Facebook back and forth on whether the company is “killing people.” I would add this 2018 NIH research on how Russian bots and trolls helped legitimize anti-vax fears on Twitter. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan / @sivavaid: Carl dissects the Facebook duplicity over its vaccine disinformation problem. The FB response itself is an example of masterful disinformation. As usual, FB management is making the problem worse by being dishonest. https://twitter.com/...
Ryan Mac🙃 / @rmac18: The guy who has total equity control and decision making power has time to post surfing photos, but doesn't want to confront the president.
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: This is a perfectly reasonable blog post by @guyro & good to know, but 1. Would be great if it provided more details about misinformation 2. All due respect and love his title, but this prolly should have been penned by Mark or Sheryl. I'm sure there was a long debate about it. https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: This view that misinformation is inflicted on an unwilling and innocent public is starting to grind my gears. The demand is driven by people hungry for more and more of it. Mark Zuckerberg is not responsible for the human condition, and linear algebra didn't radicalize your aunt
Bryan Beal / @bryanrbeal: Facebook coming out swinging https://about.fb.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Howard Dean / @govhowarddean: Written by the VP for integrity. Even George Orwell Couldn't make this up. https://twitter.com/...
StefanieFriedhoff / @stefanie2000: Researchers: We need algorithm audits & transparency on the key infrastructure that shapes which information people see, and how people are drawn in to share info & come back for more. Facebook: We did remove & label some posts! Thanks for this thread @CT_Bergstrom https://twitter.com/...
Steve Schmidt / @steveschmidtses: Only in Silicon Valley would this dreck be released by an employee ludicrously titled as the “Vice President of Integrity”. It proves definitively that all the money in the world can't buy Zuckerberg or Sandberg self awareness. Facebook is a veritable Chernobyl of misinformation https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: Sensational thread on misinformation by someone always worth listening to on this topic https://twitter.com/...
Maria Chong / @mariachong: Great thread from someone who has been studying both online misinformation and the anti-vax movement for years. https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Schogol / @jeffschogol: Says Facebook, which took down QAnon pages 4 years after America's parents and grandparents had been radicalized. https://twitter.com/...
RiverRising / @the12fthofnever: CCDH reports the ‘disinformation dozen’ have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms, with Facebook having the largest impact. 95% of the Covid misinformation reported on social media platforms was not removed. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
David Chen / @davechensky: Thread: Don't let Facebook convince you that they're not at least partially responsible for the rise of anti-vaxx nonsense https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: The law he is presumably referring to is Section 230, which keeps owners of online forums from being liable for what participants post. This law allows small websites like mine to exist. Without it, we would only have the tech giants, who can afford massive legal departments. https://twitter.com/...
Sar Haribhakti / @sarthakgh: “The data shows that 85% of Facebook users in the US have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19. President Biden's goal was for 70% of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed.” Bold comms https://about.fb.com/...
Sarah Frier / @sarahfrier: Facebook doubles down on its critique of Biden saying “they're killing people” by saying we should instead focus on who they help. Again not acknowledging the role of its algorithm in the spread of vaccine hesitancy. https://about.fb.com/...
Sean Byrnes / @sbyrnes: Do we think we can trust this more than their video analytics numbers? No, no we can't. https://twitter.com/...
Jaron Schneider / @jaronschneider: Tell that to our filling hospitals and rising cases that are made up of just about entirely the unvaccinated. https://twitter.com/...
Soledad O'Brien / @soledadobrien: Lol. Facebook newsroom reporting on... itself. https://twitter.com/...
M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler: I mean, how on Earth are you ever going to win this argument? Why even bother engaging? Multiple times! Just let it go and a million other news cycles wash it over... https://twitter.com/...
Emily Dreyfuss / @emilydreyfuss: @Techmeme @guyro They should let outsiders see their data (anonymized) so that we could have faith in such a poll Additionally, that doesn't refute the allegation. Hesitancy could be going down among US users now, which has no bearing on how many people died before now due to wrong information
David J. Ley PhD / @drdavidley: “VP of Integrity?” I'd love to see the qualifications and description for this position. https://twitter.com/...
John Battelle / @johnbattelle: Can't agree more that Fox needs more attention, but...Facebook is, well, two orders of magnitude bigger. https://twitter.com/...
Quinta Jurecic / @qjurecic: Publishing a piece titled “Moving Past the Finger Pointing” doesn't actually strike me as the best way to move past the finger pointing https://about.fb.com/...
Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers: NEW: In blog post, Facebook VP of Integrity Guy Rosen calls on White House to “move past finger pointing” > “At a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies...” https://about.fb.com/...
Jesse Lehrich / @jesselehrich: wow they're really just gonna keep digging huh? https://twitter.com/...
Rep. Zoe Lofgren / @repzoelofgren: A company can simultaneously be helping people get vaccinated & spreading misinformation. When it comes to Facebook, like President Biden, I am concerned about the latter. https://www.axios.com/...
Jason Kint / @jason_kint: A lie and misleading info about vaccines in her post. Most of the spread isn't because of the author but because Facebook intentionally puts it in feeds of certain users without counterspeech, correction or labeling thereby accelerating its velocity to a microtargeted public. https://twitter.com/...
@anthony: These are the top two posts for “Vaccine” on Facebook in the last 12 hours according to Facebook's Crowdtangle audience insights tool. Greene's post has 6x shares than the Biden one. https://twitter.com/...
Alastair McAlpine / @alastairmca30: Facebook antivaccine groups have been PIVOTAL in spreading hesitancy and misinformation about vaccines. For every provax, science-based group, there are 20 antivaxx ones. I see the cost everyday. @Facebook is trash. #DeleteFacebook https://twitter.com/...
Dave Winer / @davewiner: I don't own any Facebook stock, and in general do not approve of how the company conducts itself, but President Biden's line about how Facebook is killing people is horribly misdirected. If he said Rupert Murdoch were killing people, before Facebook, then he'd be credible.
Jesse Lehrich / @jesselehrich: the audacity to troll the US gov't for missing vaccination goals while serving as the global HQ for deadly anti-vaxx propaganda is sickening. https://twitter.com/...
Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang: Wow. Remarkable statement. So much tension between White House and Facebook right now. Heard from a source that WH incredibly frustrated after months of asking FB for data on vaccine misinfo that company, despite saying in public they want to work with WH, isn't sharing https://twitter.com/...
Jorge A. Caballero / @datadrivenmd: It takes a lot to get me to side with Facebook on the topic of vaccine misinformation, but the White House managed to do it So, congrats, or whatever. smdh /x https://twitter.com/...
Christopher Cadelago / @ccadelago: Source close to White House pushes back on Facebook and this official: “For people who are volunteering that they're innocent, their response is giving off strong ‘if I did it’ vibes.” https://twitter.com/...
Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur: Strategies not to try: blaming the administration for something else when it points out you've got a core of antivaxxers on your platform spreading lies. Classic bit of whataboutery which I never expected to see Facebook adopt. https://twitter.com/...
Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers: Biden takes it to 11: “They're killing people,” he says of Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
Judd Legum / @juddlegum: Not a meaningful stat unless Facebook reveals how many people viewed vaccine disinformation on Facebook https://twitter.com/...
Kevin Collier / @kevincollier: I can't get over how revealing this statement is, how quintessentially Facebook. The self-righteous indignation that because it steered some to vaccines, it's beyond reproach. Measuring your ethics by tallying good actions vs bad ones on your own abacus. A facsimile of morality. https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias: The fact that Facebook is declining to do what the administration wants seems like a problem for the theory that we are witnessing the total fusion of state & corporate power in the creation of a new censorship regime. https://twitter.com/...
Jason Kint / @jason_kint: Wow. That's a dumb a$$ statement from Facebook pointing out WE ALL were a few percent off the 70% vaccine target. And to do it anonymously through a spokesman to one of Sandberg's favorite journalists. Spineless. https://twitter.com/...
Greg Greene / @ggreeneva: When President Biden said today that Facebook was “killing people,” the company deserved every bit of that rebuke. https://twitter.com/...
Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald: There's a whole community on TikTok (you can find them here on Twitter, too) which scorns people as “fatphobic” for encouraging fitness and weight loss. They falsely say obesity isn't unhealthy. Should that be allowed? Are social media companies that allow it “killing people”? https://twitter.com/...
Ben Shapiro / @benshapiro: Treat neutral platforms as violent enemies unless they comply with your censorship requests; threaten legislation and regulation until they curtail free dissemination of information. The end goal here is the weaponization of social media, of course.
Tim Watts MP / @timwattsmp: Hard to grapple with these ‘facts’ without sufficient transparency being provided to independent third party researchers to evaluate these claims. I only have the anec-data of my public Facebook page which constantly gets flooded with medical misinformation. https://twitter.com/...
Sara A. Carter / @saracarterdc: Yikes!!! FB is killing people? According to President Biden https://twitter.com/...
Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald: Are social media companies also guilty of “killing people” if they allow content encouraging people to be obese, to consume fatty junk food, content which glorifies cigarette smoking and large amounts of alcohol consumption and a sedentary lifestyle? https://twitter.com/...
Roger McNamee / @moonalice: Facebook's rebuttal to President Biden is consistent with every FB denial. When challenged about algorithmic amplification, they try to change the subject to something with a big number that sounds good. They always do this. Period. https://twitter.com/...
@kari_jerge: Biden's team is a day late and a dollar short with this one. I agree, wholeheartedly and 💯. And also where was this public campaign the second he took office? These words needed to be said months ago. To me, this has seems to be too little too late. 😔 https://twitter.com/...
Andrea Malji / @polisciprofhi: I know Biden's referencing Covid and FB has already responded saying they have no role in disinformation that kills...but I would draw attention to FB's formal apology for its role in spreading violence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka that literally killed ppl. https://thediplomat.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Chelsea Clinton / @chelseaclinton: President Biden is correct. Misinformation is dangerous, even deadly, and rampant on @facebook. The company doesn't care enough to even follow its own protocols on taking down covid-19 related lies. As @JesseLehrich points out, here is the most popular FB post today: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Grady Booch / @grady_booch: “We don't kill THAT many people.” Facebook is a profoundly unethical company, and it starts at the top, with Mark. https://twitter.com/...
Micah Grimes / @micahgrimes: Two things can be true at once: - Facebook does a lot of good on the information front. - Facebook won't close the Pandora's box it created, because the box is the business model, for good and for very bad. https://twitter.com/...
Stephen L. Miller / @redsteeze: Remember Joe Biden set his goals for his administration low and was cheered and applauded when he met them. He doesn't meet the vaccination rate he set and now it's Facebook's fault.
Mikael Lemberg / @lemberg: @rashadrobinson @ChelseaClinton Both viewpoints can be true at the same time. Facebook can be saving the lives of those who use their vaccine finder tools etc. while other people die because they believe in myths they have seen on social media.
Michael Caley / @mc_of_a: Facebook's response to “they're killing people” is to point out how many people they *haven't* killed https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Zeitlin / @mattzeitlin: i think you can be leery of the white house spokesperson trying to direct content moderation policy from the podium but this is laughably non-responsive to the critique being made https://twitter.com/...
Brandon Morse / @thebrandonmorse: Was he instructed to go for the most dramatic answer possible? Voting rights is worse than the civil war. Facebook is killing people. Ffs, I don't like Zuck as much as the next guy but let's calm the f down. https://twitter.com/...
Todd Spangler / @xpangler: Facebook, responding to Biden's comments, said: “We will not be distracted by accusations which aren't supported by the facts” https://variety.com/...
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: Klain: “But I think that there is just no question that a lot of misinformation about the vaccines is coming from postings on Facebook. And this is a life or death situation here. And it's pretty straightforward, right?”
Saagar Enjeti / @esaagar: All of this goes back to 2016. These people believe in their bones that Trump was only elected because of “misinformation”. Their solution is to rig the platforms instead of ask why so many millions lost trust in all our institutions in the first place https://twitter.com/...
Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8: Well over as year into the pandemic, and the President of the United States says that Covid misinfo on sites Facebook is killing people https://twitter.com/...
| Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: |
[Thread] The response to Biden from Facebook's VP of Integrity is a textbook example of bluster and obfuscation — After Biden's criticism of @Facebook for their inaction on antivax propaganda, @fbnewsroom is going on the offensive. They issued a press release that is a textbook example of bluster, obfuscation, and agnatogenesis. Here's the link. Let's take a look. https://about.fb.com/...
More:
Peter Aitken / Fox Business: Klobuchar: Social media companies can afford to ‘be better,’ urges limits to liability protections
Kevin Harness / The Daily Caller: ‘Take This Crap Off Their Platforms’: Amy Klobuchar Says Social Media Companies Should Be Liable For Misinformation
Katherine Huggins / Mediaite: Sen. Klobuchar Goes Off on Social Media Platforms for Covid-19 Disinformation: ‘Absolutely No Reason’ Not to ‘Take This Crap Off’
Tom Boggioni / Raw Story: Dem senator serves notice to Facebook of anti-trust investigation if they refuse to police ‘crap’ misinformation
Yueqi Yang / Bloomberg: Klobuchar Tells Social Media: ‘Take This Crap Off’
Tweets:
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: “We have also labeled and reduced the visibility of more than 167 million pieces of COVID-19 content debunked by our network of fact-checking partners.” Flipside: “We left up 167 million pieces of disinformation despite knowing they were false.” https://twitter.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: Finally, when your “Vice President for Integrity” is so adept at packing misdirection, agnatogenesis, deceit, and all-around weaselry into so short a document, you've got big problems with your corporate culture. https://twitter.com/...
@terrellrussell: Short version - consider the source, they have exclusive information, and every incentive to spin this their way. Don't fall for it. Facebook is horrible. https://twitter.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: “Hearing from a friend is more persuasive.” Can they really not see that this cuts both ways? If hearing from a friend that they were vaccinated helps more than exhortations of a remote agency, seeing a friend post antivax propaganda hurts more than finding it via google etc. https://twitter.com/...
Bob Adlhoch / @badlhoch: Always the one with the finger pointed at them that wants to “move past the finger pointing” https://twitter.com/...
Melissa Ryan / @melissaryan: Biden clearly struck a nerve over at Facebook. We're on day two of their attempt at crisis comms. https://twitter.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: This a big part of why social media is such a powerful medium for disseminating propaganda. When you drop leaflets from a plane, everyone knows it's propaganda. When Uncle Rick shares a story he read somewhere, it's much less clear what you are looking at.
Sar Haribhakti / @sarthakgh: This critique assumes FB is obligated to do real time takedown of whatever wrong things I post about vaccines and anything short of that is “killing people” When did we get to a societal consensus that this is the level of power & responsibly we want to give to them? https://twitter.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: The fact that the fraction of facebook users who express positive attitudes toward vaccination is larger than the fraction of Americans who have actually been vaccinated—this tells us nothing about the direction of facebook's impact on vaccination.
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: “Facts, not allegations.” It would be nice to be able to rely on facts. Unfortunately, Facebook has exclusive access to the data we need to know what the facts are, and is not forthcoming with those facts. See e.g. the ongoing CrowdTangle debacle. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: The presumption is if I tell my friends that vaccines are dangerous, Facebook should delete that. I'm not entirely sure we have a settled consensus that Facebook should be controlling speech like that 1/ https://twitter.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: “Vaccine acceptance among Facebook users in the US has increased.” This is a red herring, given that vaccine acceptance among everyone in the US has increased—dramatically. Look at the decline in those truly hesitant: the “wait and see” group. Source: https://www.kff.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom: “Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed.” This is pure slight of hand. First, they're comparing a survey result with a behavioral response; that's apples and oranges. Second, to evaluate the highlighted claim below, we need to consider a counterfactual. https://twitter.com/...
| Bliss Broyard / New York Times: |
A look at the state of community Wi-Fi providers in NYC, including NYC Mesh, a nonprofit covering ~800 households, which seeks to end the “telecom oligopoly” — NYC Mesh, a band of a few dozen tech volunteers, takes on Verizon and the big “incumbent providers,” with the promise of inexpensive community internet.Tweets:
Sascha Segan / @saschasegan: Terrific story about some real ISP heroes here in NYC who dare address the issue of PRICE. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@nytmetro: In New York, like most big cities, the wealthier a neighborhood is, the more options for internet service its residents probably have. A band of tech volunteers is on a mission to bring inexpensive community Wi-Fi to neighborhoods across the city. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Bliss Broyard / @blissbroyard: Last December when my internet went down, I googled “I hate Spectrum” and stumbled on NYC Mesh. I couldn't believe they could get people online in a few hours for a smallish amount of $ in a moment when being online was a lifeline, and I'd never heard of it. Here's my story. https://twitter.com/...
