Morality Police Disbanded |
Iranian officials signaled over the weekend it had shut down the country\'s guidance patrol, informally known as the morality police, amid ongoing protests sparked by the September death of a young woman while in custody. It marks the most significant concession by the government, which also said hijab laws would be reevaluated, since demonstrations began.
Led primarily by women and younger Iranians, the protests began after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died under mysterious circumstances after reportedly being stopped in Tehran for not wearing a hijab (see overview). In the following weeks, the demonstration\'s spread from Amini\'s Kurdish home city of Saqqez to dozens of cities across Iran, with almost 450 people killed and 18,000 arrested by security forces.
Observers have called the demonstrations the biggest challenge to the country\'s theocratic regime since the 1979 revolution, with protests largely spanning geography, social class, and age. See photos of the crowds here. |
A collection of internal email exchanges from social media giant Twitter was released over the weekend, with CEO Elon Musk implying they provided insight into the company\'s previous willingness to suppress content based on external requests. The disclosure, which appeared as a tweet thread from journalist Matt Taibbi, included debates by staff over how to justify censoring a high-profile story about Hunter Biden\'s recovered laptop during the 2020 presidential campaign under an ostensible "hacked materials" policy.
Critics of the platform argue the documents show how Twitter allowed external requests from those with access—including the then-Biden campaign—to influence moderation decisions. Others argued the leak revealed the challenges in dealing with moderation decisions in real time and have thus far primarily focused on one example.
While Musk implicitly approved the revelation, posting about the coming release beforehand, it was unclear whether he was the source of the leak. Friday\'s thread is expected to be the first of many, with Taibbi saying he had received thousands of documents. |
Swifties Sue Ticketmaster |
Over two dozen disgruntled Taylor Swift fans have filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, claiming the ticket seller\'s anticompetitive behavior led to last month\'s ticket sales debacle. As tickets for Swift\'s Eras Tour went on sale, company servers soon crashed as millions of fans with presale codes waited for hours online in vain.
Ticketmaster has dominated the market in performance event ticket sales since the mid-1990s and today commands 80% of US market share. Amid its merger with concert promoter Live Nation in 2010, antitrust lawmakers warned the deal might catalyze anticompetitive behavior. The company has been accused of strong-arming venues or performers into using its portfolio of services several times over the decades, but some observers argue performers and the secondary market—where tickets are resold for a profit, often by bots—also contribute to elevated ticket prices.
Aside from the latest lawsuit, both the US Senate and the Federal Trade Commission are set to investigate issues at Live Nation amid calls for the company to be broken up. |
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