Have you heard about the Substack Nazis? Guys, there are NAZIS on SUBSTACK making MONEY for NAZI THINGS. It’s a very serious problem, according to the crackerjack “reporting” of one Casey Newton, this problem of literal Nazi Substack writers — hundreds, I imagine, with an audience in the hundreds of thousands I’m sure, and millions of dollars pumping through this horrifying Nazi publishing machine. American democracy is at stake! But fear not, for the small price of $100 a year Casey Newton, a “journalist,” will keep away the Substack Nazis.

I’m kidding of course, there is no meaningful Substack Nazi movement, and Casey isn’t a journalist. Casey is a political activist who calls himself a journalist in service of mainstreaming his activism under the cover of neutrality, and providing his tech industry readers with a good excuse to expense his blog to the very companies Casey sets out daily to unfairly malign (note: if you work at a major tech company and have the power, please stop giving this man money). In any case, we really should unpack this latest clown car crash, because through it we can clearly see the future of tech, once again wading through a toxic waste dump election year.

Back in November, in the pages of the Atlantic, left-wing activist Jonathan M. Katz accused Substack of sustaining an actual American Nazi movement, wildly distorting the issue, and outright falsely claiming at least one Nazi thot leader made his entire living on the platform. Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie published a response, reminding readers 1) Substack, a service that helps writers send emails, basically adheres to the First Amendment, and 2) anyone inciting violence of the kind implied by the Atlantic would be, and has always been, removed from the service. This triggered Casey Newton, the Sam Smith of tech journalism, into this month’s frenzied bit of “journalist” performance art, in which he surfaced six nefarious “extremist” writers (out of several hundred thousand Substacks), and sent them to Substack for comment. Substack, which seems not to have known they existed on account of they were so few and so entirely irrelevant, immediately took down five in violation of their terms. Nonetheless, Casey left the platform in protest of the Nazi Substack movement that did not, and still does not, exist.

An incredible quote from our starlet as he sashayed away (note: his work is still, at the time of my writing, live on Substack, though presumably only because he can’t figure out how to migrate off the platform):

We don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse,” [Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie] wrote. “We believe that supporting individual rights and civil liberties while subjecting ideas to open discourse is the best way to strip bad ideas of their power.”

This was the moment where I started to think Platformer would need to leave Substack.

Jesse Singal tackled the subject of Casey’s distortions for a piece worth reading here, and followed up with a longer piece thoroughly debunking the Atlantic’s claims here.

Altogether, there does appear to have once been a very small handful of white supremacist writers on the platform, amassing something like 100 readers combined (for context, Pirate Wires now publishes to over 60,000 readers). None of these writers made money on Substack, much less a full-time living. Unfortunately, most of this work is difficult to check because Casey neglected to share actual names of writers he has deemed extremist, just as he neglected to share the number of extremist newsletters detected until further reporting by Singal forced his hand. The important takeaway: Newton’s own investigation actually revealed the Atlantic’s report was grossly exaggerated, a fact Newton chose not to share. This is fairly straightforward activism of a kind we’ve come to expect from the Platformer, which separately employs Zoe Schiffer, one of the most committed political activists in “tech journalism” (I’ve covered Zoe’s work for a couple years now, with topics including her dishonest union distortions, her role in the firing of Antonio Garcia Martinez, and her failed attempt to drag Tim Cook into the Israel / Palestine conflict — my personal favorite).

The reason the “extremist” question matters, especially in an election year, is activists like Casey want rules in place at every major speech platform prohibiting not only incitement of violence, but constitutionally-protected speech activists like Casey and Katz themselves deem “extremist.” Separate from the moral problem inherent of political censorship, there is also of course a great danger in ceding the definition of “extremism” to people like Casey and Katz.

Back in 2020, the political left controlled every major speech platform in the country. The results? True information pertaining to everything from the election to Covid was suppressed in keeping with fairly straightforward left-wing orthodoxy. But over the last four years, email grew into a more formidable form of distribution, Elon shattered the prior order’s political censorship, and the Overton window collapsed. Phantom Nazi hunters like Casey Newton are scared. With less power than ever before to bully the tech industry into censoring views they don’t like, they may be forced to attempt some real defense of their own indefensible political positions. Such unlikeable people are doomed to lose any kind of fair debate, a fact of which they are very well aware.

