Scandal among the billionaires!! Yellow journalism! Scathing tabloids! Politics and surveillance! All the rage among the elite..
This week Jeff Bezos wrote an article for Medium that the National Enquirer had private messages and emails being sent to him demanding that his Washington POST stops investigating ties between the tabloid and Saudi Arabia. If they don’t, executives for the mostly grocery store rag stated, they would released provocative images of Bezos’ penis..
There has been a multiple set of developments since Bezos went public about David Pecker from the American Media Inc (Pecker is the real name.. ) ..
A number of people online went after the Enquirer, especially given its past ties to supporting Donald Trump. Some equated the ransom attempt on Bezos as a political move since the billionaire bought the Washington POST–a paper that has been critical of Trump since he became president..
Others felt plain bad for Bezos.. Yes he is in an elite class to himself, but treatment like that, many said, is not deserved.. and some rallied behind him just as did they did to Hulk Hogan back when he forced GAWKER into the corner..
Since that development, more level headed people have wondered if we are just having sympathy for the devil.
According to Medium, they are not commenting on whether Bezos violated their terms of service or rules by publishing the content on their platform. BUT they admonished that he will NOT be paid for it.. I am sure non payment on that blog post will be a critical hit to his wallet. (sarcasm on that of course) ..
And finally, Glenn Greenwald for THE INTERCEPT labeled Amazon Bezos as a “notorious labor abuser” and a hypocrite: Greenwald contends that as Bezos complains of the invasion of his privacy, he is busy building a surveillance state that everyone else is going to have to contend with for the rest of our digital humanity. Among the points made by Greenwald:
That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with the Pentagon and the NSA to empower the U.S. Government with more potent and more sophisticated weapons, including surveillance weapons.
In December, 2017, Amazon boasted that it had perfected new face-recognition software for crowds, which it called Rekognition. It explained that the product is intended, in large part, for use by governments and police forces around the world. The ACLU quickly warned that the product is “dangerous” and that Amazon “is actively helping governments deploy it.”
DEVELOPING..