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Somehow, Sam Bankman-Fried gets his rehabilitation media tour

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He’s just 30 years old. His voice sounds like that of your average sophomore. His hair is disheveled. He often dresses like a guy who works as a beach badge checker at the Jersey Shore.

This is Sam Bankman-Fried (commonly known as SBF), the now-former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. You’ve likely heard his story by now: The one-time wunderkind, who some have called “the next Warren Buffet,” saw his crypto company, FTX, soar to the point that his own net worth was north of $25 billion earlier this year. But then reports emerged of potentially dubious accounting and the alleged mishandling of customer funds to the tune of an $8 billion hole in FTX’s balance sheet.

In October, SBF’s worth reportedly dropped to $10.5 billion. On Nov. 8 alone, he reportedly lost more than 90 percent of said worth and dropped below the $1 billion mark.

And, as you read this, you have more wealth than SBF does if the dollar amount in your bank account is above zero.

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The reports of SBF’s spending sound like something out of a James Bond bad-guy character: In the Bahamas alone, he and top management are said to have spent $300 million on property on the resort island. You read that correctly: $300 million, including $40 million by SBF himself for a penthouse on the beach.

Bankman-Fried now seems like the crypto version of disgraced Bernie Madoff, who led the largest Ponzi scheme in history over the course of two decades until his arrest in 2008. But the comparison to Madoff is almost unfair to Madoff, if that’s possible. Because at least with Bernie, one could understand why people invested heavily, even their life savings in many cases: Madoff had been both chairman of the Nasdaq and chairman of the board of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). He was obviously highly respected on Wall Street.

Then you look at and listen to Sam Bankman-Fried, who didn’t even have a driver’s license when Madoff was arrested, and wonder, “How did anyone give this kid even one dime to invest with?”

But somehow it happened.

Regardless of FTX’s collapse and SBF’s role as its CEO, the interview requests continue to come in from outlets like the New York Times. And let’s just say the headlines have been gentle:

“Sam Bankman-Fried Blames ‘Huge Management Failures’ for FTX Collapse; Mr. Bankman-Fried spoke at The New York Times’s DealBook conference, in his first public appearance since his crypto exchange imploded.”

Wait: Bankman-Fried was still given a huge public forum by the paper of record? Why didn’t the publication cancel, given the serious accusations against him?

During the forum, per the Times story, SBF dismissed the losses during his conversation with moderator Andrew Ross Sorkin: “In addressing the impact of the company’s collapse on his own future, he was understated. ‘I’ve had a bad month,’ he said at one point, to laughter from the audience.”

Imagine that: One of the largest financial collapses in history just occurred, and the audience finds it hilarious.

On ABC News, SBF also appeared on camera from the Bahamas. The promo was positively soft, given the circumstances:

“TOMORROW: Collapse of a crypto empire — @GStephanopoulos sits down with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to talk about what went wrong at the company in a one-on-one interview on @GMA.”

Does anyone think Madoff would have been given the same courtesy with this kind of framing around “what went wrong”? This kind of wording only gives the impression of victimhood.

Gizmodo’s review of the ABC interview captured it perfectly:

“[SBF] spent the interview repeatedly adopting the posture and cadence of a 15-year-old kid caught with a baggie of weed in his sock drawer. But SBF wasn’t caught smoking weed by his parents and he’s not a teenager. The 30-year-old graduate of MIT lost billions of dollars in user deposits—the life savings of regular people.”

So, is there a political aspect in play here? There always is.

Turns out SBF was one of the largest donors to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign to the tune of $5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. He also reportedly donated heavily to Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms.

“Some Democrats see Bankman-Fried’s investments and engagement as the thing that could help them hold back a red midterm wave,” Politico observed in August.

For her part, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) appears to be approaching SBF with kid gloves regarding oversight. “We appreciate that you’ve been candid in your discussions about what happened at #FTX,” Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, tweeted. “Your willingness to talk to the public will help the company’s customers, investors, and others. To that end, we would welcome your participation in our hearing on the 13th.”

So polite.

In a recent interview, SBF claimed for the first time publicly that he also donated millions to the Republican Party. But unlike the Biden and midterm donations to Democrats, there don’t seem to be any receipts around that, only SBF’s word (whatever that’s worth) that he funneled the donations into dark-money operations.

“All my Republican donations were dark,” he told crypto commentator Tiffany Fong last week. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the f*** out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”

This makes no sense. If the goal of a donation is to gain influence, why keep those donations secret and under the radar? And if SBF donated to Republicans, why didn’t he also donate to Donald Trump in 2020, in the same manner as he did to Biden? Because he was afraid reporters would freak out? C’mon, man, as Biden might say.

SBF’s investments extended to media companies and startups as well, reportedly including The Intercept, Vox, ProPublica and startup Semafor. Some questions arise:

Should those publications give the money back, considering where it came from? Are they obligated to? Should the amount of the investments be disclosed in an effort to be fully transparent?

