@bobbyallyn.bsky.social
NPR correspondent covering tech Signal: ballyn.77 https://www.npr.org/people/638550790/bobby-allyn
In 2021, I reported on an internal meeting at Facebook about discussions to put facial recognition on new smartglasses. One of their execs complained about the coverage and said the co would have a "very public discussion" about the tech.
They never did. And now: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
New story up on the Homeland Security Department’s new tactic: flood social media companies with subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts that criticize ICE or monitor the movements of ICE agents.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
During the social media addiction trial today in LA, a lawyer for Meta pressed psychiatrist Anna Lembke on the witness stand about what apps besides Instagram can hook people.
“Can people become addicted to Netflix? Can someone get addicted to outtakes of American Idol?”
Meta's plan for launching glasses that people can use to secretly identify strangers on the street is to do it "during a dynamic political environment" when people who care about why that's bad are "focused on other concerns."
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
The Tel Aviv indictment is the first publicly known instance of people being accused of leveraging military secrets to place bets on the popular prediction market. n.pr/4kvG3yW
13.02.2026 01:57 — 👍 343 🔁 98 💬 12 📌 47
“Such bets can put your own military at greater risk because you are signaling to your enemies what may happen, and that puts your own troops in danger"
www.npr.org/2026/02/12/n...
You could talk for hours about the bizarre ways prediction markets could go wrong. Enjoyed exploring that on @whyy.org
along with @bobbyallyn.bsky.social:
whyy.org/episodes/pol...
Apple News is an enormous driver of traffic for many publishers that have seen link referrals crater with the rise of AI Overviews/LLMs. If Apple News responds to this by promoting a fever swamp of far-right partisan outlets, many news sites are gonna get utterly walloped
12.02.2026 00:26 — 👍 34 🔁 15 💬 3 📌 4
Kalshi loves to say it is federally regulated. But here’s some perspective. Before the Kalshi boom, the CFTC listed around a dozen or so new event contract markets *a year* for crude oil futures etc
Today there are 346,056 active Kalshi event contracts.
4/5 CFTC commissioner seats remain vacant.
“If I was a different person I would launch a crypto scam right now, because there’s no cops on the beat,” said one laid-off CFTC lawyer
finance.yahoo.com/news/cftcs-t...
appears to have been a degen, but this is the new norm: large anomalous trades are made on world events, creating speculation about whether it’s intel or speculation, which could in theory influence whether officials do act or not, if it is insidered. impossible to distinguish signal from noise
10.02.2026 17:26 — 👍 19 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 1
In prediction market spaces, traders are debating whether the person who has placed a $115k Polymarket bet on the US striking Iran tonight is a pseudonymous military insider or a “degen,” a degenerate nihilist trader. If the strike happens, the payout is $4M.
10.02.2026 01:40 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 3 📌 1
Days ago someone bet $500k on Kalshi Gaga would perform at halftime show. Wow what luck. Had to be random!!
09.02.2026 01:29 — 👍 87 🔁 23 💬 0 📌 2
The Super Bowl in Silicon Valley "is tech billionaires who got picked last in gym class paying $50,000 to pretend they’re friends with the guys who got picked first in gym class." Ken Belson @mikeisaac.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/b...
08.02.2026 03:55 — 👍 166 🔁 31 💬 5 📌 0
He’s best known in internet lore for
his infamous 2018 “female presenting nipples” memo. Now he will ensure democracy doesn’t die in darkness www.buzzfeednews.com/article/remy...
OK so now the former CEO of Tumblr is running the Washington Post. Tumblr. A company whose history is a textbook case study in corporate value destruction.
07.02.2026 23:13 — 👍 1537 🔁 413 💬 29 📌 41Investors' legal team intend to play for the jury "Isaacson’s deposition confirming that Musk made a 4-sentence statement to him" -- interesting that Isaacson sat for a deposition in this case 👀
06.02.2026 03:40 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0In a separate motion, Musk's lawyers are trying to ban Walter Isaacson's book from the courtroom. "Plaintiffs should not be
allowed to bandy the 700+ page Book or its decorative jacket, around in front of the jury"
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
"The Court should exclude all evidence of: (1) Musk’s 2024-2025 political activities; (2) Musk’s
management and content moderation changes; (3) the 2022-2023 layoffs; and (4) the October 27, 2022
executive terminations."
(Musk's lawyers asking a judge ahead of a major Twitter securities fraud case to exclude Musk's politics, Musk's content moderation policies and DOGE from the trial because it might bias the jury)
06.02.2026 03:30 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
This is a doozy: "If Plaintiffs want to argue Musk bought Twitter to make money rather than to promote free speech, they may do so without dragging DOGE, Trump, and allegations of racism into the courtroom."
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
One of @ering.bsky.social's great file finds: Epstein tried to help create an tech fund shortly before he was arrested in 2019 with two tech types. One of his partners, however, was worried about the "optics" of telling founders that Epstein was involved.
So they suggested Epstein conceal himself.
05.02.2026 17:33 — 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
not that time in 2013 when someone strongly recommended Epstein go to Berghain…
05.02.2026 17:29 — 👍 24 🔁 6 💬 3 📌 4
wonder what Bezos could possibly want from the WH
05.02.2026 01:32 — 👍 21 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0Today, the Washington Post laid off more than 300 people.
If you think this is abt Jeff Bezos's concern that the paper losing money, you're wrong.
So wrong that you should be disqualified from expressing opinions in public.
Billionaires *like* losses. They *need* losses.
cover of The Washington Post on Wednesday Feb 4, 2026. Headline on bottom, right: Musk wanted to hook users; his chatbot got more sexual
My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power
04.02.2026 19:40 — 👍 6676 🔁 2140 💬 161 📌 112
“Unconscionable,” Jon thought as he found an email address online for the lead prosecutor, Joseph Dernbach, who was named in the story. Peering through metal-rimmed glasses, Jon opened Gmail on his computer monitor. “Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” he wrote. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.” That was it. In five minutes, Jon said, he finished the note, signed his first and last name, pressed send and hoped his plea would make a difference. Five hours and one minute later, Jon was watching TV with his wife when an email popped up in his inbox. He noticed it on his phone. “Google,” the message read, “has received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.”
A retiree wrote this email to a DHS attorney. Within five hours, DHS demanded Google turn over records for his account.
A Kafkaesque form of domestic surveillance, intimidating Americans for lawful speech.
New from us at the Post: www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio... @johnwoodrowcox.bsky.social
"Every American should be worried about that, because if they can lie about this, what else could they lie about? And if it's your family member who gets killed, what recourse do you have?"
www.npr.org/2026/01/31/n...
Link to the amicus brief: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
30.01.2026 23:21 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
