Welcome back to the Pirate Wires Morning Report, our news digest / water cooler shit talk break / poetic American self-reflection at the crossroads of technology, politics, and culture. The brief hits your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Today: the ableist Reddit blackout saga, updates on antitrust and Section 230 litigation, a ton of tech links, pics from the Trump arraignment (River actually drove over Tuesday and vaped his way through the circus), a roundup of insane news out of California (is there any other kind?), the misleading headlines and rightwing tantrums roiling the Clown World, and tons more. Share this one with your most elite friends only.

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TECHNOLOGY

Reddit blackout saga. Clutch your pearls, nerds: Reddit is charging third parties for access to its API. Among many things, this means companies built on a foundation of free access to the API are facing steep, potentially existential fees. As a result, thousands of subreddits have elected to “go dark,” or private, in protest. The scale of drama catalyzed by this decision has been… large, let’s say. The Verge has been following closely:

• Subreddit blackouts cause site to crash, compromise Google search results (The Verge)

• Reddit CEO tells employees blackout protests will pass… (The Verge)

• …but communities plan to extend them indefinitely (The Verge)

• Over 8,000 have gone dark, nearly 9,000 more plan to join (The Verge)

• Reddit’s holdout is ableist, because blind users rely on third-party interfaces priced out by API policy changes (The Verge)

• Christian Selig, third-party developer whose API pricing dispute with Reddit spurred protests, speaks up (The Verge)

Apple closes at record high despite analyst downgrade. Yet another stock broker has reduced Apple’s rating from “buy” to “neutral,” tanking the rating to its lowest position since 2020 — worse than any other mega-cap company. Nonetheless, the plebes don’t seem to give a shit. We all have iPhones in our pocket, which tends to strike the Every Man as important, and I guess those giant bug-eyed goggles feel like the future? Anyway, the stock closed at a record high Monday, closing in on a $3 trillion market cap. (Bloomberg)

→ More

• Twitter planning to limit DMs per day for unverified users (Dexterto)

• New Instagram Notes features include music sharing, translations… unlimited DMs (TechCrunch)

• YouTube lowers both subscriber and watch hour requirements for monetization (TechCrunch)

• Netflix, which has stupidly neglected to ask us for our consultation, plans to enter live sports space with golf stream this fall (WSJ)

• Microsoft purchases $50m worth of land for Wisconsin data center, is expected to break ground within the year (NBC Milwaukee)

• Amazon Web Service suffers extensive outage, affecting the AP, Boston Globe, and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, among others (WaPo)

• Software company Databricks’ annual revenue jumps 60 percent to over $1b; $100m annually comes from Databricks SQL, its data warehouse product (Bloomberg)

• Twitch streamer agency One True King launches video game publishing company MadMushroom (Bloomberg)

• Temu is selling Xinjiang-made products into the US market “in breach of a US ban that forbids goods from the region due to links to forced labor” (Bloomberg)

• Former SoftBank COO founds new venture firm, Bicycle Capital (Bloomberg)

• Toyota developing a “stick shift” EV that could be rolled out from 2026 (???) (WSJ)

• Tesla to ramp up electric semi-truck production by late 2024 (WSJ)

• GM and Samsung SDI choose Indiana for $3bn battery factory site (TechCrunch)

• Apple Maps improves 3D cityscape renderings — pretty sexy tbh, check out Paris

→ Drama

Google hit with antitrust suit from EU over ad business. Early signs indicate regulators will not settle for a behavioral remedy, but will rather seek to force Google to divest part of its ad business. Very interesting game we’ve been playing, in which the governments of a former important continent randomly bill our companies, and our government — for reasons beyond comprehension — continues not to retaliate with a trade embargo, and a fat check for the Ukrainian war. (Axios)

Court approves FTC restraining order to temporarily block Microsoft Activision deal. If Microsoft doesn’t close the deal or negotiate an extension by July 18, it will owe Activision $3bn. (Axios)

