Microsoft Co-Founder wants you aware of America’s white population decline
Is Melania Donald's dom? Kroger wants AI to scan for your race and gender. Was African Stream a Russian asset? And more on this week's WetDreamTomato.
The rise of non-partisan social-first news is bullshit
Opinions are like assholes. Proclaiming you don’t have one implies you’re full of shit. So when billionaire Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer announced his new nonpartisan, “just the facts” social-first news account, I was suspicious.
From the USAFacts Instagram Bio:
USAFacts is a nonpartisan not-for-profit, making government data easy for all Americans to access and understand.
I have never encountered one of these nonpartisan propaganda accounts whose partisanship wasn’t immediately evident.
This idea that having a point of view is somehow less moral than masquerading as neutral is silly. Providing “just facts” doesn’t make you virtuous or even nonpartisan. The facts of any story are always infinite. We still must choose which facts to reveal and decide how those facts should be contextualized. That fact is unavoidable.
For example, Black Chicagoans make up 70% of all guilty speeders in Chicago. Those are just the facts. If we were to contextualize that figure, we’d reveal that Chicago Police pull over Black people at a far higher rate than their white counterparts, resulting in a disproportionate number of speeding citations for Black drivers. When we analyze citations issued by an automated camera, where half of the drivers are Black and half are white, that 70% figure drops to 54%.
Yesterday, a friend DM’d me an Instagram post about the decline of the white population in the US. He pointed out the fact that the account claimed to be nonpartisan, and, at first glance, I suspected it to be just another right-wing account posing as a neutral source.
US government statistics have long been weaponized to justify police brutality against Black and brown Americans. These types of accounts are hardly new.
I was shocked, then, to discover that the shared post belonged to Steve Ballmer’s new account called USAFacts.
In a recent Instagram post, USAFacts shared “just the facts” about the decline of the white population.
US demographics are shifting: The nation’s non-white population has grown from 24% of the population in 1990 to over 40% in 2023.
The post ends with a loaded question, “Do these shifts surprise you?”
What do billionaires and neo-Nazis have in common? They’re both obsessed with the white birth rate.
In the summer of 2017, a group of white nationalists marched down the street with tiki torches and khaki pants, chanting, “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!” The first of two nights ended in violence, with thirty people injured. The next day, James Alex Fields Jr., a self-described white supremacist, drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, injuring 35 people and killing Heather Heyer. All in the name of preserving the white majority. 
The Unite The Right rally was motivated by a racist conspiracy theory called The Great Replacement theory. Believers incorrectly claim that the Jewish community is replacing white Americans with non-white Americans.
Steve Ballmer is most likely more concerned with our country’s shrinking pool of cheap labor than the Great Replacement Theory. But giving the issue a race-based tinge, as this post clearly has, is more likely to get us all invested in his problem. USAFacts fails to mention that naturalized immigrants also experience a decline in birth rate.
By sharing demographic trends by race, then highlighting the trend of white decline, boy, you know what the fuck you’re doing, you punk-ass dweeb.
Here’s a fact, Steve— your nonpartisan, “just the facts” Reels channel sucks a butt.
2022— A Freudian slip by Illinois Republican Mary Miller:
“President Trump, on behalf of all the Maga patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the supreme court yesterday”
Tips and Tricks
Anything after ? in a URL (link) can be deleted without messing with the link's destination. Often when we share links, companies like to add tracking parameters that appear after the question mark. Delete it. 😊
The Verge wants to be the small web
In an effort to reach the chronically online, The Verge often creates novelty mini-sites designed to evoke maximum nostalgia for a time when the internet wasn't just one massive AI-generated advertisement.
This page of curated articles with a 2004 theme takes it up a notch.
I like it.
However, I couldn't help but notice that the design borrowed inspiration from one of my favorite link farm pages, The Cursed Computer Iceberg Meme.
I feel conflicted.
On the one hand, we could all probably use a dose of long-form content that lives outside of our For You Pages. Conversely, do we want corporate blogs to lead this initiative?
I hate to be that guy (I love it), but The Verge’s attempt to appeal to a younger audience by designing mini-sites to look like the small web or the indie web doesn’t align with what those sites usually represent—data privacy, independence, and non-corporate reach.
The small web is decidedly unincorporated. That's most of what makes it charming. The Verge and other corporate blogs that can't help but cozy up to Big Tech are the antithesis of the small web. Their mere presence dilutes the movement. I guess we must take what we can get.
Some good reads about the small web:
- Potato.cheap
- Bring Back the Old Internet: Social Media Is Turning Us Into Homogeneous Beings
- The small web is beautiful
- Rediscovering the small web
- The small web discoverability crisis
- The internet used to be fun
- Everyone should blog
- A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden
The nice-face discount
In a letter to Kroger, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib calls out the grocery store chain for considering using AI and cameras that scan your face and dynamically change the price of goods based on traits like race and gender.
Announcement on X by @RepRashida:
Families are struggling to put food on the table. I sent a letter to @Kroger about their decision to roll out surge pricing using facial recognition technology. Facial recognition technology is often discriminatory and shouldn’t be used in grocery stores to price gouge residents.
The surge price ability is thanks to a Kroger x Microsoft collab because of course it is:
Tlaib also said it was her understanding that, through a partnership with Microsoft, Kroger was intending to place cameras at its digital displays, using facial recognition to determine the gender and age of the store’s customers who are captured on camera and using that information to present them with targeted advertising on the electronic shelving labels.
