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Trump DOJ Launches Bunk Investigation Of Netflix Merger As a Favor To Larry Ellison
from the _"antitrust-enforcers"-in-name-only_ dept
Wed, Feb 11th 2026 05:21am - Karl Bode
We told you this was coming months ago.
The Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) says it has initiated a broad investigation of Netflix’s business practices and it’s planned $82.7 billion merger with Warner Brothers. The Trump DOJ’s pretense is that they’re just suddenly _really concerned about media consolidation and monopoly power_ (you’re to ignore the U.S. right wing’s generational and indisputable quest to coddle and protect monopoly power across telecom, energy, air travel, banking, and countless other industries):
> _“Questioning how Netflix competes with rivals suggests the department is looking at whether its planned Warner deal could entrench its market power, or lead to a monopoly in the future. U.S. law gives enforcers broad power to oppose mergers that could lead to a monopoly.”_
In reality, the Trump administration has made it extremely clear they’re hoping to scuttle the Netflix deal to help Larry Ellison acquire Warner Brothers, CNN, and HBO. If they can’t kill the deal, they aspire to at least leverage the merger approval process to force Netflix executives to further debase themselves before the Trump administration, which I suspect they’ll all be happy to do.
It’s part of a longstanding trend by Trumpism to pretend that they’re engaged in populist antitrust reform, claims historically propped up by a long list of useful idiots across the partisan spectrum, and parroted by a growing coalition of right wing propaganda outlets. This bogus populism helps obfuscate what’s really just some of the worst corruption America has ever seen (which is really saying something).
The original (paywalled) Wall Street Journal report (and this aggregated Reuters recap) dutifully help sell the claim that the DOJ is also “investigating” Ellison’s Paramount/Skydance, whose Warner Brothers acquisition bid was repeatedly rejected by the Warner board over worries about dodgy financing and Saudi money involvement:
> _“The WSJ reported that the DOJ is also reviewing Paramount’s proposed acquisition bid, which Warner Bros’ board unanimously rejected by labeling it “inadequate” and “not in the best interests” of shareholders.”_
The outlets fail to remind you that there is generous reporting discussing how Larry Ellison and Trump have had extensive meetings discussing who Larry Ellison would fire on Trump’s behalf should he take control of CNN. They also fail to remind you that the right wing “press,” with Trump’s help, has been engaged in a broad effort to undermine the Netflix merger chances using false claims.
After Warner Brothers balked at Larry’s competing bid and a hostile takeover attempt, Larry tried to sue Warner Brothers. With that not going anywhere, Larry, MAGA, and the Heritage Foundation (of Project 2025 fame) have since joined forces to try and attack the Netflix merger across right wing media, falsely claiming that “woke” Netflix is attempting a “cultural takeover” that must be stopped for the good of humanity:
More recently that included scripted questions provided by the Heritage Foundation at a Congressional hearing, where lawmakers like Republican Senator Josh Hawley resorted to bogus trans panic attacks to try and paint Netflix as some sort of vile leftist cabal.
As we keep noting, ideally a functional regulator would block all additional media consolidation, since these megadeals are consistently terrible for labor, consumers, and product quality (see: Warner Brothers entire corporate history since 2000).
That’s clearly not happening under a Trump administration that has lobotomized all key regulators. So ideally, while not great, Netflix acquiring Warner Brothers is the best of a bunch of bad options. It’s arguably notably better than furthering Larry Ellison’s obvious plan to gobble up CBS, TikTok, and CNN, and turn what’s left of America’s already dodgy corporate media into Hungary-esque state television that lavishes hollow praise on our mad idiot king.
Because we’ve already let media consolidation run amok (thanks to the Trump administration’s attack on bipartisan media consolidation limits), our shitty corporate press is incapable of explaining to the public that the Trump DOJ inquiry into Netflix isn’t being conducted in good faith. It’s a perfect circle of greed, regulatory capture, and corruption that will ramp up in the weeks to come.
Filed Under: consolidation, corruption, disinformation, doj, information war, journalism, larry ellison, media, mergers, propaganda, state television
Companies: netflix, warner bros. discovery
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So, You’ve Hit An Age Gate. What Now?
from the _getting-around-the-age-gate_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 08:07pm - Erica Portnoy
EFF is against age gating and age verification mandates, and we hope we’ll win in getting existing ones overturned and new ones prevented. But mandates are already in effect, and every day many people are asked to verify their age across the web, despite prominent cases of sensitive data getting leaked in the process.
At some point, you may have been faced with the decision yourself: should I continue to use this service if I have to verify my age? And if so, how can I do that with the least risk to my personal information? This is our guide to navigating those decisions, with information on what questions to ask about the age verification options you’re presented with, and answers to those questions for some of the top most popular social media sites. Even though there’s no way to implement mandated age gates in a way that fully protects speech and privacy rights, our goal here is to help you minimize the infringement of your rights as you manage this awful situation.
Follow the Data
Since we know that leaks happen despite the best efforts of software engineers, we generally recommend submitting the absolute least amount of data possible. Unfortunately, that’s not going to be possible for everyone. Even facial age estimation solutions where pictures of your face never leave your device, offering some protection against data leakage, are not a good option for all users: facial age estimation works less well for people of color, trans and nonbinary people, and people with disabilities. There are some systems that use fancy cryptography so that a digital ID saved to your device won’t tell the website anything more than if you meet the age requirement, but access to that digital ID isn’t available to everyone or for all platforms. You may also not want to register for a digital ID and save it to your phone, if you don’t want to take the chance of all the information on it being exposed upon request of an over-zealous verifier, or you simply don’t want to be a part of a digital ID system
If you’re given the option of selecting a verification method and are deciding which to use, we recommend considering the following questions for each process allowed by each vendor:
We attempt to provide answers to these questions below. To begin, there are two major factors to consider when answering these questions: the tools each platform uses, and the overall system those tools are part of.
In general, most platforms offer age estimation options like face scans as a first line of age assurance. These vary in intrusiveness, but their main problem is inaccuracy, particularly for marginalized users. Third-party age verification vendors Private ID and k-ID offer on-device facial age estimation, but another common vendor, Yoti, sends the image to their servers during age checks by some of the biggest platforms. This risks leaking the images themselves, and also the fact that you’re using that particular website, to the third party.
Then, there’s the document-based verification services, which require you to submit a hard identifier like a government-issued ID. This method thus requires you to prove both your age and your identity. A platform can do this in-house through a designated dataflow, or by sending that data to a third party. We’ve already seen examples of how this can fail. For example, Discord routed users’ ID data through its general customer service workflow so that a third-party vendor could perform manual review of verification appeals. No one involved ever deleted users’ data, so when the system was breached, Discord had to apologize for the catastrophic disclosure of nearly 70,000 photos of users’ ID documents. Overly long retention periods expose documents to risk of breaches and historical data requests. Some document verifiers have retention periods that are needlessly long. This is the case with Incode, which provides ID verification for Tiktok. Incode holds onto images forever by default, though TikTok should automatically start the deletion process on your behalf.