Apple may face trademark battle with Huawei in China over Vision Pro. It appears Huawei registered a trademark for the product name “Vision Pro” years ago, and the trademark lasts through 2031. (Apple Insider)

• Spotify fined $5.4m by Sweden for breaching user data access rights (TechCrunch)

• Elizabeth Holmes objecting to proposed $250/mo victim payments (Bloomberg)

→ AI

France-based Mistral AI, 4 weeks old, raises $113m. The firm, which hopes to take on dominant AI giants like OpenAI and Google, is now valued at $281M (lol). Some commentators think the lucrative seed funding round indicates AI hype is getting out of hand (couldn’t be us). Europeans, man. (Bloomberg)

EU moving forward with draft of comprehensive AI regulatory framework. If it becomes law, the framework will ban real-time, remote biometric surveillance, as well as the development of facial recognition databases and predictive policing models. It would also require AI companies to conduct risk assessments (this is the important one, as it allows them to mandate their favored genres of horrifying prison state censorship and propaganda). American companies and government — again, for some reason — continue not to retaliate. (WSJ) (Bloomberg)

• OpenAI releases new generative text features, reduces pricing (TechCrunch)

• McKinsey report: generative AI could add $4.4 trillion to global economy (NYT)

• Accenture announces $3bn AI investment, doubling the number AI-focused staff to 80,000 (NYT)

• AMD unveils line of AI processors, ramping up competition with Nvidia (Bloomberg)

• Salesforce rolls out suite of AI products powered by GPT called AI Cloud (Axios)

• Hawley-Blumenthal bill would deny Section 230 protections to AI (Axios)

• Google delays Bard’s EU release date after privacy regulator raises concerns (TechCrunch)

• Meta, Microsoft join Partnership on AI, a “synthetic media” group focused on responsible AI development, whose founding members include OpenAI, TikTok, Adobe, Bumble, and the BBC (Axios)

• Paul McCartney: AI tools helped bring John Lennon’s voice back to life for production of ‘last Beatles record’ (The Verge)

• AI assistant now taking orders in White Castle drive-thru (WSJ)

THE NATION

Outside Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse at the Trump arraignment | Images: River Page

Trump arraigned. Indicted over mishandling classified documents, Trump pleaded not guilty on Tuesday in the first time a former American president has ever faced federal charges. PW staffer River Page was on scene, and while he didn’t get a glimpse of Trump, he did run into the Pansexuals For Trump (fascinating people). We drop his full report tomorrow.

Ron Desantis to wage war on “weaponized DOJ.” DeSantis has a detailed plan to not only fire and replace an army of DOJ and FBI personnel, but to physically break up the agencies, establishing offices across the country and thereby eliminating DC as a deep state power center. (RealClearPolitics)

• Vivek challenges presidential hopefuls to commit to pardoning Trump (NYT)

• Vivek on The Fifth Column (TFC)

Obama: tax liability minimization for me, not for thee. Lee Fang’s latest — a report on Obama’s personal investment portfolio, which mirrors tax avoidance strategies he once criticized. Kind of petty tbh but you love to see it. (Lee Fang)

→ More in politics, government, defense

• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez ponders presidential candidacy (Florida’s Voice)

• Cornel West seeks Green Party nomination (Twitter)

• AOC has a republican challenger with a Brooklyn accent thicker than mud (Twitter)

• Chuck Grassley: foreign national who bribed Biden has 17 audio recordings of their conversations (Twitter)

• US intelligence confirms it buys Americans’ personal data — who needs a wiretap when you can just buy web browser data? (WSJ)

• DoD clarifies its UFO whistleblower ‘approval’ — TL;DR, approval does not equal endorsement (Twitter)

• Raytheon delivers first-combat ready, portable, drone-destroying laser to US Airforce. Extremely metal, thank you for your service. (Press release)

→ Crypto crises

Judge urges SEC to compromise with Binance. Notably, the presiding judge “expressed skepticism about the SEC’s use of its enforcement powers to regulate the crypto world, calling it ‘inefficient and cumbersome.’” (NYT)