First of all, Publix would never. This brings a whole new meaning to White Sale. I can’t wait for Black Friday. And other similar jokes. That’s all I got.
Other times corporations tried to fuck us on pricing:
- Do companies charge online shoppers different prices?
- Orbitz Shows Higher Prices to Mac Users
- Uber: Users Are More Likely To Pay Surge Pricing If Their Phone Battery Is Low
- Variable-Price Coke Machine Being Tested
Was African Stream a Russian Asset? US State Department says trust me bro.
I learned from a mutual friend that the social media-based news outlet African Stream was banned by all mainstream social media outlets. Her TikTok video was sympathetic towards African Stream and its mission to bring American news from the Black diaspora.
However, the US Department of State claims that African Stream was part of the Russian propaganda network Russia Today (RT).
Alerting the World to RT’s Global Covert Activities:
RT has leveraged its extensive state funding to covertly recruit and pay social media personalities and provide them with unbranded content to disseminate and promote around the world while hiding RT’s involvement...One online platform secretly run by RT is African Stream. Per the outlet’s website, africanstream.media, it is active on a wide range of social media platforms.
Here’s why I think this whole thing is bullshit. Why would Africans need to cozy up with Mother Russia to get African stories into the American lexicon? Africa and the US are two pea pods. We Americans know about Africa. It’s our favorite country continent!
Every day, all I hear on the news is Africa, Africa, Africa— oh, Africa did this, and Africa did that, and the Grammy goes to Toto for the song Africa.
It’s not like the geo-political climate in Africa is a mystery to most Americans. Growing up, we had African-American history in schools. Surely that’s not going anywhere. In the 90s, every other commercial had African representation. Sure, it was mostly just depictions of starving children, but I’d bet they were qualified for the Actor’s Guild afterward. Cha-ching, am I right?
If you asked the average American to name five Africans, they’d be like— of course! Here are the names in alphabetical order. And it would be perfect.
Americans know the African struggle!
Seriously though, I suppose African Stream may be a Russian asset. But this whole thing is giving TikTok ban 2.0. The State Department didn’t give us any actual proof either way, and it’s not like we are asking for it. I wouldn’t have known about the African Stream ban if it hadn’t been for me scrolling TikTok at two in the morning.
So, I don’t know what to make of this story. It doesn’t help my nerves much that Hillary Clinton is out here saying that Americans should be punished for spreading Russian talking points. Who gets to decide what is and isn’t the “good “kind of propaganda?
Anyway, I think when it comes to Africans, there are bigger fish to fry.
Foreign Election Interference 
Elon Musk flirts with white supremacists all the time. He perpetuates racist conspiracies and has the term ‘cisgender’ banned on his free speech app, X dot com. No one is shocked that Elon Musk supports Donald J. Trump's run for the White House.
But Elon's campaigning efforts do come off as a little desperate.
Last week, 404 Media reported that Elon Musk runs deceptive ads in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Here are two ads created by Future Coalition PAC. The ad on the left below are being delivered via Snapchat to people in ZIP codes in Michigan that have many Muslim voters; the ad on the right being delivered via Snapchat to people in ZIP codes in Pennsylvania that have many Jewish voters.
Then, in a Pennsylvania town hall speech Saturday night, Elon Musk promised to give away one million dollars every day up until election night. To enter the election bribe raffle, one must sign a petition stating they will uphold the First and Second Amendments.
Watch Elon's million-dollar raffle announcement on IG Reels or read about it on ABC27.
It's hard to know if any of these tactics are helping secure a Trump victory come November. However, according to an October 18th forecast by 538, Trump has the edge for the first time in the race:
As of 3 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 18, our model gives Trump a 52-in-100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes. The model gives Harris a 48-in-100 chance.
Read Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?
What's for sure is that Elon's tactics reek of desperation. It's almost like he needs Harris to lose or else.
Listen. Not every election needs to be inspirational. I know that. But if, for some reason, you feel less-than-inspired by the Harris campaign, might I offer this? Elon seems to believe he might go to jail if Trump loses.
Daily Mail is first to report that earlier this month Elon Musk revealed to Tucker Carlson the possible consequences of a Trump defeat:
'If Trump loses, you're f***ed, dude,' Carlson said, with Elon laughing along and agreeing.
'If he loses, I'm f***ed,' he affirmed. 'How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? Will I see my children? I don't know.'
If that doesn't spark joy in your soul, nothing will. Or, maybe this...
Is Melania Donald’s Dom?
Is Donald Trump secretly a sub with a humiliation kink? Oh, how I want this internet conspiracy to be true.
Ali Weiss on TikTok (@aliweissworld) believes that Melania Trump, with her 7-inch heels and affinity for black leather, might be a dominatrix. Weiss also believes that Donald Trump’s need for adult diapers has to do with a “collapsed pelvic wall,” which I can only assume has something to do with those big-ass heels.
Here’s the four-part series on TikTok:
- Part 1: ”There are the infamous hand-swatting videos, which makes sense when you realize he must ask permission to hold her hand.”
- Part 2: “Trump paid ladies of the night in Moscow to pee on him.”
- Part 3: “Civilian women do not wear seven-inch heels in public.”
- Part 4: “He is a spoiled little brat that always got whatever he wanted.”
News from Today
- Media Blackout on Leaked U.S. Intelligence Docs
- The myth of lone genius: How innovation clusters drive progress
- Twitch Quietly Blocked New Users From Israel and Palestine Since October 7
- A neuroscientist’s guide to building a more positive reality
- The Very Real Scenario Where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway