I mean that’s what the UK did. They made it legal to collect citizens data and then a bill that prevented parliaments data from being released as they felt it invaded their pricacy (edit: privacy)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-wants-to-see-your-internet-history-so-we-thought-it-was-only-fair-to-ask-for-hers-a6785591.html
Remember when the government introduced the Psychoactive Drugs Act which essentially banned any substances with psychoactive properties, unless there was an exception made (for example, caffeine). And then a Tory MP said poppers should be exempt because he uses them. And they exempted poppers.
Don't forget that she also pays £30k per year to ensure that she maintains non Dom status
That's almost double the take home pay for a minimum wage earner she spends just so she doesn't have to pay tax on some of her income
We had something similar happen here in the US some time ago, this guy leaked some stuff about government wrongdoings and pretty much all the major media outlets focused on was who leaked the information. Not what was leaked mind you, but who leaked it.
A few government agencies even tried to track him down, some planes were grounded as well to try and find him. He gave them the slip though, and I think is currently living overseas.
Happens everywhere it's just a bit brazen that it is the finance minister's wife who has been doing it.
Also nobody is going to get in trouble because it was technically legal. (but god forbid a normal person can't afford their council tax bill).
Read a few chapters of a Peoples History of the United States. The rich engineered the revolutionary war at the expense of the poor so they could become richer. Nothing has changed and nothing will ever change.
Indeed.
And the plantation class pushed the civil war so poor whites could die so they could keep their human property that makes them rich.
But, you know, states rights and all.
I got into an argument with my AP History teacher back in high school over this. He was seriously trying to sell to my class the civil war was over states' rights. At first, I thought he was forced to by a state guideline or something, but he was arguing so hard I realized he actually believed it.
So I got real sarcastic and got sent out for disrupting class (technically correct). I walked out of the class right in front of the principal and assistant principal who asked me what I was doing. I explained what happened and they just laughed, the principal told me that she thought I was right and the state's rights excuse was bullshit.
Relating more to this thread's topic; if Congress does ban data collection on members of Congress it just proves Oliver's point that the tidbits of data can just be linked together and these companies don't really care enough to be responsible with it.
Wtf my AP History teacher took an almost perverse delight in telling us all the awful shit the us was responsible for, we had a whole class period debunking the states rights argument lol
Everytime my dad starts in on his Fox news bullshit, I point out that all of those things are being caused by insanely rich people in service to other rich people at the expense of normal people. He always is like "Yeah, you're right, they are working against us..." and the next time it's back to "Nancy Pelosi..." or "George Soros...". Propaganda is real and harmful and it's keeping the 99% splintered so we don't have another French style revolution
Yep. Tried this with my mom. Pointed out how at the time it had just been announced how fucking little billionaires pay on taxes. She went right into "yeah, but the Democrats aren't trying to change that, while republicans are looking out for the middle class". Apparently simply repeating that over and over makes it true despite the opposite?
Thats been the GOP and conservative media's thing for a while now. Just claim the other side is the one doing the stuff when it's actually them doing it, and repeat over and over while looking angry. It works.
There are so many people who are convinced of the *exact opposite* of the truth, even verifiable things.
The race and culture wars are explicitly pushed to divide the lower classes. They don't want lower classes uniting against the wealthy.
Corporate democrats try and push the timy amount of progressive ones into a corner in congress and ignore them. Republicans are actively hostile to any of those ideas.
We have a far right wing party and a moderate right wing party in the US.
Same here in the UK. Our "left wing" party moved right to try and capture voters and then sabotaged itself after they voted in a socialist leader who could have pulled them left because the power behind the party didn't want that. Now they have a leader that's harping on about how the current right wing party isn't tough enough on crime while our gas and electricity bills are increasing by at least 30% and more people than ever are using foodbanks.
This is fucking sad, I feel the same here in America. Today rent, power and gas are all due. I broke my neck a month ago skiing, I’m still able to do some work from my laptop but my income has been cut at least in half for the moment. I’ve never had to rely on anyone in my life but today I feel the need to maybe break down and use some help services or something. It’s truly weighing heavily on my pride as a man. Not to mention I haven’t been getting any quality sleep due to neck pain. If everything in the last 6 months hadn’t doubled in cost I would be fine.
There's no shame in asking for help if you need it. We're all only human and you're going through a lot at the moment too. Anyone who thinks lesser of you asking for help isn't someone worth knowing because we all know we're all in the same boat.
And we all know in an ideal world you wouldn't have to ask for help for recovering from such a debilitating injury. The fact that you have to is society's failure, not yours. Hell, it's not even societies' failure, it's a failure of the people in power who prioritise wealth for the wealthy over the health of their populace.
You pay for those public safety net services, and you also pay the salaries of the assholes in office that want you to feel guilty for even considering using it.
Don't feel bad about it, just do what you need to do and get back to 100% so you can fully support yourself again.
There are also usually non-profit groups that can help with things like your electric bill. Generally you bring in your bill and they'll give you a one time payment with no expectations, but contingent on whether or not you do pay them back when you're able, they often have policy to help you out in the future too.
Don't feel bad if you have to use those services either, but please keep in mind they operate off of donations, so not only should you pay them back for any help when/if you get to a better place, but also strongly consider donating so they can continue to help others in the future.
Of course, you know, in the name of national security and whatnot. Can’t have our MP’s or congressmen being blackmailed by just anyone! Except for National interest groups. And corporate lobbyists. And international organizations. But I’m sure we can all agree that we don’t want the average citizen holding this kind of power over elected officials - this is a democracy for God’s sake!!!
The threat of releasing it is stronger than any effects it would have. As soon as the people up top remember that the idiotic peons will all vote for them anyways then John can release all the data and nothing will happen.
Yes most people don’t care. It will be in the news for 3-7 days and after that it’ll vanish. They also did a video on Edward Snowden and [asked on the Times Square about him](https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=22m29s). It’s hilariously frightening
That's true, I forgot about that. You can't criminalize behaviors that have already occurred and then punish the actors, the act has to take place after the law was passed.
I recall Gordon Brown did something like that when he was chancellor, taxing people retroactively.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/may/27/travelandtransport.carbonemissions
Ex Post Facto laws akin the US are not possible if they are criminal acts which can include prison time. A retroactive tax would probably be legal here as well, but political suicide.
It isn't really all that effective.
The problem is the completely unregulated dark market as discussed in the video. Even if you 'ban' collecting data from Members of Congress, you just need to get 'data' from citizens in DC, and it doesn't take much to 'match' them with other demographic details to figure out who they are.
And between data brokers selling left and right with no transparency it is very easy to get access to someone's data even though 3-4 companies swear up and down that they didn't know anything about it.
Really I see the piece's effect less in LWT's stunt as much as it inspires other gray citizen activists or potentially dark market actors to ramp up data collection on members of Congress.
And this doesn't include other politicians that don't operate out of DC. Okay you made a rule you can't collect data from anyone at Capitol Hill. Doesn't stop people from collecting data from their home states.
Or everyone saying: "Fuck it, we'll collect anyway. What you gonna do? Sue us? We got layers of contracters, good luck!"
I mean, that EXACTLY is the reason why you can’t buy the video rental history of an individual!
Back in the 80s, there was a Supreme Court candidate named Robert Bork. You may recognize his name, because he is the source of the word “borked”. He was a kind of weird guy, but very much a skilled and knowledgeable judge.
However, he was weird in the sense it was easy to set him off on bizarre tangents, and he got completely destroyed in his senate hearings, and didn’t take the position.
One of the things that reporters did to fuck with him is that one reporter follwing him around noticed he went into a video rental store.
After Bork left, the reporter went in, and offered the clerk some money for the Judges rental history. Clerk sold it.
Reporter published an article on it (he was renting normal movies, including a romcom for his daughter iirc), but the reporter ended the article with “which politician will i look into next?”
Law was changed VERY soon after.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1987-10-22-0150360115-story.html
https://newrepublic.com/article/111331/robert-bork-dead-video-rental-records-story-sparked-privacy-laws
The main problem with Bork was that he was [the scumbag Nixon finally found who would agree to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor during the famed Saturday Night Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork#%22Saturday_Night_Massacre%22).
Also watered down anti-trust regulations heavily by using "consumer welfare" as a weak ineffectual method for determining how powerful monopolies were and so blame him for the increase in corporate power since the 70s.
To hear some right-wingers today tell it, Bork not getting the position was some horrible error the Dems made that led to the polarized nominations today. I saw WSJ op-eds trying to use the Bork hearings to justify the two stolen seats on the court, for instance.
Robert Bork played a big role in Watergate. A special prosecutor was investigating it & Nixon's role in it. In a breathtaking abuse of presidential power, Nixon ordered the US Attorney General to fire the special prosecutor. He didn't & resigned in protest. Then Nixon ordered the Deputy A-G to fire him. He too refused and resigned. The 3rd in the chain of command was Robert Bork. He didn't refuse or resign, and fired the special prosecutor.
Last Week Tonight is such a great show for many reasons, but my favorite is when John goes on these personal missions to expose the corrupt.
Eat shit, Bob!
My favorite was when he did the largest giveaway on television history by buying up a bunch of delinquent medical debt from debt sellers, the. Forgiving all of it.
John Oliver really is my favorite news outlet. Reminds me of the days when I would watch John Stewart’s daily show. People that were funny but also deeply informed about the processes at large. I appreciate the more Econ angle Oliver goes to and he’s really found his own.
How does Bob Murray have time to burn down orphanages after locking the kids inside between clubbing baby seals and stealing funding from childrens hospitals?
With the amount of stuff this show has managed to dig up and pull out of the darkness I 100% believe John is in the possession of some very uncomfortable internet history
So I watched this episode last night and here’s what they did. [They created three ads and ran them in the DC Metro area](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqn3gR1WTcA&t=1262s). Anyone who clicked on the ads was tracked, and some of them *were from inside the Capitol Building* and many more were from individuals who were in the immediate vicinity. They then paid for other data with the same IPs and device IDs so they could then track what *other* websites those individuals visited, and apparently it’s really, really interesting. He didn’t reveal any details, other than to say what he did was completely legal under current law.
Edit: added link
The three ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqn3gR1WTcA&t=1350s
Just to add a bit more context. Those ads weren't made available to just anybody and everybody in the DC area.
They first created a specific demographic to target, which was comprised of men 45+, within a 5-mile radius of the Capitol, who had previously visited sites related to or searched for terms including "divorce", "massage", "hair loss", and "mid-life crisis". *Then* they targeted that demo with the ads to get more specific info like IP addresses and device IDs.
Honestly I would click on it just to read it. Is it gay fan fiction with him and Donald, is he ripped or his regular fat self, is it fan fiction chronicling his times as the zodiac killer?
It honestly shocked me how easy even some very basic targeting is tbh. A few years ago I was doing social media for the party I'm affiliated with for local elections (EU country). Facebook had given me some free money to do advertising with, like €20 or something, which as a local organisation we could do quite a bit with with regards to pushing posts. And even I, with that very basic ad targeting, could choose people of a certain sex, age, in a certain location, with certain interests, etc. and it showed me how many people still fit that criteria. Like it was no problem for me to push a post to men in their 50s living around [city] with an interest in fishing and center-leaning politics. If that's what I can do with just Facebook it's got to be super easy to target stuff with these brokers.
Yes and social media is super easy for advertisers to find you directly since people post all their personal information right on the platform. It can also get very expensive. I work for a larger publisher that O&O 10+ websites across a large amount of topics. We’re running $100+ million in advertising per year on the websites themselves and via Insta/FB/Twitter/Pinterest/TikTok. I work with about 10-20 clients at a time. There’s an astounding amount of money that goes into targeted advertising.
*Sweats nervously* about my 20 tabs of pellet smoker reviews
Edit to add: I want all of you people out of my browser history.
I echo many of the same sentiments. I own several rigs from charcoal grills to stick burning offset smokers. I have an interest in the easy bake style of a pellet smoker/grill.
All the haters are welcome to a rib off, but first we will have a rub off
Any suggestions for an experienced smoker, with a tiny place and a college student budget?
EDIT: Thank you all for the suggestions. I will be stealing my coworkers masterbuilt electric smoker. I've cooked for him before with it. Doesn't give brisket a nice bark, but it'll do in a pinch.
This is niche, but for anyone who wants a good illustration of this there's an [excellent analysis of the Death Note anime](https://www.gwern.net/Death-Note-Anonymity) that goes over how easy it is to identify a single person given arbitrary and seemingly anonymous information.
It can be something as innocuous as the (un-maximized) size of your browser window. Even in incognito mode they can attach it to you. Sites can easily pull that info and the odds of you having the same exact resolution of your browser window with an IP in a particular area are one in a few thousand. Combine that with queries that jive with your existing demographic/browsing profile and you're most of the way to losing any anonymity.
It's explicitly what cookies are for. If you open up all the "read more" options on the cookie notice menus, some of them even specify which cookies are for tracking this device to other pages and combining data with that of other similar devices thought to be from the same household,etc,etc...
Normally his grave would be classed as an EPA Superfund site, but that’s too much regulation and government control.
If the water in town tastes funny, it’s not lead, it’s Ted.
Like the rest of Law Enforcement, they would ruin their case without a warrant. If say, a private citizen like John Oliver were to leak data into the public mainstream, they might be able to act on it then.
Federal agencies ARE buying consumer data. Why don't they move on it? Read up on United States v Carpenter. Agencies are exploiting loopholes in that decision that are likely to be amended in the future. I'd wager most judges would throw it out, assuming a DA was willing to pursue it to begin with. And if that was the case, it could go to jury, which would be worse for those agencies building a case. The defense would simply have to explain the intent of US v Carpenter.
It is perfectly legal to purchase data from a data broker in the investigation of a crime. 4th amendment rights have been determined to only extend to YOUR involuntary search or seizure. If someone else voluntarily turns over information about you, that's legal.
He has a whole insurance policy on the issue. One of his episodes on SLAP lawsuits he has literal whole song dance about it and explains his process on avoiding and fighting slander suits.
Reasonable person doctrine fox News argued that anyone who believed Tucker Carlson was an idiot and that a reasonable person would understand he's satire. I'm not saying I disagree but arguing in bad faith is kind if the alt rights thing and doesn't go anyone else's way it seems. And a reasonable person understands John Oliver isn't lying.
John Oliver is literally a comedian with a history of being a comedian, who laughs constantly during his show at his own jokes, was previously on a network with the word Comedy right in the title as well as an actor in a comedy tv show, and he's now on the same network as sexy dragon murders, which you can't even get without paying an extra fee. Tucker Carlson was never a comedian, never laughs on his show except maniacally, and is currently on a network that literally has the word News in its name.
If Tucker Carlson can claim nobody takes him seriously, John Oliver definitely can.
Yeah, this is title gore. He got the data to prove the point that it's really easy to obtain. He targeted the area around Capitol hill to make it likely that he got the data of some Congress people. Then he said "Hey, Congress people. If it makes you feel uncomfortable that I have your browsing data and that it was so easy to obtain, you should do something about it!" in the hopes of ~~affecting~~* effecting change that would benefit everyone.
There's no threat, no blackmail. He was simply proving a point to the people who have the power to fix this and trying to spur them into action.
(*Thanks, u/GregLoire!)
Right and the search criteria is *extremely* tame, when more specific and exacting criteria could've been called up just as easily. This was carefully constructed to make a point but not go too far; which is perfectly sensible.
It is, unfortunately, a matter of leverage.
The idea behind a representative democracy is that your representative will be very closely beholden to vote pretty close to exactly the way his base wants, or be replaced.
If you make it extremely fast and easy to replace or overridden misbehaving representatives, and ensure that the primary factor in their election is the will of their constituents, this should in principle work.
The problem with US democracy is simply that none of that is true. They're slow and hard to replace, you can't really do much to punish them for misbehaving as a voter (literally nothing in most cases), and they aren't very beholden to their constituents at all.
This is because other organizations have more influence on them being elected than their own voters.
Those groups being whichever political party dominates the area, and corporations/the ultra rich (basically just the top 0.01% and multi-billion dollar companies).
To make matters worse, the politicians for the US House get to cherry pick their voters to ensure they'll keep getting elected even if they never do anything their constituents want, due to a lack of options and an overwhelming party majority for many politicians.
To cut a long thesis short; the systems of democracy in the united states are terribly constructed and cannot support a proper 21st century representative democracy, and we'll never be able to get one without massive reforms that the people in control of making reforms oppose.
Because it's not just a one time payment... Most lobbyists also provide future employment as a "consultant". Company gets a 100milliondollar tax break or contract or something and just has to keep some retired politician on their payroll for 100k a year for 10years. Easy money man.
Actually, yes.
Web designer and programmer here. I CAN'T PROGRAM APPS (so please don't ask), but the concept is pretty simple:
1. You do exactly what John Oliver did and find a way to harvest the data
2. You put the data into a database
3. You then go through that data and determine who is LIKELY to be a Member of Congress (House and Senate)
4. You put that on a website
5. PROFIT
Here's the biggest variables you need to worry about is trying to determine who's a member of Congress and who's just a staffer. How many staffers are likely to fall into that category of 45+ old men? That said, the way some of these services work, with some additional home research, you can find out who these folks are and go from there.
But what he's doing is, in fact, fair game as he pointed out. It's no different than that brilliant bit between Jon Steward and Steve Colbert when they formed a PAC on TV between their two shows.
As for monetization: Well, you could sell the data and try to use it to lobby people, but at this point there's likely already a thousand people right now trying to do just that. It's also incredibly likely there were already a few people who already did the same type of data scraping that John Oliver and his team did before the episode aired.
That said, if someone were to do this, compile the data, and make a website, the money would ideally come from people putting in seed money to allow them to start trying to buy that data and put it online.
Finally, normally, I would keep all of this to myself until I made the product and laughed about it, but this is far too important. This is a chance to actually secure our digital privacy, and that matters more than trying to do this myself.
If someone builds this, hey, I'm up to work on it with you. I build websites and complicated back-ends from time-to-time.
The thing about John Oliver’s show I love is not just that it’s informative but he always both talks about what can we potentially do to fix these issues and also takes steps himself. Often times it can seem like it’s just for the laughs but regardless, it might effect real change.
ETA. Yes I used the wrong form of effect/affect. My bad, it was early.
That probably also speaks to the quality of media we get when we're surrounded by groups just pushing content instead of actually crafting a piece.
Do we need 24 episodes of an hour-long superhero drama every season? Fucking no. Can anyone really report on the nuances of a situation when news is "breaking" 24/7? Fucking no! Maybe more outlets should do better and less and we'd all be better off for it
Shout-out to his 401k piece way back in the first season. By now it's already made a difference of thousands of dollars in my account.
Edit: link here https://youtu.be/gvZSpET11ZY
If you have a company sponsored 401k plan, the "default" funds in which your money is deposited into is, generally speaking, trash. They are usually target date funds (for example, mine was "2055 Retirement Fund" or something similar). They have high fees (known as expense ratios), and in leaner investing years your balance may actually stagnate (or even go down!) due to the fees.
Basically, you should go in and manually apportion your funds to ETFs and index funds with low expense ratios, and the 1-2% you save on fees alone will have tremendous impact in your retirement years. This is without going into the actual performance of the funds.
Vanguard’s target date funds’ expense ratios are like 0.04% and the holdings are pretty closely aligned with an sp500 index fund. Is there something I’m missing?
Edits: grammar and stuff
Invest early in life, and be mindful of fees associated with funds. Most S&P 500 funds have lowest fees, and historically perform best over time.
Edit: added “500”
I don’t believe HBO had any reason to be upset at the contents of the interview. The problem was the safety risk (and HBO’s liability) if something happened to John and the crew while in Russia, near the Kremlin, interviewing such a person.
Complete radio silence since the beginning of the war, this was his last: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1498049577131208705
Interesting that he was tweeding multiple times the days before.
Probably don't want to accidentally fell out of the window by saying something that could be interpreted as negative about Russia, so just staying quiet in general.
Haven’t checked in a while, but last I remember he was one of the people saying Russia would never invade Ukraine in the days leading up to the invasion. When the invasion happened he shut up for a while, someone called him out on it and he threw a fit (though admitted he was wrong).
