Big gets bigger
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#TheWallStreetJournal
FTC Loses Antitrust Challenge to Facebook Parent Meta
wsj.com/articles/ftc-l
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Bob Sullivan
@RedTapeChron
Independent journalist in consumer / tech issues. Author of 5 books, 15 years at MSNBC.com. Now BobSullivan.net, podcast host. Visiting scholar at Duke U.
BobSullivan.netJoined August 2007
Bob Sullivan’s Tweets
The Red Tape Chronicles : Gotcha Capitalism on the run! If you hate hidden fees, now's the time to pay attention
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It's confirmed: Rep. Ken Buck, one of the most fervent tech critics in the House, will not be the chair of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee. It will be Rep. Thomas Massie, who takes a libertarian view on corporate oversight.
This is a win for the big tech companies.
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This thread is amazing and shows how different people's lives experiences are across the U.S.
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Can you buy a ‘nice house’ where you live for under $500K?
On the hundredth anniversary of the proclamation of Saint #FrancisdeSales as patron of journalists, let us #PrayTogether that journalists might be inspired by this saint toward tenderness, toward the search and narration of truth with courage and freedom.
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The Red Tape Chronicles : Crypto investors have lost $2 trillion. There's plenty of blame to go around, but what now?
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Great, well done. Now do the rest of the economy. "Too Big to..." is everywhere you look.
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Clyde Lawrence of @lawrencetheband argues Live Nation has a monopoly on the ticketing industry:
"Due to Live Nation's control across the industry, we have practically no leverage in negotiating... If they want to charge us $250 for a stack of 10 clean towels, they can and have."
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here's the google ad tech complaint: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
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DOJ v Google lawsuit over adtech market is coming momentarily. No complaint yet but docket is up. States including CA, NY, VA, CO join DOJ case in eastern district of virginia
courtlistener.com/docket/6675378
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So glad to see take on The Work Number and . I've been warrning people for 10 years about it. It's astonishing this company/feature even exists. Most times, when I explain it, people don't even believe me bobsullivan.net/archive/archiv
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I found audio of Equifax’s CEO bragging about his firm’s monopoly power in an obscure area - selling information about your salary to third parties. mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-equifax-
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If you aren't reading these days, you probably don't understand all the hidden forces that are making you/us miserable. Instead of throwing eggs at each other, spend a couple minutes digesting this today #GotchaCapitalism
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The instant that governments rolled out #relief funds so #quarantine-shuttered firms wouldn't fail and #covid-furloughed workers wouldn't starve, execs started rubbing their forelegs together, planning to raise prices and blame #inflation caused by giving money to The Poors. 1/
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i think it's so cool that every CEO at every company suddenly decided exactly five to seven percent of their workforce needed to not work anymore. what a weird coincidence
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Read up on Rockets and Feathers if you haven't yet.
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One story that will be told about our time in coming decades is how various corporate cabals used the pandemic to exaggerate inflation pressures and soak up extraordinary profits -- along the way proving in #GotchaCapitalism price mechanisms are deeply flawed.
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Would you believe that egg prices are higher because a giant company decided they could make more profit by raising prices and blaming "bird flu" and "inflation" rather than anything to do with bird flu or anything else
vice.com/en/article/qjk
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Civil liberties groups have been watching the rise in geofencing with concern.
And ’s finding that political groups can easily access this data to track immigrants is just one reason why.
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The Red Tape Chronicles : Why are state governments starting to ban TikTok?
Heavy on the 'artificial' light on the 'intelligence
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Anyway, here's our story:
CNET's Article-Writing AI Is Already Publishing Very Dumb Errors
futurism.com/cnet-ai-errors
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Here's audio from Friday's AA-DL near-miss @ JFK. It's chilling. Recent airline woes highlighted by me & others have focused on flight disruptions & customer service. But this is different--potential catastrophe of another magnitude. Fine job by ATC @ JFK.
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My Uber driver complimented my gray hair last night as I was exiting after my ride. This made me strangely happy.
