Nilay Patel

The federated Twitter competitor is heating up this week as people flee X — it just crossed 15m users and is currently the top app in the US iOS App Store. CEO Jay Graber was on Decoder earlier this year, talking about Bluesky’s approach to federation, “composable moderation,” and ultimately monetization. It’s a good one!

Our colleagues at New York break down the gleefully corrupt dealmaking already taking place at Trump’s club, with this tremendous detail:

The billionaire X and Tesla owner is around so much he’s even got his own intro music. “I don’t know if you know this, but Trump DJs Mar-a-Lago from his iPad,” says Melissa Rein Lively, another frequent presence at the club these days. “So he has a walk-on song for Elon Musk, which is ‘Space Oddity.’”

David Bowie would hate this, but he’d hate the reality of what’s happening down there even more:

“It’s a dinner club, and you only go when Trump is there. You probably go once a week for four months in a season. You do that for four years, do the math — you’re spending $18,000 a meal to just get in there. It’s the most expensive meal you’re going to have, but is it worth it if your company gets a $2 billion deal from the federal government? It’s the best money you ever spent.”

It’s going to be a long four years.

Good post from Media Guild of the West president Matt Pearce on the reality of media in 2024:

The biggest story about media and the internet is that new technology — AI, social media, smartphones, etc. — keeps driving down the cost of producing bullshit while the cost of obtaining quality information only goes up. It’s getting more and more expensive to produce the good stuff, and the good stuff has to compete against more and more trash once it’s out on the market.

The PRESS Act, which has been sitting in limbo since it passed the House in January, would protect reporters from having to reveal their sources except for national security reasons. It has bipartisan support — Democrat Ron Wyden sponsored the bill and Republicans Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee are co-sponsors — and it feels like the sort of thing that’s going to get increasingly relevant in a second Trump administration.

Our ability to produce things like the Foxconn investigation depends on freedom of the press, after all, and Trump and his allies like Elon Musk have made it clear they will pressure the media any way they can. (Obvious disclosure: I am biased in favor of freedom of the press, and The Verge’s parent company Vox Media is part of media industry groups that are also advocating for this bill.)

Here’s an easy link from the ACLU to send a note to your Senators: