Facebook $FB admits that it has run out of humans to scam and exploit, as Sam Lessin first warned Mark Zuckerberg in 2012. The company's only real growth is in fake accounts, as has been the case for years.
Yet reporters still repeat the company's lies about billions of users.
This is yet another investor deck that shows an actual *decrease* in daily/monthly active users across certain geographies. Note the peak of 198 million U.S. "users" (actually, accounts, many of them fake) in Q2 2020—never again achieved as of yet.
Red alert.
As usual, $FB provides the public with stale (seven months old), false, completely inaccurate data about its massive fake account problem, referred to internally as SUMA. Meanwhile, @SEC_Enforcement, @FTC, and Congress do nothing. CC: @GaryGensler@chopraftc
@SEC_Enforcement@FTC@GaryGensler@chopraftc $FB disclosure: "we currently use a series of machine learning models that are developed based on internal reviews of limited samples of user accounts and calibrated against user survey data"
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL deposition: "no better than a coin flip"
Mark just gave the media a shiny ball (buzzword) to distract from his and the company's literal crimes and it's working perfectly. Why write about fake accounts and securities fraud when there's the "metaverse," which does not exist? $FB
(Not to pick on Ryan Mac—now every journalist who covers Facebook feels compelled to repeat the idiocy of the man-child in charge. See also Elon Musk, Donald Trump, etc.)
Nothing requires the media to allow billionaires to unilaterally set the agenda. This is a good example of pushing back—but not by @CaseyNewton.
This quote from Kimbal Musk, under oath, might be the most important statement in the entirety of the SolarCity/$TSLA trial. The Musk family ethos, "relentless optimism," is responsible for everything good and bad about Tesla. It also more broadly reflects the zeitgeist.
Previously, his brother Elon said something similar when he was discussing the failure of Solyndra at the National Press Club. The message was, in essence, lie or die. Elon has stuck to that.
The brothers Musk have a point. Relentless optimism is an incredibly effective strategy for getting through dire situations. That's why optimism is taught in (and found at) business schools. But you can't run a company on optimism alone. See also, Theranos.
PlainSite's PRA request to the California DMV was indirectly cited in a judicial decision in Santa Barbara County issued last week. $TSLA will have to defend against allegations that it made fraudulent claims about "Autopilot."
The judge also refused to dismiss a False Advertising Law claim involving both "Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving" terms. Read the full decision here:
$TSLA faces the prospect of an injunction in this case that could forbid it from continuing to sell "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" features to the public.
Exhibit B: The Musk defense team in the SolarCity trial has pinned their hopes on the $TSLA Powerwall product as the justification for the merger. Since Tesla had Powerwall and SolarCity had panels, it made business sense to combine them. Hard for a judge to argue with that.
A previously unreported search warrant for a Binance account used to traffic drugs to Cleveland, Ohio: plainsite.org/dockets/4kn5y0…
A previously unreported seizure lawsuit in which the United States won a default judgment against funds in a Binance account connected to a ransomware payment. plainsite.org/dockets/4h0fg5… CC: @nicoleperlroth