| Flavia Rotondi / Bloomberg: |
An Italian museum is using cameras to monitor people looking at artwork, to define a work of art's “attraction value” and accordingly change museum layouts — As Italy's museums and galleries welcome back tourists and try to recoup some of the 190 million euros ($225 million) … Tweets:
Bloomberg CityLab / @citylab: Using cameras to monitor people looking at artwork, researchers hope that the data can help define “attraction value” for specific works of art, leading to changes in museum and gallery layout and exhibit scheduling https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Bloomberg CityLab / @citylab: Using cameras to monitor people looking at artwork, researchers hope that the data can help define “attraction value” for specific works of art, leading to changes in museum and gallery layout and exhibit scheduling https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
David S. Bernstein / @dbernstein: IRL click counter https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: I have a friend who's a chemical engineer who often talks about how lucky software people are to get detailed analytics of product usage. He often says imagine how much better appliances or buildings could be if you could redesign based on usage data. We will see more like this. https://twitter.com/...
James Kelleher / @etienneshrdlu: Looking forward to smashing my artistic KPIs with a clear call to action https://twitter.com/...
@axel_hexed: yes because, as we all know, valuing the world through engagement has worked out great so far and it's exactly what galleries and museums need. let's add upvote/downvote buttons everywhere too, fuck it https://twitter.com/...
@negrosubversive: Step two: Art dealers and apparatuses will start factoring “attraction value,” into how they assess the value of a piece. Step three: Art owners will loan out pieces and pay people to stand in front of them to raise their value... https://twitter.com/...
@georgiebroad: i've read a lot of depressing, dystopian, and soul-crushing headlines lately but this is so so grim. the planet is dying and there is a global plague and humans are all cruel shit heels and now we can't even look at some art without some ghouls trying to optimise “engagement” https://twitter.com/...
Southpaw / @nycsouthpaw: Every museum is already full of cameras pointed at the patrons but none of them are specifically pitched toward making us miserable, so “researchers” needed to add more. https://twitter.com/...
Ryan Broderick / @broderick: Good. I'm sick and tired of classic artists being exempt from the attention economy. They should feel the dehumanizing pressure of engagement metrics just like the rest of us. https://twitter.com/...
Bo Bolander / @bbolander: jesus creeping christ please leave us something that doesn't feel like something a dystopian novelist would think up on the toilet and then toss out, just one single solitary activity https://twitter.com/...
Sean Aitchison / @sean8urson: It's insane how much the concept of viewcounts has actively annihilated art https://twitter.com/...
Moomin James / @moomin_james: They're making art galleries into reddit God help us all https://twitter.com/...
Chris Zubak-Skees / @zubakskees: Looking forward to when the gallery is just Mona Lisas https://twitter.com/...
John Overholt / @john_overholt: .@DiscourseMarker did a really interesting study about how visitors experienced an exhibition at Houghton using gaze-tracking glasses, but crucially with specific, consenting volunteers, not mass surveillance. https://twitter.com/...
| Richard Lawler / The Verge: |
WhatsApp is testing encrypted cloud backups on Android — Read the fine print before you switch it on — When you're using WhatsApp your messages are encrypted end-to-end, which means prying eyes can't easily see what's in them as they travel back and forth.More:
Aisha Malik / mobilesyrup.com: WhatsApp reportedly testing end-to-end encrypted cloud backups for Android
Brittany A. Roston / SlashGear: WhatsApp adds encrypted cloud backups, but only for some beta users
Nathaniel Mott / PCMag: WhatsApp Is Reportedly Testing Encrypted Backups on Android
Abdullah / Gizchina: WhatsApp tests cloud backup encryption
| Lewis Gordon / The Verge: |
Interviews with digital artists and game makers who are pushing the boundaries in Roblox by creating interactive art projects and MMO games — Like so many Roblox players, digital artist Everest Pipkin has their own abandoned birthday world. — Last year, when the pandemic … Tweets:
Abhilash / @c0up: “You search a term or, more likely, scroll through what's popular at any given moment, pick a world depending on its thumbnail, and, whoosh, you're in. ” This description of Roblox is fascinating. It's like instead of watching a YouTube video, you're jumping into a game. https://twitter.com/...
Talewind Studios / @talewindgames: Breezy Bay just got featured in a fantastic article from @verge alongside some incredible @Roblox games that are pushing the boundaries of the platform. Thanks for letting us discuss the game with you @lewis_gordon! https://www.theverge.com/...
RTC / @roblox_rtc: NEWS: The Verge recently published an article about Roblox again, this one being of game makers, the “Epic” situation, and much more. Read here: 📖 https://www.theverge.com/...
| Helen Rosner / New Yorker: |
Experts say consent and disclosure are key to the ethical use of synthetic media, amid controversy surrounding Bourdain's deepfake voice in a new documentary — The new documentary “Roadrunner” uses A.I.-generated audio without disclosing it to viewers. How should we feel about that?More:
Tweets:
James Gleick / @jamesgleick: For me this is not a close call. Viewers will think they are hearing the voice of Anthony Bourdain. They are not. So it's false and deceptive. The practice should be shunned. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Jennifer Brandel / @jenniferbrandel: YES! The most thoughtful, nuanced and fair exploration of the use of AI in the Bourdain film @RoadrunnerMovie Full disclosure: I'm married to one of the film's editors, and @hels reporting mirrors the grappling and conversations we've had about it as the film came together. https://twitter.com/...