Expect all attacks targeting the internet’s few remaining free platforms of significance to grow more hysterical, and more frequent.

THE FIFTH ESTATE

NOTABLE INDUSTRY TRENDS

One World Government Summit off to a promising start. With the world’s most powerful men and women descended on Davos for the World Economic Forum’s annual idea exchange (it’s a sex party), the question of disinformation just took center stage. Yesterday, Ursula von der Leyen went viral for her insistence the world’s top concern is “disinformation and misinformation.” This on the heels of the European Union’s demand Elon Musk recommence with draconian political censorship.

Not for nothing, but my grandfather didn’t fight actual Nazis so a German woman could tell me what I can and can’t say. Some friendly advice: focus on the Red Sea for a minute, and try to imagine the cost of European consumer goods and energy in a world where the United States stops protecting all your stuff. Call me crazy, but I suspect the collapse of the American-led post-WWII global market free-for-all is going to hit a little harder than NuclearBob69’s nasty opinions on transgender athletes.

Diversity, equity, and delusion. Main thing about pilots? Why, they need to be “diverse,” of course. At least, that’s the takeaway from United CEO Scott Kirby’s recently resurfaced comments on the matter, latest in a wave of crazy ass airplane news, all culminating in the most bananas story of the year — when a door blew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliner mid-flight. As far as I can tell, that one, at least, had nothing to do with DEI. But the broader story looks something like this: following social media’s Overton window collapse, it is now perfectly acceptable to challenge once-sacred political orthodoxy, and the discourse is furiously animated on a relitigation of the past few years of DEI dogma. Expect many more stories from 2020/2021 to resurface, with not only a great embarrassment of CEOs that participated in regressive hiring, but a trend in litigation.

Fortunately, as a great purveyor of clown world nonsense, our tech press remains unfazed by the overall vibe shift. A brief, tasteful roundup of the most exceedingly idiotic stories we read this week:

• “It’s puzzling to me why we, as a community, keep erasing sexuality from tech — when it’s such a universal part of the human experience — to such an extent.” Folks, TechCrunch is concerned about fleshlight erasure at tech conferences. What are you doing to support the latest “ultimate handjob machine”? And why do I suspect it’s not NEARLY enough? (TechCrunch)

• 2024 will be the year everyone realizes AI is not good, said a WIRED writer who has discerned, before anyone else, AI is not good. (WIRED) Also, according to another WIRED writer, 2024 will be the year a massive wave of regulation hits the tech industry, and that — of course — will be very good. (WIRED)

• Two hard-hitting pieces of journalism from the neo-establishment press this week:

• From TechCrunch: “ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot”

• From The Verge: “How to copy and paste on an iPhone”

• We know you have your choice in websites, so thank you for choosing Pirate Wires

INDUSTRY LINKS

BROAD TECH:

• Friday, Microsoft overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable company. Together the two companies account for roughly 14% of the S&P 500. (Bloomberg)

• Apple, however, became the world’s top smartphone maker by volume in 2023, dethroning Samsung for the first time in 12 years. (FT)

• Former Uber executive Emil Michael is alleging Benchmark’s Bill Gurley — who now takes credit for the appointment of Dara Khosrowshahi over Meg Whitman — actually threatened lawsuits to keep Dara from the job. (@emilmichael)

• Uber announced the alcohol delivery service Drizly will be shutting down. It acquired the company three years ago in a $1.1 billion deal. (Axios)

• In some “Elon Musk does drugs” news: NASA says it “does not have evidence” of drug use at SpaceX. (Bloomberg) Pathetic decline. Just a few years ago this industry was unapologetically microdosing. Please be better!