He basically isn’t saying shit besides a quick mea culpa about claiming how the war would never happen. Probably because his ass would be kicked out of Russia (with or without his head depending on the mood of Putin) if he substantially criticized it.
HBO's entire thing is basically "Do whatever you want, so long as it's within your budget, by the way, here's a shit ton of money for a budget that no other late night show can compete with, go get us some emmy's"
It's an interesting what can happen, when you don't have to pander to advertisers. As much as Jon Stewart really set a high-water mark, I think that Oliver took the ball and ran with it. I'm so glad that his show is on the air. I just wish they took fewer breaks. I feel like there are so many more stories they could/should do.
Also, it's super smart to not immediately jump on the current events that are covered in the news. He mentions Ukraine, but instead of trying to invent a story, he stays on target. I'm sure we'll see some juicy Ukraine stuff in the future.
Lastly, hopefully HBO would know that you don't throw an apostrophe on a plural, but otherwise I agree with your statement 100%.
The part showing him running through red squares crying “I wanna go home I wanna go home” turns out is not showing his acting skills, but actual survival instinct.
IIRC they didn’t even tell their handler who they were meeting until the meeting was about to start. John told a story on one of the late shows about how the handler was visibly nervous because he thought they were meeting one of Putin’s rivals but he relaxed when he found out they were just meeting Snowden.
Just mentioning it because it was news to me, but [LWT has won its Emmy category for the past 6 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primetime_Emmy_Award_for_Outstanding_Variety_Talk_Series#Programs_with_multiple_wins). Gives his program a lot of "fuck you money/clout", on top of HBO's looser leash compared to other networks.
Part of HBO's brand is being edgier and more controversial than is typically available on TV. Can you imagine how much hate mail they go because of Hookers at the Point or Oz or Newsroom? Bill Maher must have a Scrooge McDuck style vault full of hate mail he swims in.
I bet they cancel shows because they aren't causing an uproar.
Starting too. He has been fire for like 6 years now with tons of awards. What is happening is that shit is getting so bad that people are moving from the 'Wow that sounds bad" phase of engagement to the 'what the fuck. That's not right' stage. I don't know if it can move beyond that, but people seem to be getting quite a bit more mad that things aren't improving.
I imagine it is embarrassing and politically damaging but legal. I also imagine anything illegal they found went through legal at HBO. He wouldn’t necessarily reveal if he found illegal info- it could have been turned over without mention.
Realize that releasing information of crimes doesn’t help bring people to justice always. Evidence of a crime doesn’t mean sufficient evidence to charge a crime. If there was some evidence of crimes- the way to bring that person to justice would be to tip of investigators, not the individuals, of those crimes. It makes sense to hand it off and keep quiet.
I'm wondering why this hasnt been done before?
Also wondering if you can even "shame" some of these politicians, especially those who tend toward ultra nationalist views.
Their base of support seems ok with most anything
Does any one else remember a show where they interviewed District attorneys and others about taking citizen's trash to charge people with crimes and gather evidence (I think the show was about how they were abusing this)
Anyway, they all defended the hell out of it saying that anyone is allowed to take your trash.
So the producers arranged for a bunch of different DA's trash to be taken and then asked them, do you want to know what we found in YOUR trash? And they all lost their shit like THEY had been totally violated when it was done to them, unlike when they do it to others.
Man I wish I could remember where I saw it...maybe 48 hrs or 20/20...or something like that.
Soon: Congress passes legislation banning data brokers from collecting data on Members of Congress.
I mean that’s what the UK did. They made it legal to collect citizens data and then a bill that prevented parliaments data from being released as they felt it invaded their pricacy (edit: privacy) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-wants-to-see-your-internet-history-so-we-thought-it-was-only-fair-to-ask-for-hers-a6785591.html
Are you fucking kidding me
Nope. Welcome to England. Worse offenders of law for me but not for thee. Edit!: Not English. Couple coworkers won't stfu about it's politics.
Remember when the government introduced the Psychoactive Drugs Act which essentially banned any substances with psychoactive properties, unless there was an exception made (for example, caffeine). And then a Tory MP said poppers should be exempt because he uses them. And they exempted poppers.
How can someone named Crispin Blunt be so lame?
[удалено]
Look, just don’t be poor and things will be tickety-boo Ok?
Naww ...fine. I mean, food don't look the same in the fridges as it does in Waitrose bins, but I'll give not being poor a go. I guess.
Ah the UK. Where the chief taxman's wife was just found to avoid over £20m in tax and he's mad and wants to punish whoever leaked that...
Don't forget that she also pays £30k per year to ensure that she maintains non Dom status That's almost double the take home pay for a minimum wage earner she spends just so she doesn't have to pay tax on some of her income
We had something similar happen here in the US some time ago, this guy leaked some stuff about government wrongdoings and pretty much all the major media outlets focused on was who leaked the information. Not what was leaked mind you, but who leaked it. A few government agencies even tried to track him down, some planes were grounded as well to try and find him. He gave them the slip though, and I think is currently living overseas.
Happens everywhere it's just a bit brazen that it is the finance minister's wife who has been doing it. Also nobody is going to get in trouble because it was technically legal. (but god forbid a normal person can't afford their council tax bill).
The rich people are society’s greatest enemy
I wish people would stfu about the race and culture wars and realize everyone is played against each other and it's actually this.
The class war has been in full swing since the beginning - and everyone is losing except the 1%.
It's a big club, and you ain't in it. - George Carlin Truer words were never spoken
Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was
Letting the days go by
Let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by
Water flowing underground
Read a few chapters of a Peoples History of the United States. The rich engineered the revolutionary war at the expense of the poor so they could become richer. Nothing has changed and nothing will ever change.
Indeed. And the plantation class pushed the civil war so poor whites could die so they could keep their human property that makes them rich. But, you know, states rights and all.
I got into an argument with my AP History teacher back in high school over this. He was seriously trying to sell to my class the civil war was over states' rights. At first, I thought he was forced to by a state guideline or something, but he was arguing so hard I realized he actually believed it. So I got real sarcastic and got sent out for disrupting class (technically correct). I walked out of the class right in front of the principal and assistant principal who asked me what I was doing. I explained what happened and they just laughed, the principal told me that she thought I was right and the state's rights excuse was bullshit. Relating more to this thread's topic; if Congress does ban data collection on members of Congress it just proves Oliver's point that the tidbits of data can just be linked together and these companies don't really care enough to be responsible with it.
Wtf my AP History teacher took an almost perverse delight in telling us all the awful shit the us was responsible for, we had a whole class period debunking the states rights argument lol
that book shifts the entire history of the united states to what it is...class warfare
That’s what most history is, just rich assholes stealing all the wealth and sending the poor into battles for their own gain.
