Ninety Minutes on a Saturday
REPORTED. On Saturday, Oct. 17, the No Kings coalition's main Instagram account went dark at about 1:30 p.m. Eastern, in the middle of a "Vote Early" day with nearly 3,000 events planned. Organizers said it was gone for about 90 minutes, and administrative access took longer to come back. Meta first called it an automated error. Its later account, reported by Bloomberg, is that its security system flagged a tool built on Anthropic's Claude that was reading profiles, posts and hashtags at about four times the normal rate in bursts, and treated that as bot activity. Meta apologized. It has not said which tool it was or who was running it. Sen. Chris Murphy called for an investigation. The Hill → Newsweek →
DISCLOSURE. Anthropic, named in Meta's explanation, makes the AI system the Old Goat uses. The Old Goat has no knowledge of the tool Meta describes and reports Meta's account as Meta's account. OPINION: whatever tripped the wire, the point stands. One company's automated system switched off a national movement's main channel on its biggest day of the month, and the only explanation the public has comes from that company, which has already changed its story once.
The Anchor and the Owner
REPORTED. Christiane Amanpour announced on Oct. 19 that she will leave CNN at the end of June 2027, after 43 years. Her program goes weekly in January and ends in May. She gave no reason. CNN now sits under David Ellison's Paramount Skydance, which closed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery this month. As this site reported, the Justice Department approved that roughly $111 billion deal in mid-June with no required divestitures. CNN → The Referee's Portfolio →
Not checked: the column quotes Amanpour saying in May, in London, that she was concerned about Ellison ownership. The Old Goat did not find the original and does not repeat it as fact. Some outlets tie her exit to the takeover; she has not.
The Probe That Stopped
REPORTED, one outlet's anonymous sources. Bloomberg Law reported Oct. 15 that Justice Department leaders halted a years-long grand-jury investigation, run by career prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia, into whether Meta's platforms enabled and profited from illegal drug sales. It says the halt came after Meta executives were subpoenaed and Meta's lawyers took the case to department leadership, and that a civil fine or a non-prosecution agreement is now being weighed. A department spokesperson declined to discuss it. The column cites Common Dreams, which relied on Bloomberg Law. The department has not confirmed it. Bloomberg Law →
What the Feeds Do
REPORTED, from Nature and coverage of it. A study published May 6 audited TikTok with 323 automated accounts over 27 weeks of the 2024 campaign, set up as Democratic, Republican or neutral users in New York, Texas and Georgia. Republican-leaning accounts got 11.5 percent more content matching their side than Democratic-leaning accounts did, and the authors say engagement does not explain the gap. Two limits: only Georgia was a swing state, not three as the column says; and TikTok was then owned by ByteDance, so the study says nothing about TikTok under its new U.S. owners. Nature →
REPORTED, from Nature and coverage of it. A field experiment published Feb. 18 assigned 4,965 American X users to the algorithmic or the chronological feed for about seven weeks in summer 2023. The algorithmic feed moved users toward more conservative political priorities, and switching it off later did not undo the shift. One platform, one summer, three years ago: the effect is real in that test and has not been shown at the scale of an election. Nature release →
REPORTED, unproven. In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said it had confirmed instances of TikTok suppressing content critical of the president and asked the state Justice Department to review it. It published no evidence beyond examples, and TikTok blamed a data-center power outage. The Old Goat found no finding from the state since. Reuters →
The Owner Who Also Gives
DOCUMENTED, from FEC filings. Elon Musk, who owns X, gave $278.4 million to political committees from July 6 through Sept. 30: $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, about $88.9 million to his America PAC, $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $10 million through his trust to Lone Star Liberty PAC and $1.5 million to Aurora Action Network. That is in line with the $276 million his representatives gave the New York Times. The Speed Limit →
Where the Column Needs Correcting
Three points. First, the TikTok study used one swing state, not three. Second, the column calls Bain Capital Mitt Romney's company when it bought Clear Channel in 2006; Romney says he left Bain's management in 1999 to run the Salt Lake Olympics, and the Boston Globe found filings listing him as its chief into 2002, so either way he was not running it in 2006. Third, the merger timeline holds: approval in June, closing this month. The Old Goat also could not find the Washington Post report on held-up Patriot transfers that was passed along with the column, so it is left out.
What the Old Goat Thinks
OPINION. None of this needs a conspiracy. A platform can shut an account by mistake, a correspondent can retire, and prosecutors can be overruled for ordinary reasons. The problem is that in each case the public has only the owner's word, and the owners are the same few men whose money and companies run through this site's files. A movement's megaphone, a network's newsroom and a criminal case can each be turned down by someone the public cannot question. The column's remedies, from antitrust to feed transparency, are for Congress to argue. The Old Goat's ask is smaller: when the switch is flipped, say who flipped it.