• Elon says rewards “will increase significantly” for creators after Mr. Beast first rejected an offer, then uploaded his first video to X. Said Mr. Beast, “I’m curious to see how much ad revenue a video on X would make.” (Business Insider)

• The cofounders of Instagram have shut down their news aggregation startup Artifact, saying “the market isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.” I didn’t know this existed actually. Did you know this existed? (@sarthakgh)

• John Deere is linking up with SpaceX to connect their farm equipment with high-speed satellite Internet. Sawyer Merritt called it. New cattle raiser Mark Zuckerberg is rejoicing. (Business Insider)

• Palantir has agreed to a strategic partnership with the nation of Israel, in which the company will supply technology to help with the country’s ongoing war effort. (Bloomberg)

• Tesla has temporarily paused production at its German factory in the wake of recent Red Sea attacks, which have disrupted the supply chain. (The Hill)

• Thinking of buying the Apple Vision Pro? Be prepared for a 25-minute sales pitch including a demo featuring “clips of wild animals.” (Bloomberg) Steve, why have you abandoned us?

• Snap CEO Evan Spiegel outlined his vision as the world moves beyond the smartphone in a Monday memo to his company: “Timing matters, hence the urgency, because consumer augmented reality glasses will gain momentum before the end of the decade, and this is our chance to transcend the limitations of the smartphone and provide a computing experience that is more sensational and shareable." (Business Insider)

• Hertz will offload 20,000 Teslas from their fleet after price cuts from Tesla kneecapped the resale value of the cars, putting their agreement with Tesla to buy 100,000 of their cars on pause, for now. (NYT)

• An interesting perspective on the future of trade and globalism from Flexport’s Ryan Petersen this week: 

$$$:

• OpenAI-backed startup 1X has raised an additional $100M in its mission to perfect the humanoid robot. (Tech Crunch)

AI:

• Thomson Reuters may strike a deal to provide AI companies with their content, similar to the December deal that Politico parent company Axel Springer made with OpenAI. (Bloomberg) OpenAI is also in talks with CNN, Fox, and Time to license their work. 

• “All the training data has been stolen,” says Marc Benioff, referring to AI companies using publishers’ content to train their models. (Bloomberg)

• A Pirate Wires investigation has found that the fair-use doctrine has existed in the US since the 1976 Copyright Act

• Sam Altman has not called us for permission to train on our content, nor has he, to the best of our knowledge, trained his budding supergod on our writing (sad, alarming, whatever the opposite of based is)

• Check out Patrick Blumenthal’s deep dive on his experience using GPT to navigate his rare, chronic health issues (@PatrickJBlum)

• According to a new study from Boston Consulting Group, consultants using GPT-4 solved 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without GPT at their disposal. (@burny_tech)

• OpenAI is now working with the Pentagon on “a number of projects.” (Bloomberg) It’s also launching tools to prevent its products from ‘being used for misinformation’ ahead of a major election year. One of the tools: an AI image detector that allegedly works (they say it has a 99% accuracy rate). (Bloomberg)

• OpenAI now has over 260 enterprise customers for ChatGPT, representing a combined user base of more than 150,000 workers. (Bloomberg)

• An interesting blog post by 1A3ORN details all the “AI Safety” organizations that actually, really do want to criminalize certain existing AI models, today. 

• Tesla dropped a video of their Optimus robot folding a t-shirt. Elon followed up to clarify that “Optimus cannot yet do this autonomously.” (Business Insider)

• AI is a big part of the agenda at Davos, according to the NYT’s Dealbook newsletter; per Fortune, “one of the four main themes of the event is ‘Artificial Intelligence as a Driving Force for the Economy and Society’” and “more than two dozen sessions at the event are focused directly on AI.” (Fortune)

• Almost every mainstream news outlet on the planet wants you to know the hour-long ‘comedy special’ of an AI doing an impression of George Carlin’s voice and stand-up, produced by the YouTube channel Dudesy — co-helmed by former MadTV star Will Sasso — is NOT approved by Carlin’s daughter, who, depending on which nearly-identical story you read, “spoke out against,” “slammed,” and “called out” the video, which currently has over 400k views, outperforming the average viewcount on the channel by about 10x.