Some platforms offer alternatives, like proving that you own a credit card, or asking for your email to check if it appears in databases associated with adulthood (like home mortgage databases). These tend to involve less risk when it comes to the sensitivity of the data itself, especially since credit cards can be replaced, but in general still undermine anonymity and pseudonymity and pose a risk of tracking your online activity. We’d prefer to see more assurances across the board about how information is handled.
Each site offers users a menu of age assurance options to choose from. We’ve chosen to present these options in the rough order that we expect most people to prefer. Jump directly to a platform to learn more about its age checks:
Meta – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads
Inferred Age
If Meta can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification screen. Meta, which runs Facebook, Threads, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, first tries to use information you’ve posted to guess your age, like looking at “Happy birthday!” messages. It’s a creepy reminder that they already have quite a lot of information about you.
If Meta cannot guess your age, or if Meta infers you’re too young, it will next ask you to verify your age using either facial age estimation, or by uploading your photo ID.
Face Scan
If you choose to use facial age estimation, you’ll be sent to Yoti , a third-party verification service. Your photo will be uploaded to their servers during this process. Yoti claims that “as soon as an age has been estimated, the facial image is immediately and permanently deleted.” Though it’s not as good as not having that data in the first place, Yoti’s security measures include a bug bounty program and annual penetration testing. Researchers from Mint Secure found that Yoti’s app and website are filled with trackers, so the fact that you’re verifying your age could be not only shared to Yoti, but leaked to third-party data brokers as well.
You may not want to use this option if you’re worried about third parties potentially being able to know you’re trying to verify your age with Meta. You also might not want to use this if you’re worried about a current picture of your face accidentally leaking—for example, if elements in the background of your selfie might reveal your current location. On the other hand, if you consider a selfie to be less sensitive than a photograph of your ID, this option might be better. If you do choose (or are forced to) use the face check system, be sure to snap your selfie without anything you’d be concerned with identifying your location or embarrassing you in the background in case the image leaks.
Upload ID
If Yoti’s age estimation decides your face looks too young, or if you opt out of facial age estimation, your next recourse is to send Meta a photo of your ID . Meta sends that photo to Yoti to verify the ID. Meta says it will hold onto that ID image for 30 days, then delete it. Meanwhile, Yoti claims it will delete the image immediately after verification. Of course, bugs and process oversights exist, such as accidentally replicating information in logs or support queues, but at least they have stated processes. Your ID contains sensitive information such as your full legal name and home address. Using this option not only runs the (hopefully small, but never nonexistent) risk of that data getting leaked through errors or hacking, but it also lets Meta see the information needed to tie your profile to your identity—which you may not want. If you don’t want Meta to know your name and where you live, or rely on both Meta and Yoti to keep to their deletion promises, this option may not be right for you.
Google – Gmail, YouTube
Inferred Age
If Google can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification screen. Your Google account is typically connected to your YouTube account, so if (like mine) your YouTube account is old enough to vote, you may not need to verify your Google account at all. Google first uses information it already knows to try to guess your age, like how long you’ve had the account and your YouTube viewing habits. It’s yet another creepy reminder of how much information these corporations have on you, but at least in this case they aren’t likely to ask for even more identifying data.
If Google cannot guess your age, or decides you’re too young, Google will next ask you to verify your age. You’ll be given a variety of options for how to do so, with availability that will depend on your location and your age.
Google’s methods to assure your age include ID verification, facial age estimation, verification by proxy, and digital ID. To prove you’re over 18, you may be able to use facial age estimation, give Google your credit card information, or tell a third-party provider your email address.
Face Scan
If you choose to use facial age estimation , you’ll be sent to a website run by Private ID, a third-party verification service. The website will load Private ID’s verifier within the page—this means that your selfie will be checked without any images leaving your device. If the system decides you’re over 18, it will let Google know that, and only that. Of course, no technology is perfect—should Private ID be mandated to target you specifically, there’s nothing to stop it from sending down code that does in fact upload your image, and you probably won’t notice. But unless your threat model includes being specifically targeted by a state actor or Private ID, that’s unlikely to be something you need to worry about. For most people, no one else will see your image during this process. Private ID will, however, be told that your device is trying to verify your age with Google and Google will still find out if Private ID thinks that you’re under 18.
If Private ID’s age estimation decides your face looks too young, you may next be able to decide if you’d rather let Google verify your age by giving it your credit card information, photo ID, or digital ID, or by letting Google send your email address to a third-party verifier.
Email Usage
If you choose to provide your email address , Google sends it on to a company called VerifyMy. VerifyMy will use your email address to see if you’ve done things like get a mortgage or paid for utilities using that email address. If you use Gmail as your email provider, this may be a privacy-protective option with respect to Google, as Google will then already know the email address associated with the account. But it does tell VerifyMy and its third-party partners that the person behind this email address is looking to verify their age, which you may not want them to know. VerifyMy uses “ proprietary algorithms and external data sources” that involve sending your email address to “ trusted third parties, such as data aggregators.” It claims to “ensure that such third parties are contractually bound to meet these requirements,” but you’ll have to trust it on that one—we haven’t seen any mention of who those parties are, so you’ll have no way to check up on their practices and security. On the bright side, VerifyMy and its partners do claim to delete your information as soon as the check is completed.
Credit Card Verification
If you choose to let Google use your credit card information , you’ll be asked to set up a Google Payments account. Note that debit cards won’t be accepted, since it’s much easier for many debit cards to be issued to people under 18. Google will then charge a small amount to the card, and refund it once it goes through. If you choose this method, you’ll have to tell Google your credit card info, but the fact that it’s done through Google Payments (their regular card-processing system) means that at least your credit card information won’t be sitting around in some unsecured system. Even if your credit card information happens to accidentally be leaked, this is a relatively low-risk option, since credit cards come with solid fraud protection. If your credit card info gets leaked, you should easily be able to dispute fraudulent charges and replace the card.
Digital ID
If the option is available to you, you may be able to use your digital ID to verify your age with Google. In some regions, you’ll be given the option to use your digital ID. In some cases, it’s possible to only reveal your age information when you use a digital ID. If you’re given that choice, it can be a good privacy-preserving option. Depending on the implementation, there’s a chance that the verification step will “ phone home” to the ID provider (usually a government) to let them know the service asked for your age. It’s a complicated and varied topic that you can learn more about by visiting EFF’s page on digital identity.