New methodology enables precise estimation of BTC resource consumption. A team at Coin Metrics has developed a way to “fingerprint” all bitcoin mines of significant size, which means we can track with precision electricity consumption and e-waste — significant, given the inane environmental opposition to BTC. (@nic__carter)

Cracks emerge in the SEC’s case against Ripple Labs. In 2020, the SEC sued Ripple over XRP sales, alleging them to be securities. A key part of Ripple’s defense has been a 2018 speech from then-director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, William Hinman, in which he said BTC and ETH were not securities because their underlying networks were “sufficiently decentralized.” The SEC has tried to frame it as a rogue speech — Hinman’s words not representative of the agency’s thoughts on the matter — but newly released documents show other officials in the SEC greenlit the speech, and did so believing its purpose was to give market guidance. (Axios) (@nic__carter)

SEC denies court order to provide Coinbase regulatory clarity for second time. Coinbase Chief Counsel: SEC refuses “to commit to any deadline despite the court’s explicit order, they instead ‘anticipate’ making a ‘recommendation’ in 120 days, and most importantly, they ignore the clear statements of the Chair that confirm they have no intent to issue new rules.” (Blockworks)

→ Economy, stock market, business

• Yellen: expect a slow decline in the proportion of global reserves occupied by the dollar (Insider)

• CPI set for sharp drop over next two months, says Credit Suisse chief strategist Jonathan Golub (Zero Hedge)

• Commercial real estate downturn stoking fears of havoc for over 300 banks with lots of commercial property loans on their books (American Banker) (Twitter)

• Rampant ransomware attacks cause 50 percent spike in cyber insurance premiums (Bloomberg)

• Tobacco companies rank more highly than Tesla in ESG ratings (lmaoooo) (Free Beacon)

• Nvidia buyback freeze seen as red flag by market analysts (Bloomberg)

• Cathie Wood’s ARK funds buy Meta shares for first time since 2021 after Meta completes extensive layoffs (Bloomberg)

• NYC sets $18 minimum wage for gig workers, DoorDash considers fighting it in court (The Verge)

• “Monumental changes to New York law on non-compete agreements appear imminent” (Ogletree Deakins)

• Instant Pot is bankrupt (The Verge)

• Goldman Sachs partners not happy with CEO, whose colleagues are skeptical of his bonuses, business strategy, and DJ side hustle? (WSJ)

→ Escape from California

City of Angels. 10-year LA City Council member Curren Price “is accused of having a financial interest in development projects that he voted on, and receiving tens of thousands of dollars in medical benefits from the city for his now wife while he was still married to another woman” by the LA district attorney’s office, “becoming the latest in a years-long parade of elected city officials to face public corruption allegations from state or federal prosecutors.” (LA Times)

“Guerilla gardeners” turn violent over SF property dispute. A low-cost internet provider paid back taxes on an unclaimed, vacant plot of land so he could use it for his company’s headquarters. This initiated a blood feud with a group of “community gardeners” (squatters, but in a self-righteous, self-indulgent, tediously intellectual sense, and sometimes there are vegetables) that escalated “from punches and threats to sledgehammers and power saws.” We are so back. (ABC7)

• SF Mayor London Breed bodies city supervisor Dean Preston after he asks if she plans to continue arresting repeat drug offenders at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting (Twitter)

• SF downtown ranks last among 63 cities in post-pandemic recovery, at less than 30 percent of its pre-pandemic activity levels (ABC7)

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Americans in China. According to a Reuters exclusive, Bill Gates will be meeting Xi Jinping while in China, marking “Xi’s first meeting with a foreign private entrepreneur in recent years.” Whether or not Anthony Blinken will meet with Xi on his upcoming trip is unclear, but on Wednesday “China's foreign minister Qin Gang urged the United States to stop meddling in its affairs and harming its security” on a phone call between the two. Meanwhile, Xi warned of “worst-case and extreme scenarios” in comments to top-level Chinese officials and the Chinese public twice in the last two weeks, per WSJ.