• AI girlfriend bots are finding their way onto OpenAI’s new GPT Store, despite platform rules that prohibit them. (Business Insider)

nice

Check out the latest over on the Pirate Wires pod:

Litigation and regulation:

• Joe Biden is modeling a new piece of legislation restricting independent work off of Gavin Newsom’s AB 5, which took a sledgehammer to California’s gig economy. Among the 608 professions that could be affected? Barbershop quartets, actors, bloggers, cam girls, and church clergy. At least they’re equal opportunity (un)employers. (@KevinKileyCA)

• Microsoft’s $13 billion investment into Open AI is being scrutinized by European Union antitrust regulators. “What is interesting for us of course is what is the real relationship between Open AI and Microsoft when it comes to control of the business in question,” said Margrethe Vestager of the European Commission of the links between the two companies. Should they decide to further vet the move under EU merger rules, a full-blown investigation could be the next step. (Bloomberg)

• The UK, finally aware its primary technology export is now just regulation, has published a series of ‘tests’ that must be met in order for new laws surrounding AI. Among things the tests would look for include risks that fail to be identified by their ‘AI Safety Institute’ or AI companies failing to uphold voluntary commitments to avoid harm. (Financial Times)

• Carta is in trouble, again — this time it’s a lawsuit from the former CTO accusing CEO Henry Ward of misusing resources, and comparing him to Don Corleone from The Godfather. (Bloomberg)

• Amazon is refusing to submit remedies to EU regulators who want to block the company’s acquisition of Roomba-maker iRobot. Eurocrats must approve or block the deal by Feb 14. (Bloomberg)

• The US Supreme Court declined to hear Apple’s challenge to the 2023 court ruling from Epic v. Apple requiring Apple to soften its rules around in-app payments. (Reuters)

• SpaceX slammed the National Labor Relations Board in a suit arguing the agency itself is unconstitutional. (The spat stems from what the NLRB says was wrongful termination of eight employees who contributed to a 2022 open letter criticizing Elon.) (Business Insider)

Human resources:

• Former Vice President Al Gore and ex-Boeing CFO James Bell (boy, is that company glad to be in the news for something else this week) have both announced they will be retiring from their posts on the Apple board this year, citing the general age limit of 75 for directors. (The Information) Our president is still 81, however, targeting that 2028 prime decision-making age of 85.

• Google is laying off hundreds of workers across several divisions. Said a spokesperson, “We’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead… some teams are continuing to make these organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.” (SF Examiner) (Hint: the “biggest priorities” are more AI)

• Apple wants to move a 121-person AI team from San Diego to Austin, a change that could result in “several dozen” workers leaving the company if they refuse to relocate. (Bloomberg)

• Tesla is bumping pay at its California plant, likely an effort to stall auto worker unionization. (Bloomberg)

• Garry Tan to founders: “you sort of have to be in San Francisco.” (Fortune)

• Discord is cutting 170 employees, or about 17% of its workforce. (Business Insider)

• Cal Henderson, Slack’s only remaining co-founder, is out as CTO, and will be replaced by Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris. (Fortune)

Crypto:

• The UN has sounded the alarm on cryptocurrency platform Tether, claiming it’s favored by money launderers and those who engage in fake romance frauds known as “pig butchering.” No word on whether or not that’s related to the cyberstalking campaign that eBay just forked up $3M over in which a literal fetal pig was sent to a couple’s house (seriously). (Financial Times)

• It happened folks. After a false start triggered by the hacking of the SEC’s X account, Bitcoin ETFs have officially made their way to market. While some companies were slow to embrace the move, the $4.6B in new trading volume had Larry Fink doing… a bit of an about-face (image below)

• Two senators called for the SEC to investigate the hack, and the House Financial Services committee demanded that Gensler answer questions from the committee related to the breach this week. (The Hill)

Trade war:

• South Korea’s government is investing $471 billion to open 13 new chip plants in the country. Semiconductors already account for 16% of South Korea’s exports. (Bloomberg)

• Apple is cutting iPhone 15 prices in China by $70 to counter softening demand for their phones in the country. Analysts say that 2023 iPhone sales may have slumped by 30% after Huawei introduced their Mate 60 phone. (Bloomberg)

• Chip imports to China fell by 15.4% last year, the steepest decline on record. The decline can be attributed to a weak semiconductor market (AI chips are the exception) and US trade restrictions on the most advanced chips. (Bloomberg)

• China could double its chip output over the next five years, Barclays analysts say. (Bloomberg)

• Chinese companies hampered by US export controls are resorting to stripping GPUs from gaming PCs to power their AI tools. (FT)

This newsletter was compiled with a great deal of assistance from Brandon Gorrell and Riley Nork.