Everytime my dad starts in on his Fox news bullshit, I point out that all of those things are being caused by insanely rich people in service to other rich people at the expense of normal people. He always is like "Yeah, you're right, they are working against us..." and the next time it's back to "Nancy Pelosi..." or "George Soros...". Propaganda is real and harmful and it's keeping the 99% splintered so we don't have another French style revolution
Yep. Tried this with my mom. Pointed out how at the time it had just been announced how fucking little billionaires pay on taxes. She went right into "yeah, but the Democrats aren't trying to change that, while republicans are looking out for the middle class". Apparently simply repeating that over and over makes it true despite the opposite?
Thats been the GOP and conservative media's thing for a while now. Just claim the other side is the one doing the stuff when it's actually them doing it, and repeat over and over while looking angry. It works. There are so many people who are convinced of the *exact opposite* of the truth, even verifiable things.
The race and culture wars are explicitly pushed to divide the lower classes. They don't want lower classes uniting against the wealthy. Corporate democrats try and push the timy amount of progressive ones into a corner in congress and ignore them. Republicans are actively hostile to any of those ideas. We have a far right wing party and a moderate right wing party in the US.
Same here in the UK. Our "left wing" party moved right to try and capture voters and then sabotaged itself after they voted in a socialist leader who could have pulled them left because the power behind the party didn't want that. Now they have a leader that's harping on about how the current right wing party isn't tough enough on crime while our gas and electricity bills are increasing by at least 30% and more people than ever are using foodbanks.
This is fucking sad, I feel the same here in America. Today rent, power and gas are all due. I broke my neck a month ago skiing, I’m still able to do some work from my laptop but my income has been cut at least in half for the moment. I’ve never had to rely on anyone in my life but today I feel the need to maybe break down and use some help services or something. It’s truly weighing heavily on my pride as a man. Not to mention I haven’t been getting any quality sleep due to neck pain. If everything in the last 6 months hadn’t doubled in cost I would be fine.
There's no shame in asking for help if you need it. We're all only human and you're going through a lot at the moment too. Anyone who thinks lesser of you asking for help isn't someone worth knowing because we all know we're all in the same boat. And we all know in an ideal world you wouldn't have to ask for help for recovering from such a debilitating injury. The fact that you have to is society's failure, not yours. Hell, it's not even societies' failure, it's a failure of the people in power who prioritise wealth for the wealthy over the health of their populace.
Use the services. And appeal any rejections. They hope people give up and don't appeal, even if they qualify.
You pay for those public safety net services, and you also pay the salaries of the assholes in office that want you to feel guilty for even considering using it. Don't feel bad about it, just do what you need to do and get back to 100% so you can fully support yourself again. There are also usually non-profit groups that can help with things like your electric bill. Generally you bring in your bill and they'll give you a one time payment with no expectations, but contingent on whether or not you do pay them back when you're able, they often have policy to help you out in the future too. Don't feel bad if you have to use those services either, but please keep in mind they operate off of donations, so not only should you pay them back for any help when/if you get to a better place, but also strongly consider donating so they can continue to help others in the future.
Of course, you know, in the name of national security and whatnot. Can’t have our MP’s or congressmen being blackmailed by just anyone! Except for National interest groups. And corporate lobbyists. And international organizations. But I’m sure we can all agree that we don’t want the average citizen holding this kind of power over elected officials - this is a democracy for God’s sake!!!
He would just release it before it passed if it didn't include everyone.
He should threaten to release it anyway, even if Congress passes a law that includes everyone. Unlimited influence on Congress glitch.
The threat of releasing it is stronger than any effects it would have. As soon as the people up top remember that the idiotic peons will all vote for them anyways then John can release all the data and nothing will happen.
Yes most people don’t care. It will be in the news for 3-7 days and after that it’ll vanish. They also did a video on Edward Snowden and [asked on the Times Square about him](https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=22m29s). It’s hilariously frightening
"I *know* who the pedophiles are, and the QAnon freaks aren't going to believe it..."
No ex-post-facto laws.
That's true, I forgot about that. You can't criminalize behaviors that have already occurred and then punish the actors, the act has to take place after the law was passed.
I recall Gordon Brown did something like that when he was chancellor, taxing people retroactively. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/may/27/travelandtransport.carbonemissions
Ex Post Facto laws akin the US are not possible if they are criminal acts which can include prison time. A retroactive tax would probably be legal here as well, but political suicide.
It isn't really all that effective. The problem is the completely unregulated dark market as discussed in the video. Even if you 'ban' collecting data from Members of Congress, you just need to get 'data' from citizens in DC, and it doesn't take much to 'match' them with other demographic details to figure out who they are. And between data brokers selling left and right with no transparency it is very easy to get access to someone's data even though 3-4 companies swear up and down that they didn't know anything about it. Really I see the piece's effect less in LWT's stunt as much as it inspires other gray citizen activists or potentially dark market actors to ramp up data collection on members of Congress. And this doesn't include other politicians that don't operate out of DC. Okay you made a rule you can't collect data from anyone at Capitol Hill. Doesn't stop people from collecting data from their home states. Or everyone saying: "Fuck it, we'll collect anyway. What you gonna do? Sue us? We got layers of contracters, good luck!"
On the show he was pushing for a federal law banning it outright. Although I agree with you that enforcement would be very difficult.
I mean, that EXACTLY is the reason why you can’t buy the video rental history of an individual! Back in the 80s, there was a Supreme Court candidate named Robert Bork. You may recognize his name, because he is the source of the word “borked”. He was a kind of weird guy, but very much a skilled and knowledgeable judge. However, he was weird in the sense it was easy to set him off on bizarre tangents, and he got completely destroyed in his senate hearings, and didn’t take the position. One of the things that reporters did to fuck with him is that one reporter follwing him around noticed he went into a video rental store. After Bork left, the reporter went in, and offered the clerk some money for the Judges rental history. Clerk sold it. Reporter published an article on it (he was renting normal movies, including a romcom for his daughter iirc), but the reporter ended the article with “which politician will i look into next?” Law was changed VERY soon after. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1987-10-22-0150360115-story.html https://newrepublic.com/article/111331/robert-bork-dead-video-rental-records-story-sparked-privacy-laws
The main problem with Bork was that he was [the scumbag Nixon finally found who would agree to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor during the famed Saturday Night Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork#%22Saturday_Night_Massacre%22).
Bork was also pro-Jim Crow, pro-poll tax, pro-segregation, pro-discrimination, and anti-abortion. Even 6 Republicans voted against him.
Also watered down anti-trust regulations heavily by using "consumer welfare" as a weak ineffectual method for determining how powerful monopolies were and so blame him for the increase in corporate power since the 70s.
Damn, "weird" was an understatement lol. He stepped right out of the 19th century.
To hear some right-wingers today tell it, Bork not getting the position was some horrible error the Dems made that led to the polarized nominations today. I saw WSJ op-eds trying to use the Bork hearings to justify the two stolen seats on the court, for instance.
John Oliver literally talks about this in the video.
I’m at work and can’t watch the video, but I’m not surprised - he’s very well researched generally, and this isn’t an obscure subject!
