Amazon is Emailing Sellers to Warn Them About Congress’ Big Tech Antitrust Bills

CNBC reported:

Amazon is reaching out to third-party merchants to warn them that proposed antitrust reforms in Congress could limit their ability to hawk their wares on its marketplace.

Members of Amazon’s public policy team recently contacted a small number of third-party sellers with successful businesses on its marketplace about setting up meetings to discuss the legislation, according to an email viewed by CNBC.

“We’re reaching out to a small group of our sellers to make them aware of a package of legislative proposals, currently in Congress, that is aimed at regulating Amazon and other large technology companies,” the email states. “It is early in the process and the bills are subject to change, but we are concerned that they could potentially have significant negative effects on small and medium-sized businesses like yours that sell in our store.”

Businesses Are Refusing to Enforce France’s Vaccine Passport

ZeroHedge reported:

As we highlighted last week, on the first day the new program was in place, police were visibly patrolling bars and cafes demanding customers show proof they’ve had the jab.

However, this seems to have largely been a bluff as just days later, businesses and venues have become very lax at checking people’s papers despite the threat of large fines.

“I decided to do a simple experiment to find out: always present an expired test even though I had a valid negative one, and see what happens,” writes Hearn.

“Over a four day stay I was required to show a valid pass exactly zero times; that includes at the airports in both directions. Compliance is absolutely min viable and often lower.”

Big Tech Acts Like Big Brother

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The notice came in white text on a dark screen: “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” The company last week blocked a 45-minute video of my news conference announcing a lawsuit challenging Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “vaccine passport” as an invasion of New Yorkers’ privacy and an unreasonable mandate on small businesses.

I believe the vaccine is safe, effective and the best means of combating the Covid pandemic. But Mr. de Blasio’s mandate is a clear government overreach. Still YouTube removed the video, citing an alleged violation, never explained, of its “medical misinformation policy.” The video was censored for two days. After I appealed YouTube’s decision twice, the video reappeared and I was notified that after “taking another look,” YouTube had changed its mind.

Behind the platforms, the people deciding what is “misinformation” and a violation of “community guidelines” are doing so in a subjective manner. Social-media giants suspended the U.S. president while continuing to provide a megaphone to tyrants like Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Venezuela’s Nicolas Máduro and Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel.

How Artist Ben Grosser Is Cutting Mark Zuckerberg Down to Size

The Guardian reported:

When the history of the first decades of this century comes to be written, there will be few more telling artworks than Ben Grosser’s film Order of Magnitude. In the 47 minute video, Grosser, a digital artist and professor of new media at the University of Illinois, has spliced together every public instance in which Mark Zuckerberg has talked of “more” and “bigger”.

The resulting montage of interviews and presentations is a fast forward of the rapid growth of Facebook as, in the chief executive’s mouth, thousands become millions then billions. It makes a mesmerizing monologue, the story of our times.