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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#521

Post by brisance »

pjc50 wrote: post #499
danhak wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really puts this tweet from POTUS last month in a crazy new context: "So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!" https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/10846274519830732... Stran…

Trump has been making transparent threats on Twitter since before getting elected. Until now they've been pretty empty threats.

He solicited a hostile foreign power to interfere in the 2016 elections. In many countries this would be equivalent to treason.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/27/donald...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#522

Post by bayesian_horse »

Mtinie wrote: post #426
bayesian_horse wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it's not a clear cut case of extortion, because no money is exchanged. A "thing of value" may do, but it's not clear that AMI's demands rise to that level.

AMI is willing to accept a loss of future profits gained from running the story, in exchange for Bezos’s capitulation. If you have access to AMI’s advertising rate card and a rough subscriber count you can estimate the USD value this information represents. As others have mentioned, “thing of value” does not have to be monetary. For example, there are a number of cases where a person was found guilty of extorting ano…

No, it doesn't only mean "money". Still, it's not perfectly clear that the requested declaration is a "thing of value" and legal scholars are already debating it.

The idea of AMI foregoing a story is not a good argument in this case because this would mean AMI profits by Bezos ignoring the request...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#523

Post by andyjohnson0 »

blattimwind wrote: post #460
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #449

The astonishingly un-subtle words of the lawyer involved surprised me: "That said, if your client agrees to cease and desist such defamatory behavior, we are willing to engage in constructive conversations regarding the texts and photos which we have in our possession." Is there any way that this could pass a professional ethics review? After reading more about him [1], I have to wonder: why this person still allowed…

The quoted portion was authored by Jon P. Fine (who actually worked for well over a decade at Amazon before ending up as General Counsel for AMI); Marty Singer represents Bezos in this case and the quoted portion is addressed at him.

Ah, my mistake. Wrong name.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#524

Post by buboard »

apo wrote: post #227

Here’s a piece of context: My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certa…

he says it s plausible but doesnt offer evidence , or even imply it is true. It's not exactly secret that they are not fond of each other.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#525

Post by buboard »

seanwilson wrote: post #153

I'm impressed he didn't censor out the text that says what the photos contain. The post would have had a similar impact either way I think. Nobody should have to be embarrassed about harm-free personal activities though.

Jeff 's got some balls -- that we 're unlikely to see now

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#526

Post by Juliate »

brisance wrote: post #521
pjc50 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has been making transparent threats on Twitter since before getting elected. Until now they've been pretty empty threats.

He solicited a hostile foreign power to interfere in the 2016 elections. In many countries this would be equivalent to treason. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/27/donald...

I thought it was in the US?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#527

Post by amelius »

Imho, the best possible response to this kind of situation is to generate thousands of (deep) fakes, with different parameters, and spread them. Then, nobody will know what the real photos were. Also, with this many fakes going around, nobody will really care anymore. And mr. Bezos certainly has the resources to get a team of CGI artists to work on something like this.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#528

Post by [deleted] »

belorn wrote: post #509
CloudNetworking wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said they've used sophisticated attacks to get their hands into that data, though. Why would a Government agency risk burning a zero day if they can just pay that lady or blackmail her with something else?

>>> "Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked" Hacking implies a sophisticated attack. Not saying either government didn't do it. Following paxys line of thought I would however agree that hacking is not the most likely explanation in how the private data was taken. Social engineering is sometimes also described as an "hack" but I doubt that is what Bezos implies with the word.

[deleted]

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#529

Post by fxfan »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #246
apo wrote: post #227

Here’s a piece of context: My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certa…

Bezos essentially got paid by the CIA to buy the WashPost ($600 million contract from the CIA, next thing you know, Bezos buys the paper). Let's not kid ourselves about his altruism - the purpose of owning a large paper like the Post is political power... this has been true since at least the time of Lord Beaverbrook.

I didn't downvote- can you please elaborate more?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#530

Post by mc32 »

brisance wrote: post #521
pjc50 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has been making transparent threats on Twitter since before getting elected. Until now they've been pretty empty threats.

He solicited a hostile foreign power to interfere in the 2016 elections. In many countries this would be equivalent to treason. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/27/donald...

I think he’s just implying they have more competence than the FBI in finding alleged missing emails. His comms is very non literal -and people take him literally. His whole campaign was off hand blue collar jokey remarks.

Pundits understood him literally, so they failed to understand him at all. His nomination competitors also saw him in this light and ultimately failed. Mostly, J think they failed to understand his communication style1[1]. Occasio on the Dem side uses some of this same comms style for the left and it works to a degree, but the left is more uptight about being PC in comms so cant go as far afield with it.

Kerry undermining foreign policy is closer to treason but no one bothers cuz he’s an old hand. Let’s say the Dems win the next cycle, but then as they try working with Russia or Iran on things, Bolton struts in on visits to give his two cents...

Basically, I think many people try using a standard/traditional comms framework to parse his comms, but he uses a different more blue collar style[2]. Not frat style of a GWB, or the ancient oratorical style of Obama.

Obviously people are disagreeing with me, but I'd suggest reading what some linguists and political theorists have to say.

[1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...

[2]https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.14318/hau6.2.00...

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