Meta Mad
Plus: An Ice Bath with Nigel
Dear Citizens,
Someday, maybe in the Hague, maybe in Palo Alto, maybe … somewhere warmer … Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s leadership will face accountability. This week is not the week, with Meta convincing a 793-year old US District Court Judge that “social media is dead.” Is it? In ruling on a critical antitrust case, the judge found that “People are ‘bored’ by their friends’ content,” which … not the point but … he’s not wrong. Meta’s zombie Oversight Board is still at it too, pretending the company cares what they think. We’ll see!
And while the bros keep telling us everything is fine, reality delivered a different kind of update this morning: former Reform UK leader Nathan Gill was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison at the Old Bailey for acting as an online agent of the Russian state. Ten and a half years for a man who once stood at Nigel Farage’s right hand, pumping out pro-Kremlin narratives straight into Europe’s political bloodstream. It’s a landmark moment - and it lands directly in the middle of our own legal fight in Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights has already ruled that the UK has a “positive obligation to safeguard citizens from disinformation and covert influence operations.” Gill’s conviction is exactly the kind of threat the government has refused to investigate for nearly a decade. It’s why our case - demanding for a full public inquiry into foreign interference could not be more urgent.
If you want the full backdrop and rolling updates from today, you can look at our coverage on X and on Bluesky. And for a quick, razor-sharp take, check out claimant and former Labour MP Ben Bradshaw on X and on Bluesky.
Here’s what else to read, watch and know this week.
🫧 ONE READ: Bubble It, Bubble It 🫧
No, it’s not a Spice song. It’s the undoing of our economy! Our essential read this week is a homecoming for some old friends - Carole Cadwalladr asking the very smart Roger McNamee, aka “legendary Silicon Valley VC turned radicalised burn-the-whole-thing-down tech justice warrior,” where the AI bubble is headed. Roger is wise and sage! And he’s not optimistic:
Roger, however, wasn’t buying it. In his view, bro-tastice AI was just yet another Silicon Valley hype cycle. Another crypto. Another metaverse. Another Web3. Another bro-tastic sales pitch attracting unprecedented amounts of capital that couldn’t ever possibly earn a return; a narrative that was being inflated with a quasi religious zeal by the usual suspects in league with a gullible and complicit media.
🌊ONE WATCH: Chasing Nigel 🌊
Is authoritarian Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in his constituency of Clacton? Is he taking money from Russians a dip in the invigorating November North Sea? The intrepid John Sweeney finds out, for The Nerve:
👨🏻ONE ACTION: A US End Run 👨🏻
Never underestimate an aging white US Republican Senator’s hunger to let some broligarchs off the hook. Our friends at Design it for Us and the Young People’s Alliance report that “A sneaky provision to prevent states from regulating AI companies is an incredibly dangerous and unpopular move that we can’t let slide.”
Look at those dudes, Jesus.
Help us turn those smiles upside down and click here to stop the AI ban!
That’s it for this week.
Team Citizens