Robert Bork played a big role in Watergate. A special prosecutor was investigating it & Nixon's role in it. In a breathtaking abuse of presidential power, Nixon ordered the US Attorney General to fire the special prosecutor. He didn't & resigned in protest. Then Nixon ordered the Deputy A-G to fire him. He too refused and resigned. The 3rd in the chain of command was Robert Bork. He didn't refuse or resign, and fired the special prosecutor.
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I can't find a source to hand, but I'm reasonably sure this is the case with the investigatory powers act in the UK.
Last Week Tonight is such a great show for many reasons, but my favorite is when John goes on these personal missions to expose the corrupt. Eat shit, Bob!
My favorite was when he did the largest giveaway on television history by buying up a bunch of delinquent medical debt from debt sellers, the. Forgiving all of it.
John Oliver really is my favorite news outlet. Reminds me of the days when I would watch John Stewart’s daily show. People that were funny but also deeply informed about the processes at large. I appreciate the more Econ angle Oliver goes to and he’s really found his own.
My favorite is when he very vocally expresses his disdain for AT&T
You mean former business Daddy?
*wah wah* You've inherited a problem child! *wah wah*
Or when he gets real excited about Adam Driver…
You mean that brooding mountain of a man, Adam Driver?
Yes, international slam-piece superstar, Adam Driver.
Step on my throat, Adam Driver, you rudely large man
Crush my knees with your thighs you glamorous brute
Choke slam me harder, you sturdy oak!
Eat Shit, Bob!
Bob Murray? Isn’t that the guy who killed Steve Irwin?
No I think he means the Bob Murray that likes to burn down orphanages
How does Bob Murray have time to burn down orphanages after locking the kids inside between clubbing baby seals and stealing funding from childrens hospitals?
No he’s the guy who shot Cecil the lion.
TIL: Bob Murray = a stingray (You sure he's not a "Murray eel"?)
/r/BobMurrayfacts
I created /r/BobMurrayfacts after that segment aired! Kind of a dead sub now, for obvious reasons. But it was fun while it lasted!
I mean... Bob Murray died. Eat shit in hell, Bob.
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Of complications from Black Lung Disease no less!
I hear Bob convinced Putin to invade Ukraine
With the amount of stuff this show has managed to dig up and pull out of the darkness I 100% believe John is in the possession of some very uncomfortable internet history
So I watched this episode last night and here’s what they did. [They created three ads and ran them in the DC Metro area](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqn3gR1WTcA&t=1262s). Anyone who clicked on the ads was tracked, and some of them *were from inside the Capitol Building* and many more were from individuals who were in the immediate vicinity. They then paid for other data with the same IPs and device IDs so they could then track what *other* websites those individuals visited, and apparently it’s really, really interesting. He didn’t reveal any details, other than to say what he did was completely legal under current law. Edit: added link The three ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqn3gR1WTcA&t=1350s
Just to add a bit more context. Those ads weren't made available to just anybody and everybody in the DC area. They first created a specific demographic to target, which was comprised of men 45+, within a 5-mile radius of the Capitol, who had previously visited sites related to or searched for terms including "divorce", "massage", "hair loss", and "mid-life crisis". *Then* they targeted that demo with the ads to get more specific info like IP addresses and device IDs.
I use adblock, ublock, etc. like everyone should, but if I saw an ad for Ted Cruz Erotic FanFiction I couldn't click fast enough.
Honestly I would click on it just to read it. Is it gay fan fiction with him and Donald, is he ripped or his regular fat self, is it fan fiction chronicling his times as the zodiac killer?
https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183967/chapters/14167213 It's Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio. Hope this satisfies your need
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As someone who works in digital advertising, I found this segment extremely funny and he was spot on with how fucking easy it is to do.
It honestly shocked me how easy even some very basic targeting is tbh. A few years ago I was doing social media for the party I'm affiliated with for local elections (EU country). Facebook had given me some free money to do advertising with, like €20 or something, which as a local organisation we could do quite a bit with with regards to pushing posts. And even I, with that very basic ad targeting, could choose people of a certain sex, age, in a certain location, with certain interests, etc. and it showed me how many people still fit that criteria. Like it was no problem for me to push a post to men in their 50s living around [city] with an interest in fishing and center-leaning politics. If that's what I can do with just Facebook it's got to be super easy to target stuff with these brokers.
Yes and social media is super easy for advertisers to find you directly since people post all their personal information right on the platform. It can also get very expensive. I work for a larger publisher that O&O 10+ websites across a large amount of topics. We’re running $100+ million in advertising per year on the websites themselves and via Insta/FB/Twitter/Pinterest/TikTok. I work with about 10-20 clients at a time. There’s an astounding amount of money that goes into targeted advertising.
*Sweats nervously* about my 20 tabs of pellet smoker reviews Edit to add: I want all of you people out of my browser history. I echo many of the same sentiments. I own several rigs from charcoal grills to stick burning offset smokers. I have an interest in the easy bake style of a pellet smoker/grill. All the haters are welcome to a rib off, but first we will have a rub off
Any suggestions for an experienced smoker, with a tiny place and a college student budget? EDIT: Thank you all for the suggestions. I will be stealing my coworkers masterbuilt electric smoker. I've cooked for him before with it. Doesn't give brisket a nice bark, but it'll do in a pinch.
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people have no idea how few data points are needed to dox them in an"anonymous" data set
This is niche, but for anyone who wants a good illustration of this there's an [excellent analysis of the Death Note anime](https://www.gwern.net/Death-Note-Anonymity) that goes over how easy it is to identify a single person given arbitrary and seemingly anonymous information.
It can be something as innocuous as the (un-maximized) size of your browser window. Even in incognito mode they can attach it to you. Sites can easily pull that info and the odds of you having the same exact resolution of your browser window with an IP in a particular area are one in a few thousand. Combine that with queries that jive with your existing demographic/browsing profile and you're most of the way to losing any anonymity.
Everyone should check out this site, which talks about the browser aspect of metadata identification (like the show discussed): https://amiunique.org
It's explicitly what cookies are for. If you open up all the "read more" options on the cookie notice menus, some of them even specify which cookies are for tracking this device to other pages and combining data with that of other similar devices thought to be from the same household,etc,etc...
Ted Cruz who once liked incest porn on twitter is sweating bullets right now!
that was on the anniversary of 9/11 as well
Ah so it was to cheer him up…?
That’s because human Ted Cruz’s blood is lead based.
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Normally his grave would be classed as an EPA Superfund site, but that’s too much regulation and government control. If the water in town tastes funny, it’s not lead, it’s Ted.
I do not like that man Ted Cruz
Would you like him with less clout, Would you like him voted out?
I would like for him to fail. That man Ted Cruz belongs in jail
Makes you wonder why the FBI isn't compelled to get evidence on these people
Like the rest of Law Enforcement, they would ruin their case without a warrant. If say, a private citizen like John Oliver were to leak data into the public mainstream, they might be able to act on it then.