@newyorker: A new documentary about Anthony Bourdain uses A.I.-generated audio without disclosing it to viewers. How should we feel about that? https://nyer.cm/YUpKf9W
Annie Gowen / @anniegowen: Why is nobody is talking about the true ethical lapse in @RoadrunnerMovie which blames Bourdain's suicide on girlfriend Asia Argento but they never asked to interview her bc it would be “too painful” and they “already knew” what she was going to say? https://www.newyorker.com/...
Sam Gregory / @samgregory: Glad @hels asked for my responses to backlash around AI-generated lines in new Bourdain documentary: we've been focused on these issues (and work-shopped draft norms) as part of our @witnessorg 'Prepare, Don't Panic' initiative on #deepfakes (https://wit.to/... to learn +) https://twitter.com/...
Helen Rosner / @hels: How should we feel about that deepfake Anthony Bourdain voice in “Roadrunner”? I talked to Morgan Neville, Ottavia Busia, and some seriously smart A.I. ethicists about what happened, what didn't happen — and what might happen https://www.newyorker.com/...
@davidsunlee: To me, a person's voice feels like it's part of their likeness. And like your likeness, you should have control over how that it used, especially for commercial use https://twitter.com/...
Tom Philpott / @tomphilpott: Agreed w @hels that the decision not to interview Argento is more troubling than the deepfake line readings. Together, they really sap my enthusiasm to see this film though. https://twitter.com/...
Ali Alkhatib / @_alialkhatib: i think this article hits a couple of good points but two things still stick with me: 1. the blending of real and generated recordings makes it (maybe deliberately) ambiguous 2. the intimacy of the content generated is unlike any of the article's examples (nixon, simpsons, etc) https://twitter.com/...
Helen Rosner / @hels: Anyway I talked to some ethicists (and to Neville and to Bourdain's ex-wife Ottavia Busia) and reported it out https://www.newyorker.com/...
Karen Hao / @_karenhao: What are the ethics of using AI to fake Bourdain's voice in a documentary about his life? @SamGregory and I spoke with @hels about why it was such a jarring revelation for so many people. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Daniel Radosh / @danielradosh: whole article is worth reading but I suspect this is the crux because I'm not nearly as bothered by the AI thing as many people onhere even though I post a lot more about media ethics and I suspect the difference is I've never seen an Anthony Bourdain show https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Brian Floyd / @brianmfloyd: Helen is great at everything but especially working through complicated and thorny things like this. Was honestly waiting to see what she would report and write about it all https://twitter.com/...
Kainaz Amaria / @kainazamaria: Really good follow up by @hels on the AI used in the Bourdain doc. New technologies always raise ethical and moral questions. But A.I. in particular has an odious reputation which sets it apart and hence brings up all the feelings. https://twitter.com/...
Martin Stabe / @martinstabe: Important case study here in how to think about the ethics of AI-in-news, specifically the use of synthetic media to present in a subject's own voice words they wrote but didn't actually utter: https://twitter.com/...
Mike Cook / @mtrc: I think Karen Hao is one of the great AI critics, but I do feel she's off the mark here. We don't need to give this guy any slack, in my opinion - Helen herself here tracks down ethics specialists to discuss this idea for the article. Why couldn't Neville have done the same? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Yash / @yashwinacanter: i find the whole thing equally fascinating and unsettling and haven't really made up my mind either way, but this piece feels like the best way of untangling the emotions around the AInthony Bourdain discourse. in @hels we trust. https://twitter.com/...
Angela Chen / @chengela: .@_KarenHao and @SamGregory weigh in on the Anthony Bourdain voice deepfake: https://twitter.com/...
Jonah Blank / @jonahblank: Debate over #RoadRunner creating a #DeepFake of the voice of #AnthonyBourdain really doesn't need to be this complex: 1. In a work of fiction, it's OK to bend the truth. 2. In a documentary, it isn't. Simple. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Martin Austwick / @martinaustwick: Really interesting follow up on the use of voice deepfake tech to create fresh Bourdain vo. When I talked to @Riana_Crypto last year for the @20korg episode about voice deepfakes, the faking of dead people's voices was one of the grey areas she mentioned. https://twitter.com/...
| Bloomberg Law: |
TurboTax developer Intuit will leave the IRS Free File Program, which drew scrutiny in recent years after an investigation found Intuit hid free-filing options — Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax, is leaving an IRS program that offers millions of Americans the ability to file their taxes for free.
Tweets: @taxjustice, @carnage4life, @nickheer, @iansherr, @book_leslie, @blaketoliver, @justinelliott, @schxleo, @ericnakagawa, @tax, and @senwarren
More:
Mari Pullen / Intuit: Accelerating Technology Innovation to Better Help Consumers Solve Their Most Pressing Financial Problems
Celine Castronuovo / The Hill: TurboTax leaving IRS Free File Program
Tweets:
@taxjustice: An expose last year revealed Turbotax was steering lower-income tax filers eligible for free file to its paid tax filing services. Free file, a necessary public good, is contrary to its profit goals. ...at least the company is now being honest. https://news.bloombergtax.com/ ...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: The US income tax system is capitalism run amok. Instead of the government automatically sending you a refund or a bill, we pay Turbo Tax or H&R Block for tax prep. Then the government forces them to make free versions. Now both have stopped free version https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ ...
Nick Heer / @nickheer: Big a fan of press release titles. Intuit is pulling out of the IRS' Free File program, which is not exactly what you might imagine when you read “Accelerating Technology Innovation to Better Help Consumers Solve Their Most Pressing Financial Problems”. https://www.intuit.com/...
Ian Sherr / @iansherr: Intuit has also lobbied hard against simple automated tax returns. https://www.propublica.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Leslie Book / @book_leslie: Intuit withdraws from Free File. Time has come for better options for taxpayers; no upselling, ezaccess https://www.intuit.com/...