Upload ID
Should none of these options work for you, your final recourse is to send Google a photo of your ID. Here, you’ll be asked to take a photo of an acceptable ID and send it to Google. Though the help page only states that your ID “will be stored securely,” the verification process page says ID “will be deleted after your date of birth is successfully verified.” Acceptable IDs vary by country, but are generally government-issued photo IDs. We like that it’s deleted immediately, though we have questions about what Google means when it says your ID will be used to “improve \[its\] verification services for Google products and protect against fraud and abuse.” No system is perfect, and we can only hope that Google schedules outside audits regularly.
TikTok
Inferred Age
If TikTok can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification notification. TikTok first tries to use information you’ve posted to estimate your age, looking through your videos and photos to analyze your face and listen to your voice. By uploading any videos, TikTok believes you’ve given it consent to try to guess how old you look and sound.
If TikTok decides you’re too young, appeal to revoke their age decision before the deadline passes. If TikTok cannot guess your age, or decides you’re too young, it will automatically revoke your access based on age—including either restricting features or deleting your account. To get your access and account back, you’ll have a limited amount of time to verify your age. As soon as you see the notification that your account is restricted, you’ll want to act fast because in some places you’ll have as little as 23 days before the deadline passes.
When you get that notification, you’re given various options to verify your age based on your location.
Face Scan
If you’re given the option to use facial age estimation, you’ll be sent to Yoti , a third-party verification service. Your photo will be uploaded to their servers during this process. Yoti claims that “as soon as an age has been estimated, the facial image is immediately and permanently deleted.” Though it’s not as good as not having that data in the first place, Yoti’s security measures include a bug bounty program and annual penetration testing. However, researchers from Mint Secure found that Yoti’s app and website are filled with trackers, so the fact that you’re verifying your age _could_ be leaked not only to Yoti, but to third-party data brokers as well.
You may not want to use this option if you’re worried about third parties potentially being able to know you’re trying to verify your age with TikTok. You also might not want to use this if you’re worried about a current picture of your face accidentally leaking—for example, if elements in the background of your selfie might reveal your current location. On the other hand, if you consider a selfie to be less sensitive than a photograph of your ID or your credit card information, this option might be better. If you do choose (or are forced to) use the face check system, be sure to snap your selfie without anything you’d be concerned with identifying your location or embarrassing you in the background in case the image leaks.
Credit Card Verification
If you have a credit card in your name, TikTok will accept that as proof that you’re over 18. Note that debit cards won’t be accepted, since it’s much easier for many debit cards to be issued to people under 18. TikTok will charge a small amount to the credit card, and refund it once it goes through. It’s unclear if this goes through their regular payment process, or if your credit card information will be sent through and stored in a separate, less secure system. Luckily, these days credit cards come with solid fraud protection, so if your credit card gets leaked, you should easily be able to dispute fraudulent charges and replace the card. That said, we’d rather TikTok provide assurances that the information will be processed securely.
Credit Card Verification of a Parent or Guardian
Sometimes, if you’re between 13 and 17, you’ll be given the option to let your parent or guardian confirm your age. You’ll tell TikTok their email address, and TikTok will send your parent or guardian an email asking them (a) to confirm your date of birth, and (b) to verify their own age by proving that they own a valid credit card. This option doesn’t always seem to be offered, and in the one case we could find, it’s possible that TikTok never followed up with the parent. So it’s unclear how or if TikTok verifies that the adult whose email you provide is your parent or guardian. If you want to use credit card verification but you’re not old enough to have a credit card, and you’re ok with letting an adult know you use TikTok, this option may be reasonable to try.
Photo with a Random Adult?
Bizarrely, if you’re between 13 and 17, TikTok claims to offer the option to take a photo with literally any random adult to confirm your age. Its help page says that any trusted adult over 25 can be chosen, as long as they’re holding a piece of paper with the code on it that TikTok provides. It also mentions that a third-party provider is used here, but doesn’t say which one. We haven’t found any evidence of this verification method being offered. Please do let us know if you’ve used this method to verify your age on TikTok!
Photo ID and Face Comparison
If you aren’t offered or have failed the other options, you’ll have to verify your age by submitting a copy of your ID and matching photo of your face. You’ll be sent to Incode, a third-party verification service. In a disappointing failure to meet the industry standard, Incode itself doesn’t automatically delete the data you give it once the process is complete, but TikTok does claim to “start the process to delete the information you submitted,” which should include telling Incode to delete your data once the process is done. If you want to be sure, you can ask Incode to delete that data yourself. Incode tells TikTok that you met the age threshold without providing your exact date of birth, but then TikTok wants to know the exact date anyway, so it’ll ask for your date of birth even after your age has been verified.
TikTok itself might not see your actual ID depending on its implementation choices, but Incode will. Your ID contains sensitive information such as your full legal name and home address. Using this option not only runs the (hopefully small, but never nonexistent) risk of that data getting accidentally leaked through errors or hacking. If you don’t want TikTok or Incode to know your name, what you look like, and where you live—or if you don’t want to rely on both TikTok and Incode to keep to their deletion promises—then this option may not be right for you.
Everywhere Else
We’ve covered the major providers here, but age verification is unfortunately being required of many other services that you might use as well. While the providers and processes may vary, the same general principles will apply. If you’re trying to choose what information to provide to continue to use a service, consider the “follow the data” questions mentioned above, and try to find out how the company will store and process the data you give it. The less sensitive information, the fewer people have access to it, and the more quickly it will be deleted, the better. You may even come to recognize popular names in the age verification industry: Spotify and OnlyFans use Yoti (just like Meta and Tiktok), Quora and Discord use k-ID, and so on.
Unfortunately, it should be clear by now that none of the age verification options are perfect in terms of protecting information, providing access to everyone, and safely handling sensitive data. That’s just one of the reasons that EFF is against age-gating mandates, and is working to stop and overturn them across the United States and around the world.
_Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog._
Filed Under: age gating, age verification, credit cards, face scans, id, privacy
Companies: facebook, google, instagram, meta, tiktok, whatsapp, youtube
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Border Patrol Thug Greg Bovino Bitched About Being Asked To Be A Bit More Lawful Before Being Turfed To California
from the _back-on-the-practice-squad_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 03:03pm - Tim Cushing
Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino has been sent back to the border after making himself the Nazi scum face of the Trump administration’s brutal efforts to purge this country of as many non-white people as possible.
Bovino made it clear what team he really wanted to play for before Trump was even sworn in for the second time. After Trump’s election win (but before Trump actually took office), Bovino self-authorized an expansive anti-migrant operation without bothering to check in with DHS leadership to make sure he was cleared to do this.
Trump is always capable of recognizing opportunistic thugs whose dark hearts are as corroded as his own. Bovino was swiftly elevated to an unappointed position as the nominal head of Trump’s many inland invasions of cities run by the opposing political party. Bovino embraced the role of shitheel thug, leading directly to court orders that attempted to restrain his brutal actions. Bovino appeared willing to ignore most court orders he was hit with, increasing his brutality and his public contempt of not only court orders, but the judges themselves, who he insulted during public statements to journalists.
After two murders in three weeks, the Trump administration started to realize it has lost the “hearts and minds” battle with most US citizens and residents. While ICE operations continue to be indistinguishable from kidnapping and the DHS is still ambushing migrants attempting to follow the terms of their supervised release agreements, Bovino has become the now-unacceptable personification of the administration’s bigoted war on migrants.
Bovino has been sent back down to the minors, so to speak. He’s been removed from high-profile surges in Chicago and Minneapolis and remanded to his former patrol area, which is much, much closer to the US border where there’s nearly no immigration activity happening thanks to the ongoing war on migrants.
Insubordination is fine as long as it doesn’t create friction Trump may have to eventually deal with. Bovino, however, is just as incapable of picking his battles as the president himself. Too many cocks spoil the broth, as the saying (almost) goes.
Thanks to a leaked email shared with NBC, we now know more about Bovino’s resistance to anyone anywhere who attempted to tell him what to do.
> _Bovino wanted to conduct large-scale immigration sweeps during an operation in Chicago in September, but the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons,told him the focus was to conduct “targeted operations,” arresting only of people known to federal agents ahead of time for their violations of immigration law or other laws, according to the correspondence._
>
> _“Mr. Lyons seemed intent that CBP conduct targeted operations for at least two weeks before transitioning to full scale immigration enforcement,” Bovino wrote in an email to Department of Homeland Security leaders in Washington, referring to Customs and Border Protection, which oversees Border Patrol agents. “I declined his suggestion. We ended the conversation shortly thereafter.”_
Keep in mind that Bovino is a _Border Patrol_ commander who was working nowhere near the border. Also, keep in mind that ICE is the lead agency in any immigration enforcement efforts because… well, it’s in the name: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This is Bovino not only giving the finger to the chain of command, but also insisting his agency (along with the CBP) take the lead in Midwestern apprehensions, despite neither agency having much in the terms of training for inland operations.
Speaking of chain of command, the commander of an agency that’s a component of the DHS made it clear he believed he didn’t have to answer to the DHS either, as Leigh Kimmons reports in their article for the Daily Beast:
> _The email also revealed a rather bizarre chain of command, with Bovino saying he reported to Noem’s aide, Corey Lewandowski, and appearing to defy Lyons’ authority. “Mr. Lyons said he was in charge, and I corrected him saying I report to Corey Lewandowski,” Bovino reportedly said of the unpaid special government employee._
This email makes one thing perfectly clear: Bovino appeared to believe he answered to no one. And he would only “report” to people he felt wouldn’t push back against his confrontational, rights-violating efforts. This probably would have never been a problem, but Bovino consistently crossed lines that even Trump’s high-level sycophantic bigots were hesitant to cross.
And now _he’s_ the one who is experiencing the “find out” part that usually follows the “fucking around.” He’s been sidelined, perhaps permanently. Acting ICE director Todd Lyons is the new face of Trump’s inland invasions. Kristi Noem herself seems to be on the list of potential cuts, should the administration continue its on-again, off-again pivot to a less outwardly racist agenda when it comes to immigration enforcement.
But I’m not here to damn with faint praise or even damn with faint damnation. I hope Bovino’s last years as a Border Patrol commander are as terrible as his haircut. I hope Todd Lyons veers so far to the middle that Trump shitcans him. I hope Noem is on the path to private sector employment, tainted with the scarlet “T” that means any future version of MAGA won’t even bother to check in with her now that the only people she can make miserable are her own children. Adios, Bovino. Sleep badly.
Filed Under: cbp, chicago, dhs, gregory bovino, ice, kristi noem, leaks, mass deportation, minneapolis, minnesota, todd lyons, trump administration
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Techdirt Podcast Episode 443: The Supreme Court’s Internet Cases
from the _taking-an-interest_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 01:30pm - Leigh Beadon
In the last few years, the Supreme Court has been paying a lot more attention to the internet than it ever has before, and the cases keep on coming. This is already having a big impact on how the internet functions, and it doesn’t look likely to stop any time soon. Given all that, this week our own Cathy Gellis joins the podcast for a discussion all about the past, present, and future of SCOTUS and the internet.
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_Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt._
Filed Under: podcast, scotus, supreme court
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How To Think About AI: Is It The Tool, Or Are You?
from the _do-you-use-your-brain-or-do-you-replace-it?_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 12:03pm - Mike Masnick
We live in a stupidly polarizing world where nuance is apparently not allowed. Everyone wants you to be for or against something—and nowhere is this more exhausting than with AI. There are those who insist that it’s all bad and there is nothing of value in it. And there are those who think it’s all powerful, the greatest thing ever, and will replace basically every job with AI bots who can work better and faster.
I think both are wrong, but it’s important to understand why.
So let me lay out how I actually think about it. When it’s used properly, as a tool to assist a human being in accomplishing a goal, it can be incredibly powerful and valuable. When it’s used in a way where the human’s input and thinking are replaced, it tends to do very badly.
And that difference matters.
I think back to a post from Cory Doctorow a couple months ago where he tried to make the same point using a different kind of analogy: centaurs and reverse-centaurs.
> _Start with what a reverse centaur is. In automation theory, a “centaur” is a person who is assisted by a machine. You’re a human head being carried around on a tireless robot body. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete._
>
> _And obviously, a reverse centaur is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine._
>
> _Like an Amazon delivery driver, who sits in a cabin surrounded by AI cameras, that monitor the driver’s eyes and take points off if the driver looks in a proscribed direction, and monitors the driver’s mouth because singing isn’t allowed on the job, and rats the driver out to the boss if they don’t make quota._
>
> _The driver is in that van because the van can’t drive itself and can’t get a parcel from the curb to your porch. The driver is a peripheral for a van, and the van drives the driver, at superhuman speed, demanding superhuman endurance. But the driver is human, so the van doesn’t just use the driver. The van uses the driver up._
>
> _Obviously, it’s nice to be a centaur, and it’s horrible to be a reverse centaur._
As Doctorow notes in his piece, some of the companies embracing AI tech are doing so with the goal of building reverse-centaurs. Those are the ones that people are, quite understandably, uncomfortable with and should be mocked. But the reality is, also, it seems quite likely those efforts will fail.