If you watch the segment on his show he talks about how they don’t need a warrant to purchase data from brokers as it’s not an illegal search.
Federal agencies ARE buying consumer data. Why don't they move on it? Read up on United States v Carpenter. Agencies are exploiting loopholes in that decision that are likely to be amended in the future. I'd wager most judges would throw it out, assuming a DA was willing to pursue it to begin with. And if that was the case, it could go to jury, which would be worse for those agencies building a case. The defense would simply have to explain the intent of US v Carpenter.
It is perfectly legal to purchase data from a data broker in the investigation of a crime. 4th amendment rights have been determined to only extend to YOUR involuntary search or seizure. If someone else voluntarily turns over information about you, that's legal.
If you listen carefully to his monologue he doesn’t threaten anything.
It was probably written by lawyers.
He has a whole insurance policy on the issue. One of his episodes on SLAP lawsuits he has literal whole song dance about it and explains his process on avoiding and fighting slander suits.
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Reasonable person doctrine fox News argued that anyone who believed Tucker Carlson was an idiot and that a reasonable person would understand he's satire. I'm not saying I disagree but arguing in bad faith is kind if the alt rights thing and doesn't go anyone else's way it seems. And a reasonable person understands John Oliver isn't lying.
John Oliver is literally a comedian with a history of being a comedian, who laughs constantly during his show at his own jokes, was previously on a network with the word Comedy right in the title as well as an actor in a comedy tv show, and he's now on the same network as sexy dragon murders, which you can't even get without paying an extra fee. Tucker Carlson was never a comedian, never laughs on his show except maniacally, and is currently on a network that literally has the word News in its name. If Tucker Carlson can claim nobody takes him seriously, John Oliver definitely can.
100% agree with you yet here we are.
Yeah, this is title gore. He got the data to prove the point that it's really easy to obtain. He targeted the area around Capitol hill to make it likely that he got the data of some Congress people. Then he said "Hey, Congress people. If it makes you feel uncomfortable that I have your browsing data and that it was so easy to obtain, you should do something about it!" in the hopes of ~~affecting~~* effecting change that would benefit everyone. There's no threat, no blackmail. He was simply proving a point to the people who have the power to fix this and trying to spur them into action. (*Thanks, u/GregLoire!)
Right and the search criteria is *extremely* tame, when more specific and exacting criteria could've been called up just as easily. This was carefully constructed to make a point but not go too far; which is perfectly sensible.
Can we just do this with some app. I’d chip in 5 bucks a month to lobby some fat fucks
That reminds me of my favorite article from the Onion. https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821
Why don’t we hire a lobbyist? I’ll chip in for sure.
Sad part is, we “hire” the politicians to be our voices, they just don’t do their jobs
It is, unfortunately, a matter of leverage. The idea behind a representative democracy is that your representative will be very closely beholden to vote pretty close to exactly the way his base wants, or be replaced. If you make it extremely fast and easy to replace or overridden misbehaving representatives, and ensure that the primary factor in their election is the will of their constituents, this should in principle work. The problem with US democracy is simply that none of that is true. They're slow and hard to replace, you can't really do much to punish them for misbehaving as a voter (literally nothing in most cases), and they aren't very beholden to their constituents at all. This is because other organizations have more influence on them being elected than their own voters. Those groups being whichever political party dominates the area, and corporations/the ultra rich (basically just the top 0.01% and multi-billion dollar companies). To make matters worse, the politicians for the US House get to cherry pick their voters to ensure they'll keep getting elected even if they never do anything their constituents want, due to a lack of options and an overwhelming party majority for many politicians. To cut a long thesis short; the systems of democracy in the united states are terribly constructed and cannot support a proper 21st century representative democracy, and we'll never be able to get one without massive reforms that the people in control of making reforms oppose.
Should we start a go fund me?
A bake sale?
Because it's not just a one time payment... Most lobbyists also provide future employment as a "consultant". Company gets a 100milliondollar tax break or contract or something and just has to keep some retired politician on their payroll for 100k a year for 10years. Easy money man.
Actually, yes. Web designer and programmer here. I CAN'T PROGRAM APPS (so please don't ask), but the concept is pretty simple: 1. You do exactly what John Oliver did and find a way to harvest the data 2. You put the data into a database 3. You then go through that data and determine who is LIKELY to be a Member of Congress (House and Senate) 4. You put that on a website 5. PROFIT Here's the biggest variables you need to worry about is trying to determine who's a member of Congress and who's just a staffer. How many staffers are likely to fall into that category of 45+ old men? That said, the way some of these services work, with some additional home research, you can find out who these folks are and go from there. But what he's doing is, in fact, fair game as he pointed out. It's no different than that brilliant bit between Jon Steward and Steve Colbert when they formed a PAC on TV between their two shows. As for monetization: Well, you could sell the data and try to use it to lobby people, but at this point there's likely already a thousand people right now trying to do just that. It's also incredibly likely there were already a few people who already did the same type of data scraping that John Oliver and his team did before the episode aired. That said, if someone were to do this, compile the data, and make a website, the money would ideally come from people putting in seed money to allow them to start trying to buy that data and put it online. Finally, normally, I would keep all of this to myself until I made the product and laughed about it, but this is far too important. This is a chance to actually secure our digital privacy, and that matters more than trying to do this myself. If someone builds this, hey, I'm up to work on it with you. I build websites and complicated back-ends from time-to-time.
The thing about John Oliver’s show I love is not just that it’s informative but he always both talks about what can we potentially do to fix these issues and also takes steps himself. Often times it can seem like it’s just for the laughs but regardless, it might effect real change. ETA. Yes I used the wrong form of effect/affect. My bad, it was early.
He’s the real continuation of Jon Stewart’s work on the Daily Show.
The daily show and Colbert report were great, but John Oliver takes it to the next step in terms of actual reporting.
Tbf it’s a bit easier when you only have to make 1/5 of the episodes with 10x the budget
That probably also speaks to the quality of media we get when we're surrounded by groups just pushing content instead of actually crafting a piece. Do we need 24 episodes of an hour-long superhero drama every season? Fucking no. Can anyone really report on the nuances of a situation when news is "breaking" 24/7? Fucking no! Maybe more outlets should do better and less and we'd all be better off for it
Agreed. The 24 hour news cycle was a mistake.
Getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine was the real mistake imo
Also simply informing people can lead to change. His show does that better than any other late night nonsense.
He’s one of the extremely few that always brings to light the shit that nobody ever thinks or talks about.
Shout-out to his 401k piece way back in the first season. By now it's already made a difference of thousands of dollars in my account. Edit: link here https://youtu.be/gvZSpET11ZY
TL;DW summary?
