Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Matt Stoller Profile picture
@matthewstoller
Apr 12, 2022 • 32 tweets • 11 min read • Read on X
1. Here's Apple CEO Tim Cook today arguing that antitrust laws against big tech are bad for privacy and bad for national security. In honor of his speech, I thought I'd do a little thread on just how bad these tech firms are for American security.
2. Let's start with Apple, which systemically transferred technology to Chinese firms after Tim Cook in 2016 made a $275 billion investment pledge to invest in China. theinformation.com/articles/facin…
3. Apple sourced "more components from Chinese suppliers, signed deals with Chinese software firms, collaborated on technology with Chinese universities" and "directly invested in Chinese tech companies." It helped bring "“the most advanced manufacturing technologies” to China.
4. In 2021, Apple and Google removed a voting app created by the Russian political opposition leader after pressure from the Russian government. Security! Prestige Worldwide! nytimes.com/2021/09/17/wor…
5. Apple lobbied on behalf of forced labor in China, seeking to weaken the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
6. Apple Maps nearly sent chef Jose Andres into sending me into Russian-controlled territory. It was an accident! Black leather gloves! Research and development! axios.com/jose-andres-be…
7. Apple's app store is so full of scams and garbage, and the firm is so inattentive, that one dude on Twitter - @keleftheriou - is constantly embarrassing Apple by showing their claims of protecting users are essentially fraudulent. theverge.com/2021/4/21/2238…
8. Apple handed over "priceless knowledge" to Chinese firms on how to build its products. This directly contributed and is still contributing to the rise of China's tech industry. Apple is *more* invested in China, not less. theinformation.com/articles/how-a…
9. "Apple and Facebook provided customer data to hackers who masqueraded as law enforcement officials, according to three people with knowledge of the matter."

So much security! Putting in the man hours to study the science. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
10. Facebook regularly helps scammers impersonate U.S. soldiers, and does nothing to stop it. nytimes.com/2019/07/28/tec…
11. Google's Android software accidentally gave away the location of secret military activities.

Last week we put liquid paper on a bee! It died.
washingtonpost.com/world/a-map-sh…
12. Still, it's not like Apple actually uses slave labor in China to make its products oh wait seven Apple suppliers are accused of doing that, um, Tim Cook cares about your privacy. theinformation.com/articles/seven…
13. Apple tried to refuse unlocking an iPhone to help solve a shooting at a Navy base in Pensacola. There was a court warrant, so this wasn't some glorious stand on privacy. cnbc.com/2020/01/14/app…
14. Google abandoned a contract to deliver the Pentagon drone AI technology, leaving the DOD with no alternative supplier. washingtonpost.com/news/the-switc…
15. While pretending to stand up for human rights as its rationale for not being in the Chinese market, Google secretly tried to develop a censored version of its search engine in China that would help the Chinese government surveil its citizens. theintercept.com/2018/08/01/goo…
16. Facebook profited from advertisements peddling illegal opioids. The ads remained on Facebook for months after an NBC News investigation, and weeks after U.S. officials declared opioid addiction a public health crisis. cnbc.com/2017/11/14/fac…
17. We need big tech research to compete with China, right?

" 10 percent of the collective AI research labs of Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft were housed in China by the end of 2020."

oops!

defenseone.com/ideas/2021/08/…
18. But what about TikTok? Don't we need someone to take on TikTok? Glad that you asked. Facebook is why we *have* a TikTok problem. promarket.org/2020/08/07/tec…
19. Amazon, of course, actively facilitated as much Chinese seller activity into the US as possible, thus spawning a wave of counterfeits and dangerous products. ImageImage
20. The economies of scale facilitated by firms like Amazon and Facebook are just great.
21. Naturally Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple do wonderful political work to protect us. Microsoft, for instance, lobbied on behalf of Chinese telecom firm Huawei. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
22. NYT: "Amazon ‘Reviewing’ Its Website After It Suggested Bomb-Making Items"