Blake Oliver / @blaketoliver: Intuit is pulling out of the Free File program after 20 years. Will the IRS now create its own app? Seems like the time is ripe. https://www.intuit.com/...
Justin Elliott / @justinelliott: Intuit/@TurboTax says it's pulling out of the Free File program that offers free tax filling to most Americans, saying the company's goal is “to democratize financial services” https://www.intuit.com/... (1/3) https://twitter.com/...
Borscht Belt Barbie / @schxleo: Send us a bill like every other country and shut down these businesses that have no genuine purpose!!! https://twitter.com/...
Eric Nakagawa / @ericnakagawa: Sounds like a good opportunity for open source software built with the US government. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ ...
@tax: After nearly 20 years, the maker of TurboTax is leaving an IRS program that offers millions of Americans the ability to file their taxes for free. https://btaxgo.com/eLAi8oy
Elizabeth Warren / @senwarren: I've spent years fighting the tax prep industry's schemes to sabotage Free File. The IRS and FTC are finally cracking down on @TurboTax, so they're quitting. The IRS should not rely on giant companies that rip off taxpayers for essential filing services. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ ...
| Ashley Carman / The Verge: |
A look at short-form audio apps like Racket, Beams, and Quest that let users record and share voice clips, as Facebook plans to enter the space with Soundbites — “So I've identified a few metrics and KPIs that I'm going to start tracking in order to better my overall life experience,” … | FinSMEs: |
Specright, whose software helps companies manage and share supply chain data across suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers, raises $30M Series B — Specright, a Tustin CA-based provider of Specification Management software, raised $30M in Series B funding.More:
Kevin Costelloe / ocbj.com: Specright Gets $30M Series B Funding
Maria Armental / Wall Street Journal: Sageview Capital Backs Software Maker Specright
| Tatiana Walk-Morris / Retail Dive: |
Foundry, which aims to acquire and optimize online brands for marketplaces like Amazon, launches with $100M from LightBay Capital and Monogram Capital Partners — Dive Brief: — As investors fund platforms that support digital brands, Foundry, a platform that supports and acquires online brands … Sponsor Posts
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| Zachery Eanes / Raleigh News & Observer: |
Source:
More:
Lauren Ohnesorge / Triangle Business Journal: Raleigh startup hits $4B valuation, aims to really ‘move the needle’ on acquisitions
Chris Cumming / Wall Street Journal: Hg to Make $1 Billion Investment in Insightsoftware
| Jason Parham / Wired: |
More:
Tweets:
@wired: This is a record of Blackness—how it moves and thrives online, how it creates, how it communes—told through the eyes of those who lived it. Here is the first official chronicling of how it all came together so fantastically: https://www.wired.com/... 5/
@niemanlab: “It took ABC News at least an hour before his passing came across the news ticker in Times Square. I remember thinking, ‘Damn, Twitter broke this news.’” https://www.wired.com/...
PublicSource / @publicsourcepa: “Black Twitter has become the most dynamic subset not only of Twitter but of the wider social internet. It is both news and analysis, call and response, judge and jury—a comedy showcase, therapy session, and family cookout all in one.” via @WIRED https://www.wired.com/...
@longreads: “Right as I was joining, I was like, oh, Black people are on here. And we're bodying it. We're really going in.” @nonlinearnotes @WIRED https://www.wired.com/... #longreads
S. E. Smith / @sesmith: Black Twitter is a social and cultural phenomenon that has had PROFOUND impact, and this is a detailed oral history on the subject. https://www.wired.com/...
Raju Narisetti / @raju: A People's History of Black Twitter, Part I From #UKnowUrBlackWhen to #BlackLivesMatter, how a loose online network became a pop culture juggernaut, an engine of social justice, and a lens into the future. https://www.wired.com/...? via @wired
@anthony: Black Twitter has become the most dynamic subset not only of Twitter but of the wider social internet. Capable of creating, shaping, and remixing popular culture at light speed, it remains the incubator of nearly every meme worth knowing about https://www.wired.com/...
Gideon Lichfield / @glichfield: Really proud that @WIRED is publishing @nonlinearnotes' oral history of Black Twitter—"a kind of record of Blackness—how it moves and thrives online, how it creates, how it communes—told through the eyes of those who lived it." This is part 1 of 3. https://www.wired.com/...
Alex Whitcomb / @alexwhitcomb: 15 years ago today, Twitter launched as a fun, quippy way to connect people online. We all know the trouble it has gotten into since then, but it also did something else: it gave a voice to the voiceless. A powerful beauty from @nonlinearnotes: https://www.wired.com/...
@wired: .@Twitter launched 15 years ago today, with the goal of changing how people communicate online. Now, @nonlinearnotes reconstructs the story of its most influential user group. Here, in all its melanated glory, is A People's History of Black Twitter: https://www.wired.com/...
@wired: Black Twitter is a multiverse, simultaneously an archive and an all-seeing lens into the future. 4/
@wired: The ingenious use of the app by Black users created a ripple effect that resulted in the creation of black community and empowerment. 2/
@wired: More than a decade later, Black Twitter has become the most dynamic subset not only of Twitter but of the wider social internet—capable of creating, shaping, and remixing popular culture at light speed. 🎨: Aaron Marin 3/ https://twitter.com/...
Condé Nast Library / @condelibrary: “Like all histories, it is incomplete. But it is a beginning. An outline. Think of it as a kind of record of Blackness—how it moves and thrives online, how it creates, how it communes—told through the eyes of those who lived it.” - @nonlinearnotes https://www.wired.com/... @WIRED
@kozza: I believe I have achieved full meta. Spoke with the homie @nonlinearnotes for h̶i̶s̶ our oral history of Black Twitter, and I couldn't be more honored. With illustrious company. https://www.wired.com/...