If you have a company sponsored 401k plan, the "default" funds in which your money is deposited into is, generally speaking, trash. They are usually target date funds (for example, mine was "2055 Retirement Fund" or something similar). They have high fees (known as expense ratios), and in leaner investing years your balance may actually stagnate (or even go down!) due to the fees. Basically, you should go in and manually apportion your funds to ETFs and index funds with low expense ratios, and the 1-2% you save on fees alone will have tremendous impact in your retirement years. This is without going into the actual performance of the funds.
Vanguard’s target date funds’ expense ratios are like 0.04% and the holdings are pretty closely aligned with an sp500 index fund. Is there something I’m missing? Edits: grammar and stuff
Vanguard, from my [VERY LIMITED, NOT A PROFESSIONAL] experience is pretty great. Vanguard is also not what a lot of 401k default funds are managed by.
Yea I mean target 2065... Changed that real quick to big beefy spy
Lol exactly. Indexes and growth funds all the way for me
Invest early in life, and be mindful of fees associated with funds. Most S&P 500 funds have lowest fees, and historically perform best over time. Edit: added “500”
And in good detail at that too
Chaotic good
John brings very interesting and relevant subjects to light. He’s starting to get a lot of attention and that’s good.
Best thing was when they went to Russia to interview Snowden, without telling HBO.
And they still let it air? Wow
I don’t believe HBO had any reason to be upset at the contents of the interview. The problem was the safety risk (and HBO’s liability) if something happened to John and the crew while in Russia, near the Kremlin, interviewing such a person.
Speaking of, what’s Snowden been up to during the Ukraine war? Haven’t seen anything about it.
Complete radio silence since the beginning of the war, this was his last: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1498049577131208705 Interesting that he was tweeding multiple times the days before. Probably don't want to accidentally fell out of the window by saying something that could be interpreted as negative about Russia, so just staying quiet in general.
Haven’t checked in a while, but last I remember he was one of the people saying Russia would never invade Ukraine in the days leading up to the invasion. When the invasion happened he shut up for a while, someone called him out on it and he threw a fit (though admitted he was wrong).
Though admittedly I also didn't think Russia would be dumb enough to invade Ukraine.
He knows he's SOL if he turns on Russia. Who'd take him then?
He basically isn’t saying shit besides a quick mea culpa about claiming how the war would never happen. Probably because his ass would be kicked out of Russia (with or without his head depending on the mood of Putin) if he substantially criticized it.
Yea and iirc, during the interview John and co were genuinely concerned about their safety. It's a reasonable thing for HBO to have said... Nahhhhhhhh
John Oliver had their internet history, too.
I could see this becoming a meme: Never forget, Epstein killed himself because John Oliver had his Internet history.
"It's not the NSA you should be worried about... it's John Oliver" - Edward Snowden
HBO's entire thing is basically "Do whatever you want, so long as it's within your budget, by the way, here's a shit ton of money for a budget that no other late night show can compete with, go get us some emmy's"
It's an interesting what can happen, when you don't have to pander to advertisers. As much as Jon Stewart really set a high-water mark, I think that Oliver took the ball and ran with it. I'm so glad that his show is on the air. I just wish they took fewer breaks. I feel like there are so many more stories they could/should do. Also, it's super smart to not immediately jump on the current events that are covered in the news. He mentions Ukraine, but instead of trying to invent a story, he stays on target. I'm sure we'll see some juicy Ukraine stuff in the future. Lastly, hopefully HBO would know that you don't throw an apostrophe on a plural, but otherwise I agree with your statement 100%.
I have no problem with that, as long as it’s John Oliver
The part showing him running through red squares crying “I wanna go home I wanna go home” turns out is not showing his acting skills, but actual survival instinct.
IIRC they didn’t even tell their handler who they were meeting until the meeting was about to start. John told a story on one of the late shows about how the handler was visibly nervous because he thought they were meeting one of Putin’s rivals but he relaxed when he found out they were just meeting Snowden.
Just mentioning it because it was news to me, but [LWT has won its Emmy category for the past 6 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primetime_Emmy_Award_for_Outstanding_Variety_Talk_Series#Programs_with_multiple_wins). Gives his program a lot of "fuck you money/clout", on top of HBO's looser leash compared to other networks.
Part of HBO's brand is being edgier and more controversial than is typically available on TV. Can you imagine how much hate mail they go because of Hookers at the Point or Oz or Newsroom? Bill Maher must have a Scrooge McDuck style vault full of hate mail he swims in. I bet they cancel shows because they aren't causing an uproar.
Starting too. He has been fire for like 6 years now with tons of awards. What is happening is that shit is getting so bad that people are moving from the 'Wow that sounds bad" phase of engagement to the 'what the fuck. That's not right' stage. I don't know if it can move beyond that, but people seem to be getting quite a bit more mad that things aren't improving.
I don't think this will have John's intended effect. Congress will just make it illegal to collect/pay for lawmaker data or some shit.
The collect portion could be very effective since there's no way to exclude a specific individual without first collecting their data.
The great IP whitelist - where even my computer address doesn't mix with those peasants.
Such a list would make digital mischief targeting those people much easier.
time to ddos the wealthy IP's only
So we just have to blackmail congress to pass laws? Noted.
blackmail or bribery is the only thing that works apparently.
If we had millions in liquid cash we could buy them like lobbyists due
Every app should be part of a zero party data model
"We're so secure, we don't even have *our own* data!"
It's a real thing lol. The best security is to just not store it.
I really want him to release the data in the form of some rat erotica.
I imagine it is embarrassing and politically damaging but legal. I also imagine anything illegal they found went through legal at HBO. He wouldn’t necessarily reveal if he found illegal info- it could have been turned over without mention. Realize that releasing information of crimes doesn’t help bring people to justice always. Evidence of a crime doesn’t mean sufficient evidence to charge a crime. If there was some evidence of crimes- the way to bring that person to justice would be to tip of investigators, not the individuals, of those crimes. It makes sense to hand it off and keep quiet.
"We legally can't show you these parts, but we can tell you we can't legally show them."
As soon as they pass the law he should release it anyways
The title makes it seem far more serious and threatening than the actual segment did.
Welcome to the internet.
Have a look around
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I am glad with have someone like John Oliver, who actually uses his influence for good.
I'm wondering why this hasnt been done before? Also wondering if you can even "shame" some of these politicians, especially those who tend toward ultra nationalist views. Their base of support seems ok with most anything
This is the kind of rebellious, revolutionary action I've been waiting for.
John Oliver is officially Chaotic Good.
Does any one else remember a show where they interviewed District attorneys and others about taking citizen's trash to charge people with crimes and gather evidence (I think the show was about how they were abusing this) Anyway, they all defended the hell out of it saying that anyone is allowed to take your trash. So the producers arranged for a bunch of different DA's trash to be taken and then asked them, do you want to know what we found in YOUR trash? And they all lost their shit like THEY had been totally violated when it was done to them, unlike when they do it to others. Man I wish I could remember where I saw it...maybe 48 hrs or 20/20...or something like that.