And they’ll fail not just because they’re dehumanizing—though they are—but because the output is garbage. Hallucinations, slop, confidently wrong answers: that’s what happens when nobody with actual knowledge is checking whether any of it makes sense. When AI works well, it’s because a human is providing the knowledge and the creativity.
The reverse-centaur doesn’t just burn out the human. It produces worse work, because it assumes that the AI can provide the knowledge or the creativity. It can’t. That requires a human. The power of AI tools is in enabling a human to take their own knowledge, and their own creativity and enhance it, to do more with it, based on what the person actually wants.
To me it’s a simple question of “what’s the tool?” Is it the AI, used thoughtfully by a human to do more than they otherwise could have? If so, that’s a good and potentially positive use of AI. It’s the centaur in Doctorow’s analogy.
Or is the human the tool? Is it a “reverse centaur”? I think nearly all of those are destined to fail.
This is why I tend not to get particularly worked up by those who claim that AI is going to destroy jobs and wipe out the workforce, who will be replaced by bots. It just… doesn’t work that way.
At the same time, I find it ridiculous to see people still claiming that the technology itself is no good and does nothing of value. That’s just empirically false. Plenty of people—including myself—get tremendous use out of the technology. I am using it regularly in all different ways. It’s been two years since I wrote about how I used it to help as a first pass editor.
The tech has gotten dramatically better since then, but the key insight to me is what it takes to make it useful: context is everything. My AI editor doesn’t just get my draft writeup and give me advice based on that and its training—it also has a sampling of the best Techdirt articles, a custom style guide with details about how I write, a deeply customized _system_ prompt (the part of AI tools that are often hidden from public view) and a deeply customized starting prompt. It also often includes the source articles I’m writing about. With _all that_ context, it’s an astoundingly good editor. Sometimes it points out weak arguments I missed entirely. Sometimes it has nothing to say.
(As an aside, in this article, it suggested I went on way too long explaining all the context I give it to give me better suggestions, and thus I shortened it to just the paragraph above this one).
It’s not always right. Its suggestions are not always good. But that’s okay, because I’m not outsourcing my brain to it. It’s a tool. And way more often than not, it pushes me to be a better writer.
This is why I get frustrated every time people point out a single AI fail or hallucination without context.
The problem only comes in when people outsource their brains. When they become reverse centaurs. When they are the tool instead of using AI as the tool. That’s when hallucinations or bad info matter.
But if the human is in control, if they’re using their own brain, if they’re evaluating what the tool is suggesting or recommending and making the final decision, then it can be used wisely and can be incredibly helpful.
And this gets at something most people miss entirely: when they think about AI, they’re still imagining a chatbot. They think every AI tool is ChatGPT. A thing you talk to. A thing that generates text or images for you to copy-paste somewhere else.
That’s increasingly not where the action is. The more powerful shift is toward _agentic_ AI—tools that don’t just generate content, but actually _do things_. They write code and run it. They browse the web and synthesize what they find. They execute multi-step tasks with minimal hand-holding. This is a fundamentally different model than “ask a chatbot a question and get an answer.”
I’ve been using Claude Code recently, and this distinction matters. It’s an agent that can plan, execute, and iterate on actual software projects, rather than just a tool talking to me about what to do. But, again, that doesn’t mean I just outsource my brain to it.
I often put Claude Code into plan mode, where it tries to work out a plan, but then I spend quite a lot of time exploring why it was making certain decisions, and asking it to explore the pros and cons of those decisions, and even to provide me with alternative sources to understand the trade-offs of some of the decisions it is recommending. That back and forth has been both educational for me, but also makes me have a better understanding and be comfortable with the eventual projects I use Claude Code to build.
I am using it as a tool, and part of that is making sure I understand what it’s doing. I am not outsourcing my brain to it. I am using it, carefully, to do things that I simply could not have done before.
And that’s powerful and valuable.
Yes, there are so many bad uses of AI tools. And yes, there is a concerted, industrial-scale effort, to convince the public they need to use AI in ways that they probably shouldn’t, or in ways that is actively harmful. And yes, there are real questions about what it costs to train and run the foundation models. And we should discuss those and call those out for what they are.
But the people who insist the tools are useless and provide nothing of value, that’s just wrong. Similarly, anyone who thinks the tech is going to go away are entirely wrong. There likely is a funding bubble. And some companies will absolutely suffer as it deflates. But it won’t make the tech go away.
When used properly, it’s just too useful.
As Cory notes in his centaur piece, AI can absolutely help you do your job, but the industry’s entire focus is on convincing people it can _replace_ your job. That’s the con. The tech doesn’t replace people. But it can make them dramatically more capable—if they stay in the driver’s seat.
The key to understanding the good and the bad of the AI hype is understanding that distinction. Cory explains this in reference to AI coding:
> _Think of AI software generation: there are plenty of coders who love using AI, and almost without exception, they are senior, experienced coders, who get to decide how they will use these tools. For example, you might ask the AI to generate a set of CSS files to faithfully render a web-page across multiple versions of multiple browsers. This is a notoriously fiddly thing to do, and it’s pretty easy to verify if the code works – just eyeball it in a bunch of browsers. Or maybe the coder has a single data file they need to import and they don’t want to write a whole utility to convert it._
>
> _Tasks like these can genuinely make coders more efficient and give them more time to do the fun part of coding, namely, solving really gnarly, abstract puzzles. But when you listen to business leaders talk about their AI plans for coders, it’s clear they’re not looking to make some centaurs._
>
> _They want to fire a lot of tech workers – they’ve fired 500,000 over the past three years – and make the rest pick up their work with coding, which is only possible if you let the AI do all the gnarly, creative problem solving, and then you do the most boring, soul-crushing part of the job: reviewing the AIs’ code._
Criticize the hype. Mock the replace-your-workforce promises. Call out the slop factories and the gray goo doomsaying. But don’t mistake the bad uses for the technology itself. When a human stays in control—thinking, evaluating, deciding—it’s a genuinely powerful tool. The important question is just whether you’re using it, or it’s using you.
Filed Under: ai, llms, slop, tools
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Daily Deal: Nix Mini 3 Color Sensor
from the _good-deals-on-cool-stuff_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 11:59am - Daily Deal
Instantly become a color expert with the Nix Mini 3 Color Sensor. This portable device puts all paint fan decks in your pocket, offering access to over 200,000 brand-name paint colors and essential color codes like RGB, HEX, and CMYK. Perfect for designers, contractors, and homeowners. The Mini 3 features Bluetooth connectivity, Debris and splash resistance, and free access to the Nix Toolkit app for precise and convenient color matching. This newest version improves accuracy with 3x enhanced resolution over the Mini 2 and significant improvements to battery life and Bluetooth connectivity. The Nix Mini 3 ensures reliable color management for any project. Additionally, it matches premium libraries like Pantone, RAL, and NCS with monthly or annual subscription options. It’s on sale for $69.97 for a limited time.
_Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team._
Filed Under: daily deal
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Sen. Blackburn Gets Shitty Because Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Attended An Awards Show Where ICE Was Criticized
from the _clown-ass-GOP_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 10:46am - Tim Cushing
I don’t understand sycophancy. Never have. I don’t know what it gets you in the long run other than a reputation for subservience. That’s worth nearly nothing in the open market. The only people who will hire you are people most people would never want to work for.
And yet, that is pretty much the entirety of the GOP under Trump: a massive collection of doormats the current president won’t even remember stepping on moments later. Sucking up to a goldfish brain like Trump makes you a fool, rather than the savvy pol you imagine yourself to be.
Welcome to the dom side of the sub/dom equation, Senator Marsha Blackburn. While she’s most famous here for trying to turn the internet into whatever the current iteration of the GOP wishes it to be ( at least here at Techdirt), she’s stepped out of her comfort zone recently to publicly complain about a Supreme Court justice who _attended_ an awards show where multiple people publicly criticized Trump’s anti-migrant actions.
> _Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called for an investigation Thursday into Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for attending the Grammy Awards, where various artists criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)._
>
> _\[…\]_
>
> _“Americans deserve a Supreme Court that is impartial and above political influence,” Blackburn wrote on social platform X. “When a Justice participates in such a highly politicized event, it raises ethical questions. We need an investigation into Justice Jackson’s ability to remain impartial.”_
First things fucking last, Justice Jackson was not a presenter, nor was she a “participant” in any of the ICE criticism delivered by Grammy-nominated artists like Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish, and Justin Vernon. She was also not involved in any way with the production of the Grammy Awards ceremony, further removing her from anything that might be deemed “impartial.”
But beyond any of that is the fact that Justice Jackson had a perfectly legitimate, non-political reason to be there:
> _Jackson was nominated in the Best Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording category for her memoir “Lovely One.”_
Jackson didn’t win (she lost to the Dalai Lama which, if you’re going to lose, is probably a loss you’ll never complain about publicly) but she was nominated. That alone gave her a reason to be there. The anti-ICE content may have been personally enjoyable, but she wasn’t there to soak up the stuff being said by others.
Not that it matters to the performative doormats currently employed as GOP politicians. Sen. Blackburn immediately started banging away on her keyboard and decided to take her disgruntled Grammy Awards forum comments to the next level by sending them off to Chief Justice John Roberts:
> _I write today regarding recent reporting about Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s attendance at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday, February 1, and the ethical questions raised by her attendance at such a highly politicized event. For the following_
>
> _reasons, I urge you to conduct a thorough investigation into Justice Jackson’s attendance at this event and whether her presence at such an event complies with the obligation that a Supreme Court justice “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”_
>
> _While it is by no means unheard of or unusual for a Supreme Court justice to attend a public function, very rarely—if ever—have justices of our nation’s highest Court been present at an event at which attendees have amplified such far-left rhetoric. Many of the attendees wore lapel pins that read “ICE OUT,” an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) adage. One Grammy winner that evening opened his acceptance speech by stating, “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ‘ICE out,’” which was received with thunderous applause by the crowd. Another award recipient that evening noted in her acceptance speech that “No one is illegal on stolen land,” going on to say that “we need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting . . . And f\\\* ICE, that’s all I’m gonna say.” These statements were just two of many polarized, highly charged anti-law enforcement sentiments from that evening. It is important to note that Justice Jackson was present in the audience throughout the event._
Wow. Harsh words from someone who couldn’t be bothered to speak up while Justice Clarence Thomas received millions of dollars’ worth of gifts from right-wing benefactors over the past two decades. She was oddly quiet when it was revealed Justice Thomas’s wife was pushing election conspiracy theories. Truly an unexpected amount of yelling from someone who had nothing to say when Justice Alito’s wife was flying pro-Trump flags at Alito’s home.
Oh. Wait. Blackburn has something to say about both of those things in this letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:
> _Unlike these meritless claims against Justice Alito and Justice Thomas, there are serious questions regarding Justice Jackson’s participation in such a brazenly political, anti-law enforcement event and her ability to remain an impartial member of the Supreme Court._
It was a _Grammy Awards ceremony_, not an anti-ICE protest. That people had negative things to say about ICE is completely expected, given how many people are opposed to how this administration is handling immigration enforcement. Blackburn absolutely _knows_ she’s comparing apples to precision-machined aftermarket car parts. But like everyone else in this despicable political party, she doesn’t care and she knows it’s going to cause at least a small percentage of the converted to pretend to be offended on her behalf.
I assume John Roberts knows this as well. Let’s hope he’ll just roll his eyes and go back to binge-watching the kind of television I assume he enjoys: the no-one-asked-for-this 2023 reboot of Night Court.
Filed Under: grammys, ice, ketanji brown jackson, marsha blackburn, mass deportation, scotus, trump administration
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Hey Rep. Gonzales, Finish The Thought: What About That Five-Year-Old US Citizen?
from the _the-five-year-olds-see-you-as-the-bad-guy_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 09:28am - Mike Masnick
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales from Texas went on Face the Nation on Sunday and said a lot of silly things, doing his best as a loyal Trump foot soldier to defend the indefensible, to make sense of the nonsensical, and to lie about all the rest.
However, I wanted to focus on one bit of the clip that I’ve watched over a dozen times, and still can’t figure out what Rep. Gonzales meant. And I’m writing this in hopes that some DC or Texas reporter asks Gonzales to explain. Here’s the clip:
Bluesky Embed
Gonzales on Liam Ramos and his family: "They're not gonna qualify for asylum. So what do you do with all the people that go through the process and do not qualify for asylum? You deport them. I understand that 5-year-old and it breaks my heart. I also think, what about that 5-year-old US citizen?"