@longreads: “We make spaces out of spaces where we were not intended to be. That's what we do.” @nonlinearnotes @WIRED https://www.wired.com/... #longreads
| Allison Johnson / The Verge: |
| Wall Street Journal: |
Tweets:
Jorge Arango / @jarango: Spoiler: In this remake, Daedalus encourages Icarus to fly into the sun. https://www.wsj.com/...
Robbie Whelan / @rwhelanwsj: “Chicken First!”: How a Yoda meme, hand-drawn by SoftBank's Masa Son, explains the unraveling of WeWork. Tremendous excerpt from @eliotwb and @maureenmfarrell 's new book, “The Cult of We” on Adam Neumann, one of tech's great false messiahs. https://www.wsj.com/...
Patrick Bahners / @pbahners: „Decor inspired by gentrification should have been a tipoff." https://www.nytimes.com/...
Eliot Brown / @eliotwb: Elated by this NYT review of our book!! “I guzzled Brown and Farrell's “The Cult of We” the way Neumann might gulp bottled water after smoking so much pot on a private jet that flight attendants would reach for their air masks. (This actually happened)” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Dodes / @racheld: Loving reading about @katierosman's in-the-margins notes: “psychotic brilliance” P 83; “pyramid” P 182; “THE BOARD IS SO DUMB” P 237; and “sick burn” next to the last line of the last chapter of @maureenmfarrell & @eliotwb's 📚 https://www.nytimes.com/...
Demetri Kofinas / @kofinas: This was a fantastic book. I know, because I read it & interviewed author @maureenmfarrell for @HiddenForcesPod. Among the things that WeWork and Adam Neumann promised to do? Revolutionize education, solve Middle East peace, & build a community on Mars. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Dana Rubinstein / @danarubinstein: “I guzzled Brown and Farrell's ‘The Cult of We’ the way Neumann might gulp bottled water after smoking so much pot on a private jet that flight attendants would reach for their air masks.(This actually happened, according to Brown and Farrell's reporting)” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Maureen Farrell / @maureenmfarrell: Absolutely thrilled beyond belief to read the NYT review of our book! I love reading @katierosman's NYT stories as they combine brilliant reporting with so many moments of LOLing, which I also did many times reading this review! https://twitter.com/...
Ahmed Al Omran / @ahmed: WeWork founder believed it wasn't enough for his company just to have a big valuation. It needed to have the biggest valuation. That way when countries started shooting at one another, he would be the one they would have to call to solve their problems https://www.wsj.com/...
@gregbensinger: Who among us hasn't thought their investments could be worth $10 trillion? Read this for just a few of the eye-popping details from @eliotwb @maureenmfarrell's “Cult of We” due out next week https://www.wsj.com/...
@constans: On one hand Adam Neumann seems totally delusional and off in a fantasy world. On the other hand he pocketed $1 billion from those delusions https://twitter.com/...
Felix Gillette / @felixgillette: “It's also very funny, with Brown and Farrell employing wry juxtaposition and understatement to enjoyable effect.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Eliot Brown / @eliotwb: -WeWork's Adam Neumann once asked Masa Son for $70 B -Masa sent him a motivational picture of Yoda -Masa planned for WeWork to be worth $10 Trillion by 2028 -Adam's strategy: a triangle of trillions Please read our book excerpt for THE CULT OF WE (!) https://www.wsj.com/...
Maureen Farrell / @maureenmfarrell: Masa and Adam Neumann sketched out plans to build WeWork into a $10 trillion company. Read our story for more details on how their relationship led to the rise and fall of WeWork https://www.wsj.com/...
Ann Lipton / @annmlipton: “As Mr. Son pushed Mr. Neumann for more, and as the two charted out the future, their plans tested the boundaries of the world's financial system.” https://www.wsj.com/...
Mark Bergen / @mhbergen: Chicken first!!! https://twitter.com/...
David Uberti / @daviduberti: “Mr. Son quickly committed to invest over $4 billion after a 12 minute tour of WeWork in late 2016.” https://twitter.com/...
Bradley Hope / @bradleyhope: So excited for this book! The reporters are so good it's going to be like learning everything about WeWork for the first time https://www.wsj.com/...
Eliot Brown / @eliotwb: Also, we have Adam Neumann's *ACTUAL SLIDE PRESENTATIONS* to Masa https://www.wsj.com/... Here's one calling for a chill $182 B in annual revenue from a business WeWork hadn't developed yet https://twitter.com/...
Ben Mullin / @benmullin: “After he met U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer in the Capitol, he turned to his staff. ‘No more mayors,’ he said. ‘Only senators from now on.’” https://twitter.com/...
Ron Charles / @roncharles: One of many cringy moments in this story: “Following a dinner with Walter Isaacson, WeWork founder Adam Neumann gathered staff around to read a complimentary email from the author. He told his employees he wanted Isaacson to write a biography about him.” https://www.wsj.com/...
Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer: I am reading @eliotwb's book on WeWork and it is a rollicking ride through startup insanity. Here is the first excerpt out this AM: https://www.wsj.com/... And BUY it: https://www.amazon.com/...
Eliot Brown / @eliotwb: How billions fly around: Here is the Yoda picture SoftBank CEO Masa Son sent to Adam. ‘10k 10k 10k’ refers to WeWork's 10,000 targets for salespeople, RE people and buildings. They had hundreds at the time https://twitter.com/...
Eliot Brown / @eliotwb: On the topic of messianic visions... after Adam Neumann met Chuck Schumer in the capitol, he reveled in the status of the big name. He turned to his aides and said: “No more mayors,” he said. “Only senators from now on.”