This is more than a bit chilling
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Within weeks of ChatGPT going live, participants in cybercrime forums—some with little or no coding experience—were using it to write software that could be used for espionage, ransomware, and other malicious tasks.
trib.al/me2fPCp
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The Red Tape Chronicles -- The Texas serial killer podcast: Chemirmir is finally convicted, but ageism was the murder weapon
This would right one of the most un-American wrongs that American workers face. It's so wrong I think most people don't believe it goes on if they've never experienced it first-hand. “The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy”
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The freedom to change jobs is fundamental; today's release of a proposed ban on non-competes by the FTC will prevent unfairly locking employees into jobs with lower pay or worse working conditions. That's one reason it was such a central part of the EO. ftc.gov/news-events/ne
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Coinbase likely enabled “serious criminal conduct” including “examples of fraud, possible money laundering, suspected child sexual abuse material-related activity, and potential narcotics trafficking”. twitter.com/FT/status/1610
This Tweet is unavailable.
There’s a new version of this Tweet
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Minutes after Damar Hamlin collapsed, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers flooded Twitter with COVID-19 disinformation and conspiracy theories. COVID-19 disinformation is dangerous, and we desperately need legislation to address disinformation on social media platforms.
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Is this where independent or freelance journalists can fill in the gap by becoming niche reporters? But the first the industry will need to do is pay freelancers what they are worth as professional journalists. There is a wealth of talent out there for the industry to access.
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Replying to @_Eric_Reinhart
The death of beat reporting impacts every area of journalism....modern life, really. You need a decade or so to get really good at reporting on any subject and...who has time for that? It's tragic.
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"1990s middle class lifestyle" means 3-bedroom house, 2 cars, annual family road trip holiday, every 5 years overseas holiday, the 2-3 kids go to solid 4-year colleges, something like home roof repairs is financially non-catastrophic.
In 2022 I've described a 400K/yr+ household.
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The Red Tape Chronicles : The Texas serial killer, parts 2 and 3 -- a victim survives, the jury won't convict
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“You don’t have to go to a casino to lose a lot of money.” More time spent online, legalized sports betting and an increase in gambling-like elements in videogames are contributing to gaming and gambling problems among young men.
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Can someone explain to me how blocking links to a competitor's service - telling users the links are dangerous or contain malware - just to restrict trade and artificially increase switching costs - is not an unfair or deceptive trade practice? Cc
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Listen to EM explain what happened at Twitter tonight
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Here is Elon Musk's full response tonight concerning criticisms over his suspension of numerous journalists.
Musk accuses journalists who reported on the suspension of the account "ElonJet" of "doxxing" before abruptly leaving the Twitter Space. youtube.com/watch?v=xgenJS
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This is what it feels like when a local pub closes. Hey let's all go to Sullivan's, the old gang can hang there! Speaking of that ... Love to see you at my Redtape.Substack.com or bobsullivan@mastodon.social
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It seems that Twitter is now actively thwarting user attempts to connect followers to Mastodon, labelling links as "unsafe'
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This is much more than strange
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Journalists who cover Elon Musk have been suspended on Twitter tonight: @Donie O'Sullivan from CNN, Aaron Rupar and the Washington Post's @drewharwell.
Rupar tells me he has "no idea" why it happened.
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Terrible customer service is a dangerous cyber vulnerability, #TooBigToScale - Former FDIC head has to use kid's Twitter to plead for help after imposter attack - Elon & Co suspended *her* instead of the imposter. If you can't support the biz, you shouldn't exist
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So Twitter has suspended former FDIC chair and banking expert Sheila Bair, mistaking her handle for an imposter account. Not great twitter.com/SheilaBair5/st…
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We love out pets, but pray they don't get sick. The "Too Big problem" is hardly limited to banks or tech. Consolidation has hit every industry, crushing the good-old-fashioned competition that brings out the best in us. And in this case, making pets care astronomically expensive.
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Noticing you’re paying more at your local vet than you used to?
There’s a good chance that it’s been bought out by private equity firms through a devious strategy known as “serial mergers.”
@denisehearn_, @KristaKBrown, @ErikPeinert & Taylor Sekhon’s NEW report explains.
twitter.com/econliberties/…
twitter.com/econliberties/…5
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The Red Tape Chronicles -- In Conversation: With SBF arrest, is crypto having a Lehman Brothers moment or a Bernie Madoff moment?
Ok I've decided: new band name is May or May Not Be Notable.
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Really disturbing. About the latest selfie craze
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I tried the viral Lensa AI portrait app, and got lots and lots of nudes. I know AI image generation models are full of sexist and racist biases, but this one really hit home. My latest story for @techreview technologyreview.com/2022/12/12/106
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