France reviving nuclear sector with over €100 million investment. €42 million for training programs, €40 million for the equipment modernization, €25 million for innovative reactor start-up firms Naarea and Newcleo, and an unspecified quantity of funding for the front-end design phase of a small modular reactor project. Rare European W. (Nuclear Newswire)

• CIA: we warned Ukraine not to attack Nord Stream (WSJ)

• Portugal set to pilot a government-funded 4-day workweek; 39 private-sector businesses will participate (CNBC)

• Mega-merger between British-owned Vodafone and Chinese-owned Three raises security concerns; Vodaphone would own 51 percent of the new company (Axios)

• Japanese ride hailing app Go dominating Uber in Japan’s rideshare market (WSJ)

CLOWN WORLD

Rose Montoya at the White House Pride celebration

Trans Titty Gate. After meeting Joe and Jill Biden at a White House Pride celebration, trans influencer Rose Montoya posted video of herself exposing her breasts. The White House condemned the trans titties, and banned them (and their owner) from future events. WH Press Secretary: “The behavior was simply unacceptable. We’ve been very clear about that.” (The Messenger)

Starbucks takes heat for Pride decoration policy. In a decision that “all but guarantees further attacks on LGBTQ people and culture” (according to The New Republic, which later edited that lede out of story), Starbucks ordered all of its stores to take down its Pride decorations, according to its workers union. This triggered an online firestorm of criticism over the company “caving to rightwing extremists,” and credulous right-wing gloaters celebrating it as a victory. The only problem: LITERALLY NONE OF IT HAPPENED, OOPS. (NY Post)

What the hell is going on at the Washington Post? “Target stores see more bomb threats over Pride merchandise,” according to a June 12 WaPo headline. Eight paragraphs later, writer Jaclyn Peiser provides a little more context: according to the “unknown senders” of the bomb threats, Target “betrayed the LGBTQ+ community” and “are pathetic cowards who bowed to the wishes of far right extremists who want to exterminate us.” (WaPo)

School administration at Marshall Simonds Middle School in Burlington, MA, asks (demands?) students to wear rainbow colors. Summing up the culture war pandemonium that followed, one aghast school board member said, “I didn’t think this could happen in Burlington.” Unintentionally hilarious, but well-reported explainer here.

Eat, Pray, Cringe. Following a backlash so mild it hadn’t even cracked Twitter, Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love, initiated a dramatic, public self-cancellation, and removed her latest ‘offending’ work from publication. Read Kat Rosenfield’s coverage on Pirate Wires, and savor in the absurdity of an act ostensibly done for good, which of course ultimately just perpetuated a destructive trend toward censorship in publishing (bad). Many such cases. Still… this time, at least, are we perhaps witnessing a bit more hopeful evidence of our much-discussed vibe shift?

• More in the vibe shift (which is feeling like a whole ass tidal shift, maybe?): Jury finds Starbucks regional manager fired during 2018 Philadelphia racism incident was targeted “because she was white,” awards her $25m (NYT)

• Jon Hopkins drops a new definition for “lesbian” (non-man into non-man), removes it after internet uproar, and a brutal JK Rowling tweet. “The definitions were not reviewed or approved by ODI leadership and the language in question has been removed pending review.” (@brandongorrell)

• Did Amazon disable a customer’s smart home features after a driver accused his doorbell of racism? You decide.

• Discourse emerges around the question “If Hitler were transfem, would it be ok to misgender him?” (@cockremover)

• City workers, presumably somewhere in England, drop their country’s flag after putting a Pride flag in its place — possibly recently, possibly five years ago? who knows — picks up 18m views on Twitter

• Floyd Mayweather-John Gotti Jr. beef catalyzing Black-Italian race war (Twitter)

• Montgomery County (MD) council member apologizes for saying Muslims aligned with white supremacists over LGBT concerns (Fox News)

• And yes, they’re actually going with the Michelle Obama trans conspiracy

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