Eliot Brown / @eliotwb: Here is Masa's handwriting on a chart of WeWork projecting a cool $101 B in revenue in 2023. Masa extends the hockey stick chart to 2028 Total planned valuation: “$10 T” (T = Trillion) https://twitter.com/...
Dave Benoit / @davecbenoit: That time Adam Neumann requested, and this is not a typo, $70 billion from Masa Son. 🤑 Guys, this @eliotwb @maureenmfarrell book is gonna be 🔥 https://www.wsj.com/...
Zach Seward / @zseward: Frame this, mint it as an NFT, whatever: the defining image of late-2010s venture capital has been located. “Chicken First!!” by Masa Son (2018). https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Earlier Picks
| Sophia Kunthara / Crunchbase News: |
More:
Marlize van Romburgh / Crunchbase News: Funding To Black Startup Founders Quadrupled In Past Year, But Remains Elusive
Tweets:
Henri Pierre-Jacques / @hpierrejacques: “The biggest change has been that downstream capital is just moving at a pace we've never seen for people of color” It's encouraging to see significant increase in dollars going to Black founders ($1.8B in 1H21), but the number of rounds and % is flat https://news.crunchbase.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@crunchbasenews: In this addition to the Something Ventured project, we find that while venture funding to Black startup entrepreneurs in the U.S. remains woefully small, Crunchbase numbers show a significant uptick over the past year. https://news.crunchbase.com/ ...
Janine Sickmeyer / @myfriendjanine: Funding to Black-founded startups has quadrupled in the past year but the number is still just 1.2%. That's why @OverlookedVC is here - to change these stats! Thanks for leading the way @HarlemCapital @MaCVentureCap @Base10Partners @BLCKVC @reachfund https://news.crunchbase.com/ ...
Atul Butte / @atulbutte: Finally some good news on this, but still a long way to go... Funding to Black startup founders quadrupled in past year, but remains elusive (via @crunchbasenews)... https://news.crunchbase.com/ ...
Lucia Brawley / @luciabrawley: .34% of all funding is a 5-year HIGH??? This is a pathetic disgrace!!!!!! You read that right - there's a decimal point before that percentage. Black Women Still Receive Just A Tiny Fraction Of VC Funding Despite 5-Year High https://news.crunchbase.com/ ... via @crunchbasenews
Matt Svoboda / @elektrkshepherd: Let's boil down intersectional theory into just a few lazy calculations! Black % of US: 13.4 Black female % of US: 7.0% Funding share for Black founders: 1.2%. Black female founders: 0.3% So being Black is ~10x less opp, whereas Black+female is ~20x https://news.crunchbase.com/ ...
Tuni Sharpe / @tunisharpe: “Black female startup founders have received just 0.34% of the total venture capital spent in the U.S. in 2021.” “VC funding to U.S. startups led by Black women is on track to outpace the past five years” Shout out to @foundergym ! https://news.crunchbase.com/ ...
Theodora / @psb_dc: While the $ funding to Black founders is up, it only represents just 1.2% of the record $147B in #VC #funding invested in U.S. #startups thru 1H2021. cc @ArlanWasHere @stephfoster2020 @LMAtem @SonyaDreizler @SabineVdL https://news.crunchbase.com/ ... via @SophiaKunthara @crunchbasenews https://twitter.com/...
| Michelle F Davis / Bloomberg: |
| Steve Lohr / New York Times: |
Tweets:
Brian / @arekfurt: The poster child case where a tech company's extraordinary hype and marketing promises got way, way, way ahead of what new technology could actually deliver. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Josh Wolfe / @wolfejosh: I used to rail against IBM Watson nonsensical hype—(as I did against Tesla + Trump) + stopped when a critical mass of people finally acknowledged Watson was BS I spent time w/ smart inventor Ferrucci—trapped by silence. Wait til he ‘leaves’ Bridgewater.. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Kontra / @counternotions: 2011: Steve Jobs on IBM ↓ 2021: Reality on IBM https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Joseph Williams / @rhudaur: “The challenges turned out to be far more difficult and time-consuming than anticipated.” Yup, easy to market AI, tough to make it real. https://www.nytimes.com/...
W. Patrick McCray / @leapingrobot: An overhyped AI has failed to live up to expectations https://www.nytimes.com/...
Scott Nations / @scottnations: The most interesting line? IBM's stock price is down 10% since Watson's victory on “Jeopardy” in 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Mark Summerfield / @patentology: Like many other past contestants on Jeopardy, IBM's Watson has gone on to do very little else of any great note https://twitter.com/...
@nytimes: IBM's Watson was supposed to transform industries and generate riches for the company. Neither has panned out. Today, it stands out as a sobering example of the pitfalls of hype and hubris around AI. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Nikolai Slavov / @slavov_n: It's remarkable how industry can waste billions of dollar based on premisses that a technically informed observer could have easily seen as unsubstantiated https://www.nytimes.com/...
David Sanger / @sangernyt: Fascinating read from the great @SteveLohr on IBM's travails with Watson, once considered in the vanguard of AI. A take of over-ambition and over-expectations. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Michael Andrews / @storyneedle: IBM Watson is a content marketing anti-pattern. The narrative sounded great but it over-promised and under-delivered. Some candid remarks here from IBM insiders. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@claudiawilliams: Striking difference between todays @awscloud announcement “we will help you organize messy data” https://press.aboutamazon.com/ ... and past failure of IBM Watson “we will solve health's hardest problems with AI” https://www.nytimes.com/... First is far less sexy but way more effective
| Peggy Hollinger / Financial Times: |