There are more questions than answers at this point. Yet it seems that Sam Bankman-Fried shouldn’t be taking those questions from Andrew Ross Sorkin at a New York Times book forum or from ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, but instead from the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission back here in the United States.

A massive financial collapse just occurred. But one might never know it from watching these interviews, which seem to portray SBF as a casualty instead of potentially the cause.

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.

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A dissident in Europe is enraging Beijing. Now Chinese police are coming for his social media followers – CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

For more than a decade, Lee has been able to circumvent China’s internet controls to go on Twitter, now known as X, without getting into trouble with the authorities.

The Chinese lawyer stayed away from politically sensitive topics and rarely engaged with other users, treating the platform mainly as an archive to back up his postings on heavily censored Chinese social media.

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He has continued tweeting even as Beijing intensifies efforts to control free speech beyond its Great Firewall of internet censorship, interrogating, detaining and jailing Chinese Twitter users who criticize leader Xi Jinping and his government.

Last month, in a sign of the widening crackdown on foreign social media sites, Lee too was summoned by police – not because of what he tweeted, but because of who he followed.

In an early-morning phone call, an officer invited Lee to “have tea” – a euphemism for police questioning – to talk about the “sensitive accounts” he followed on X.

At the police station, it became clear that the officer had only one target in mind: an outspoken and unfiltered Chinese-language X account with a cat avatar and 1.6 million followers whose handle translates to “Teacher Li is not your teacher.”

“The police asked me if I followed the account ‘Teacher Li is not your teacher,’ but I honestly didn’t know,” Lee said in an interview. He logged into X under the watch of the officer, found the account and unfollowed it on the spot, he said.

That account belongs to Li Ying, a Chinese artist turned dissident in Italy who rose to prominence in 2022 for live-tweeting the nationwide protests in China against Xi’s zero-Covid policy.

Since then, Li’s account has become a go-to source for news censored in China. His followers send him photos and videos from Chinese social media before they are wiped by censors, and Li reposts them on X, offering a rare and unflinching glimpse into aspects of Chinese life that Beijing doesn’t want the world – or its own citizens – to see.

Li’s X feed documents everything from school scandals and factory fires to protests by migrant workers demanding overdue wages – creating a parallel world to the sanitized version of reality presented by the Chinese government.

For more than a year, authorities have tried in vain to pressure Li into silence: paying frequent visits to his parents, interrogating his friends, classmates and contacts on Chinese social media, and freezing his bank accounts and mobile payments, he said.

The 31-year-old quit his job and moved four times over concerns for his safety, but he has carried on tweeting.

And now, Chinese authorities appear to be going after his followers in China.

The escalating campaign against one of the most influential Chinese accounts on X comes as Washington becomes increasingly wary of Beijing’s reach in cyberspace beyond its borders. On Wednesday, the US House passed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on Chinese-owned app TikTok over national security concerns.

A photo provided by Li shows him in front of a computer

‘Emergent notice’

X, like Facebook and other Western social media platforms, is blocked in China. But a small number of Chinese people – typically city dwellers who are more educated and tech savvy – still access it via virtual private networks to keep up with the world beyond the Great Firewall.

Like elsewhere on the platform since its takeover by Elon Musk, Chinese-language X is increasingly filled with misinformation, propaganda and pornography. But for Chinese speakers inside and outside the country, it still provides a valuable space to air political dissent, discuss social issues and – increasingly with accounts like Li’s – find out what’s really going on in the country of 1.4 billion people.

Li’s popularity has surged since China’s protests against Covid lockdowns, and his follower count doubled in the following year.

But on February 25, Li warned his readers in China that the Ministry of Public Security was going through his 1.6 million followers “one by one,” and local police were summoning users to “have tea” once they were identified.

“I suggest anyone who feels scared to just unfollow me, you can bookmark one of my tweets or search my account name to read about the day’s news in the future,” Li wrote in an “emergent notice” on X.

He also urged users to better protect their accounts, so as not to give away their identity. Under the post, Li shared screenshots of private messages he received from followers who said they were interrogated by police.

CNN has reached out to the Ministry of Public Security for comment.

Li’s warnings sent shock waves through the small but influential Chinese X sphere. In just a few days, he lost some 200,000 followers. Other prominent Chinese dissidents and activists on the platform reported a plunge in follower counts, too. The panic also spread to YouTube, an important source of income for many exiled dissidents, including Li.

“I certainly knew it would cause some panic, but I didn’t expect the panic to reach such an extent,” Li said. “It shows that fear is more deeply rooted in our hearts than freedom.”

Li said he issued the warning because police harassment of his followers had intensified drastically in recent months. From December, he had received messages from more than 100 followers across China who said they had been summoned by police over his account.

Many of the followers facing interrogation had never tweeted about politics or criticized the government, and the only question the police had for them was why they followed Li, he said.