That seems bad! nytimes.com/2017/09/20/tec…
23. Not exactly a national security problem, but it's sort of adjacent.
24. It's not America, but Zuckerberg at one point tried to remove all newspaper content in Australia from Facebook, in order to threaten the government over a new antitrust law to help newspapers. nytimes.com/2021/02/17/tec…
25. Also, when Mark Zuckerberg talks up the importance of national security and how Facebook can help America stand up to China, remember that he once asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to name his child. nytimes.com/2015/10/27/tec…
26. Also once Zuckerberg actually blurbed Xi Jinping's book and made his employees read Chinese government propaganda. amazon.com/Xi-Jinping-Gov…

qz.com/308023/faceboo… Image
Ok, what am I missing? Are there any big tech-related national security vulnerabilities out there I've forgotten? The answer is yes, but I can't remember them. So help me out.
27. I didn't know that Google and Chinese giant Tencent had a patent sharing agreement to engage on "deeper collaboration on innovative new technologies." How very IG Farben-Standard Oil of them. dw.com/en/google-and-…
28. And of course Apple doesn't bother to patch zero day exploits, which is to say it doesn't protect its products from hackers. intego.com/mac-security-b…
29. And another one, Facebook has no idea what happens with user data it collects. Economies of scale! vice.com/en/article/akv…
30. Google, Facebook, and Apple were all duped into releasing information used to harass and sexually extort minors. Economies of scale! bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
31. And another in the 'big tech is bad for security' files, via @ndcarson. Amazon is profiting from the sale of malware to users that can steal sensitive data.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Matt Stoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @matthewstoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture
Jul 7
1. Ok so let's talk about socialism, aka the state taking over from private industry. Here are some examples you haven't heard of - Kentucky and Ohio - replacing their pharma pricing middlemen with state agencies. Image
2. In 2018, the Columbus Dispatch revealed that pharma middlemen CVS Caremark and UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx were ripping off the state Medicaid program, destroying pharmacies, and hurting patients. So Ohio... fired them. And built its own state PBM. thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-rou…
3. It launched in 2022, run by Ohio's Department of Medicaid. It did pharma pricing for Medicaid, rebates for pharmacies, ran call centers, managed a drug list, a network of pharmacies et al. No more conflicts of interest. Caremark predicted DOOM FROM FULL COMMUNISM....
Read 14 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Jun 10
Obama was a malevolent leader and as a person is a mean spirited greedy narcissist. The authoritarian turn we are experiencing now is directly his doing, though not solely his doing.

So is our gruesomely dishonest conversation on race and identity.
I worked on the financial crisis and I remember hearing from people in the White House mockery of the ‘deadbeats’ who couldn’t pay their mortgages. It’s hard to convey the meanness of the Obama insiders.
Obama used his black identity - an important and positive symbol - to oversee the biggest loss of black wealth in our lifetime, with the support of black voters and leaders. He took the moral currency of the Civil Rights movement and spent it on Wall Street. Now it’s gone.
Read 5 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Jun 3
1. Since Yglesias won't address the argument @musharbash_b made about housing, I will. His argument is that Texas, which Abundance authors @DKThomp and @ezraklein point to as a model, has the same housing cost inflation they ascribe to blue areas. Why? thebignewsletter.com/p/messing-with… x.com/mattyglesias/s…
2. It's corporate power among homebuilders. Don't just take @musharbash_b word for it, it's a well-known story. Here's a shockingly good CNBC report on how big homebuilders withhold housing supply.
3. This graph from @NewsLambert really tells the story nation-wide. Since 2008, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt because of zoning policy, 65% of homebuilders have disappeared. And they never returned. Now only the big builders - with huge profit margins - are left. Image
Read 21 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Apr 14
Mark Zuckerberg is on the stand, the FTC lawyer is grilling him on documents showing the point of the service is to connect to friends. This is about market definition. #ftcvmeta
FTC asks if Meta is still built on a 'social graph,' Zuckerberg says he's not sure what that means but that it's a 'core concept' of Facebook.

"The friend part has gone down quite a bit."

He wants the judge to see TikTok as a rival.
Zuckerberg emphasizes that connecting w/friends and family is important to Facebook but less and less important. This testimony is about showing how Meta is a monopolist in a clear market, social networking services connecting with friends/family.

Here's the judge.#ftcvmeta Image
Read 14 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 20
The basic problem with America is that nearly all of our major institutions are led by vastly overpaid incompetent greedheads who all have agreed to not snitch on each other. It's easy to explain how to fix it once you get this basic diagnosis. Here are a few ideas.
1) Corporate boards are full of lazy kiss-assers who get $100k to show up to a meeting a few times a year. So how about this? No board members of a company can get paid while there's a strike going on at their company.
2) The Federal Reserve actually runs our economic policy. So how about saying that not all of the Fed board members can be millionaires? Some of them have to be borrowers and not just lenders.
Read 11 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Jan 26
Deepseek is forcing the entire Silicon Valley ecosystem to recognize that Lina Khan was right, even if they won’t admit it.
Here’s the point. ftc.gov/system/files/f…
American big tech firms are bad at building things because their focus is not on building things, it’s on monopolization and political power. No different than Boeing. This has been obvious for years. thebignewsletter.com/p/national-cha…
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(