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And here’s the transcript from CBS. I’m including a bit more than is in the clip just to get the full context of what he’s saying:
> _MARGARET BRENNAN: You have this facility, though, in your district, Dilley, and that is for family detentions. That’s where little five-year-old Liam Ramos from Minnesota was held before a judge, that’s the picture of him there, ordered him released. He was ordered released because his family has a pending asylum claim, a legal process. He had entered with U.S. government permission through a process that the Biden administration had deemed legal. The current administration does not. The CBPOne app. Liam’s father gave an interview to Telemundo and you read the transcript, he’s talking about this five-year-old. He’s not okay. He’s waking up at night crying. He’s worried he’s going to be taken again. It’s psychological trauma, according to the father. And the administration is still trying to deport him. Do you understand why they are so focused on this five-year-old and his dad if they did come in through the front door with U.S. government permission?_
>
> _REP. GONZALES: Well, the front door was via an app that Biden knew exactly what he was doing, and he created this huge mess, and now President Trump is there to clean up._
>
> _MARGARET BRENNAN: –but he came in the front door, he wasn’t–_
>
> _REP. GONZALES: –through an app–_
>
> _MARGARET BRENNAN: –across the border–_
>
> _REP. GONZALES: –through an app that wasn’t vetted. And bottom line is, he’s likely- they’re not going to qualify for asylum. So what do you do with all the people that go through the process and do not qualify for asylum? You deport them. I understand the five-year-old and it, you know, it breaks my heart. I have a five year old at home._ _I also think, what about that five-year-old U.S. citizen–_
>
> _MARGARET BRENNAN: –You feel comfortable defending that?_
>
> _REP. GONZALES: I feel comfortable- we have to have a nation of laws. If we don’t have a nation of laws–_
>
> _MARGARET BRENNAN: –They were following the- the law that is- that is that’s the rub, is that a new administration deemed the last administration’s regulation not to be legal._
Again, there’s a lot of nonsense in there, including Gonzales trying to pretend that Liam Ramos and his father had not entered the right way and following the laws of the US for those seeking to come here just because it was “through an app.” That app was the legal process. They followed the law. They did it the right way. To magically make that out to be violating the law because the next administration no longer wants to support that path doesn’t change the underlying fact that they were doing things the legal way.
But, again, let’s leave that aside. I simply want to focus in on the question of what the fuck Gonzales meant when he said:
> _I understand the five-year-old and it, you know, it breaks my heart. I have a five year old at home._ _I also think, what about that five-year-old U.S. citizen–_
What about them? Under what scenario, process, or idea is that hypothetical five-year-old US citizen harmed? I’ve been unable to think or a _single_ possible scenario in which the US citizen five-year-old could be harmed by allowing Liam Ramos to go through the asylum process.
Perhaps Rep. Gonzales can enlighten us by completing his thought and explaining.
Seriously: what is the scenario here? Is pre-kindergarten a zero-sum game now? Does Liam Ramos’s presence in a classroom somehow harm the US citizen in the next seat?
Brennan cut him off before he could finish the thought, and nobody followed up. So we don’t know. But I’d really like someone in the DC or Texas press corps to ask him to complete that sentence. Because I can think of one very obvious way that five-year-old US citizens are being harmed right now—and it’s not by Liam Ramos.
It’s by watching their government kidnap their classmates.
Nicholas Grossman talked about how his own child is distraught because some of his classmates can no longer come to school for fear their parents may be kidnapped by ICE:
Bluesky Embed
My first grader (a US citizen) came home from school crying because a friend from class (also a US citizen) hasn’t been coming to school because his parents (one of whom is not a citizen) are afraid of ICE.
Little kids don’t have concepts of racism and xenophobia. That has to be taught. Or imposed.
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Indeed, the NY Times went and actually spoke with Liam Ramos’ classmates, and they seem legitimately distraught that government agents kidnapped their friend and sent him halfway across the country to a dangerous concentration camp. The video on that page is absolutely heartbreaking. I don’t see how anyone with a soul could possibly support or justify what is being done to Ramos. And to claim it’s in the name of his US citizen classmates is even more obnoxious. Just a couple of the quotes from five year olds:
> _“You are scaring schools, people, and the world. You should be kind, helpful, and caring like normal police. Not dangerous, scary, and stealing people. I think you should make friends with the world.”_
>
> _“You, right now, you’re making people really sad because you’re just taking them away without them doing anything.”_
So, please, Rep. Gonazales, tell us what you were thinking. What about those five-year-olds? What about kidnapping their classmate makes them better off? What about any of this makes sense? They’re not criminals. They followed the official legal process. They came in through “the front door” following the official process of the government at the time.
At no point have they done anything wrong.
So please, Rep. Gonzales: finish the thought. What about that five-year-old US citizen?
Because those five-year-old US citizens have already given their answer. They’re not being harmed by Liam Ramos. They’re being harmed by a government that just taught them their friends can disappear without warning.
That’s “what about” them.
Filed Under: asylum, immigration, liam ramos, margaret brennan, minnesota, tony gonzales
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Brendan Carr Launches Fake Investigation Of ABC’s ‘The View’ Because They Haven’t Adequately Coddled Trumpism
from the _fake-investigations-by-phony-people_ dept
Tue, Feb 10th 2026 05:22am - Karl Bode
FCC boss Brendan Carr is back with yet another fake “investigation” of media outlets he deems insufficiently deferential to radical (and increasingly unpopular) right wing ideology. This time it involves Carr launching a phony non-investigation of ABC’s _The View_. The crime? They apparently didn’t kiss MAGA Republican ass with enough zeal:
> _“The Federal Communications Commission is opening an investigation into whether ABC’s “The View” daytime talk show violated equal time rules for interviews with political candidates after an appearance by a Democratic Texas Senate candidate this week, a source told Reuters on Saturday.”_
This, to be clear, isn’t a real investigation. Carr’s office is likely the Reuters source. And he previously hinted this was coming. As we mentioned then, Carr is threatening to leverage the “equal time” rule embedded in Section 315 of the Communications Act to take action against talk shows that don’t provide “equal” time to Republican ideology.
The rule is a dated relic that would be largely impossible for the Trump FCC to actually enforce. Republicans like Carr historically _despised_ the equal time rule — an offshoot of the long-defunct Fairness Doctrine, a problematic effort to ensure media fairness (specifically on broadcast TV) they long complained was unconstitutional. Until they found a “President leader” with no ethical or moral center.
The rule was originally created to apply specifically to political candidate appearances on broadcast television, since back then, a TV appearance on one of the big three networks could make or break and politician attempting to run for office. In the years since, the rule has seen numerous exemptions and, with the evisceration of the regulatory state by the right wing, isn’t seriously enforceable.
That’s not stopping weird Trump zealots like Carr, who is keen to abuse FCC authority he doesn’t really have to harass media companies that don’t adequately bend the knee to kakistocracy. Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democrat Commissioner, has done a good job with messaging pointing out that Carr is a dangerous, but highly performative, hack:
> _“Like many other so-called ‘investigations’ before it, the FCC will announce an investigation but never carry one out, reach a conclusion, or take any meaningful action,” she said. “This is government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation.”_
As Gomez notes, most of this stuff goes nowhere. On one hand, it’s decorative cack Carr leaks to gullible media outlets to make it appear like he’s _doing important things_. On the other hand, it’s still designed to stifle journalistic freedom and the First Amendment by warning media companies that they’ll face protracted and costly legal headaches if they refuse to kiss Republican ass.