Yaqiu Wang, research director for China at advocacy group Freedom House, said police interrogations for merely following an X account is an escalation from the past, when X users were usually targeted for expressing their own views.

“To the authorities, following a certain account means that you are thinking of the wrong things in your head and should be punished, in other words, committing ‘thought crimes,’” she said. “This is a clear sign of the Chinese government’s further tightening control of freedom of expression in the country.”

A view of the bouquets laid outside a residential building where the late Chinese Premier Li Keqiang spent his childhood in Hefei city, in central China's Anhui province on October 28, 2023.

Documenting China

According to Li, the police summons ramped up after China’s former premier, Li Keqiang, died of a sudden heart attack at age 68, just months after his retirement.

Li Keqiang’s death sparked nationwide mourning. For many, it also offered a rare opening to air pent-up discontent with Xi, the supreme leader widely seen as having sidelined his former premier.

On X, Li Ying’s account provided a window into the outpouring of grief and disaffection. Followers sent him photos of the flowers and notes left in tribute to the late premier in public spaces across the country. Some users said they were encouraged to act after seeing the posts on Li’s account.

“(The authorities) were upset that I had so many posts about people mourning across China. That was something they were trying to underplay in mainstream media and hide from the public,” he said.

Li said his account was targeted for a simple reason: it documents what’s happening in China.

“Within China, the authorities have many ways to make things disappear in a heartbeat, be it a fire or a highway accident,” he said. “But once it’s posted here, it’ll be seen by many more people and sometimes make its way back into the Chinese internet. This is something out of the government’s control.”

Wang, the researcher at Freedom House, said that, amid rising discontent at political repression, the slowing economy and other societal issues, more Chinese people want to know the truth about their country and are taking the risks to scale the Great Firewall to access free information.

“Beijing is growing increasingly insecure about its hold onto Chinese people ideologically and fearful of ‘foreign influence’ on people inside the country,” she said.

The widening clampdown is a sign of weakness, not strength, of the party-state, and a reflection of the power individual activists wield, Wang said.

“The Chinese authorities are fearful of young people like Teacher Li, seeing him as a threat to its rule,” Wang said.

“People often say that activism and political mobilization is not possible in China given the level of government repression, but Chinese activists are constantly adapting and finding new ways to express dissent and forge a resistance movement.”

Lee, the Chinese lawyer who was questioned by authorities, said he knew little about Li’s backstory or his role in the anti-zero-Covid protests prior to the police station visit – he only came across the account because it posted so much news from China.

“Teacher Li’s content tells the truth. He’s one of the few accounts on X who don’t talk nonsense,” he said.

According to Lee, the police officer remained “polite and civil” with him throughout the questioning, which lasted less than half an hour.

“I didn’t feel any sense of fear because I’ve done nothing bad or wrong,” he said. “And I followed Teacher Li right back the moment I stepped out of the door.”

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Blue Jays’ Votto shares emotional letter on social media – Sportsnet.ca

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Blue Jays’ Votto shares emotional letter on social media  Sportsnet.ca

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Struggling Sports Illustrated inks deal to stay afloat following partnership – NBC News

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The owner of Sports Illustrated came to an agreement with digital media company Minute Media, officials said Monday, to operate the iconic magazine, two months after mass layoffs appeared to signal the publication’s demise.

Authentic Brands, which also owns a host of clothing and lifestyle brands, purchased the sports magazine in 2019; it had been operated in recent years by publishers at The Arena Group.

Then in late January, Authentic Brands said it had terminated The Arena Group’s publishing license, leading to widespread staffing cuts.

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Minute Media, best known for The Players’ Tribune and FanSided, said it’s reached a deal with Authentic to keep Sports Illustrated going.

“Minute Media will oversee all digital and print editorial operations across the SI portfoliowhich has been the industry leader in dedicated sports journalism for decades,” Minute Media said in a statement.

“Minute Media plans to leverage its premium sports content expertise as well as its technology platform that powers the creation, global distribution and monetization of hundreds of digital content brands, to continue to grow the Sports Illustrated media business.”

The magazine suffered a reputation blow late last year when it was disclosed that stories written by an artificial intelligence tool had been published.

“In Minute Media we have found a partner that will honor SI’s lauded legacy and exceed fan expectations for the future,” Authentic Executive Vice Chairman Daniel W. Dienst said in a statement.

“As Minute Media shepherds the SI brand across a rapidly evolving media landscape, our priority at Authentic is — and has always been — to protect its journalistic integrity and longevity.”

The agreement also included Authentic buying an undisclosed amount of equity in Minute Media.

Asaf Peled, the CEO and founder of Minute Media, called Sports Illustrated the “gold standard for sports journalism and has been for nearly 70 years.”

“The weight and power of that distinction cannot be understated,” Peled added. “At Minute Media, our focus will be to take that legacy into new, emerging channels enhancing visibility, commercial viability and sustainable impact, all while ensuring that the SI team is inspired to flourish in this new era of media.”

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