Keep in mind that ABC and Disney executives have already repeatedly tripped over themselves to curry favor with our embarrassing government, including paying Trump a $15 million bribe to settle a baseless lawsuit they were likely to win. They’re doing this because they like lower taxes, mindless deregulation, and rubber-stamped media consolidation. They couldn’t care less about journalism or viewpoint diversity.
These are cases that not only are winnable, many excellent lawyers would be willing to help fight them. And yet our media giants are still pathetic and feckless. It’s another good lesson about how even if you think kissing up to autocrats is a financial win, it doesn’t pay great returns over the longer haul. There is never a point where you will be deemed dutifully obedient, and akin to Vader’s management of Bespin’s Cloud City, the _arrangement can and will always get worse_.
Our increasingly broken corporate press struggles (or simply refuses) to communicate that Carr’s goal isn’t equality; it’s the disproportionate coddling and normalization of an extremist U.S. right wing political movement that’s increasingly despised by the actual public.
It was this steady media deterioration at the hands of the right wing and corporate power that opened the door to Trump’s buffoonery in the first place. And, without a serious progressive media reform movement (which needs to include publicly funded media, serious media consolidation limits, ownership diversity rules, and creative new funding models for real journalism), it’s only going to get worse.
The obvious end point, if people of conscience can’t galvanize useful policy reform, will be the sort of state media control we seen in countries like Russia and Hungary. At which point, all of the problems we’re seeing now at the hands of our violent, dim autocrats will only get worse.
Filed Under: authoritarians, brendan carr, consolidation, equal time, fascists, fcc, first amendment, free speech, journalism, media, propaganda, the view
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Newly Public Emails Sure Make It Look Like RFK Jr. Lied To Congress About His Trip To Samoa In 2019
from the _liar-liar_ dept
Mon, Feb 9th 2026 08:11pm - Timothy Geigner
Way back in 2018, a series of events in Samoa brought about the country’s worst measles outbreak in years. It started in July of that year when two 1-year old children who were given a measles vaccine subsequently died. While anti-vaxxers around the world gleefully jumped into action to blame the vaccine for those deaths, it turns out that the vaccine didn’t kill the children at all. Instead, medical professionals had accidentally mixed the vaccine with a muscle relaxer solution instead of sterilized water like they were supposed to. Despite that fact, the anti-vaxxers sowed all kinds of fear and disinformation throughout the country, whipping up negativity around measles vaccines. As a result of that, the government put a 10 months ban in place on the vaccine.
In June of 2019, RFK Jr. visited Samoa. He met with anti-vaxxer crusaders and government officials. Despite that, he has said publicly and in testimony before Congress that his trip there had nothing to do with vaccines and was instead about a medical records and tracking system the country was interested in. You can see an example of that claim in his own confirmation hearing.
RFK Jr. asked to explain vaccine stance, pressed about measles outbreak in Samoa - YouTube
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RFK Jr. asked to explain vaccine stance, pressed about measles outbreak in Samoa
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MMR vaccination
MMR vaccine is very effective at protecting people against measles, mumps, and rubella, and preventing the complications caused by these diseases.
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Lots of people questioned that claim. And rightly so. The people he was meeting with, the timing in conjunction with the vaccination ban, it all lined up to yet another anti-vaxxer visiting the country to push their anti-vaxxer message.
Two months later, Samoa experienced a massive measles outbreak.
> _An outbreak began in October 2019 and continued for four months. Before seeking proper medical treatment, some parents first took their children to ‘traditional healers’ who used machines purchased that claimed to produce “immune-protective” water._
>
> _As of 22 December, there were 79 deaths. This was 0.4 deaths per 1,000 people, based on a population of 200,874, an infection fatality rate of 1.43%. There were 5,520 cases, representing 2.75% of the population.61 of the first 70 deaths were aged four and under. All but seven of the deaths were from people aged under 15._
>
> _At least 20% of babies aged six to 11 months contracted measles. One in 150 babies died._
This past week, documents and emails obtained by The Guardian and The AP show that everyone on the Samoan government’s side of the house understood Kennedy’s visit to be _explicitly_ about vaccines, contrary to his statements, including statements before Congress. He was sworn in for that confirmation hearing, to be clear.
> _Documents obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press undermine that testimony. Emails sent by staffers at the U.S. Embassy and the United Nations provide, for the first time, an inside look at how Kennedy’s trip came about and include contemporaneous accounts suggesting his concerns about vaccine safety motivated the visit._
>
> _The documents have prompted concerns from at least one U.S. senator that the lawyer and activist now leading America’s health policy lied to Congress over the visit. Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s trip bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists ahead of the measles outbreak, which sickened thousands of people and killed 83, mostly children under age 5._
The AP post has a ton of details further down the article, but here is an example of the content.
> _Embassy staffers got a tip about Harding’s involvement in the trip from Sheldon Yett, then the representative for Pacific island countries at UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund._
>
> _“We now understand that the Prime Minister has invited Robert Kennedy and his team to come to Samoa to investigate the safety of the vaccine,” Yett wrote in a May 22, 2019, email to an embassy staffer based in New Zealand. “The staff member in question seems to have had a role in facilitating this.”_
>
> _Two days later, a top embassy staff member in Apia wrote to Scott Brown, then the Republican U.S. president’s ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, alerting him to Kennedy’s trip and Harding’s involvement._
>
> _“The real reason Kennedy is coming is to raise awareness about vaccinations, more specifically some of the health concerns associated with vaccinating (from his point of view),” the embassy official, Antone Greubel, wrote. “It turns out our very own Benjamin Harding played some role in a personal capacity to bring him here.” Greubel wrote that he told Harding to “cease and desist from any further involvement with this travel,” though the rest of the sentence is redacted._
Now, I have zero problem believing that Kennedy is lying about all of this. Lying is just what he does. And regularly. I also put the blood of all those dead children, and any long term health issues in the thousands of others, partially on Kennedy’s ledger. This is all simply common sense.
But the real travesty is something quite similar is happening _right here, right now_. The measles outbreak in America is speeding up, not slowing down. Kennedy, as with Samoa, is taking zero responsibility for it. If he’s taking any real concrete actions to combat it, I don’t know what those would be, nor would I understand why they’ve been hidden so completely from public visibility. Kennedy once opined that maybe it would be better if everyone just got measles.
If that is his real goal, it appears we’re on our way. But somebody besides a couple of press outlets should be investigating Kennedy for lying to Congress, at a minimum. And perhaps having a hand in the deaths of children, as well.
Filed Under: health & human services, lies, measles, perjury, rfk jr., samoa, vaccines
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