Tag: Dec

Janice Min, a media govt in Los Angeles, is signing up for forces with Richard Rushfield, a show-business enterprise columnist, to begin a new media business that will be spun off from his preferred membership e-newsletter, The Ankler.

Ms. Min, who remodeled The Hollywood Reporter from a battling trade publication into a prosperous, large-structure glossy, will develop into the co-owner, chief government and editor in main of the recently formed Ankler Media. Mr. Rushfield, the founder of The Ankler, which expenditures by itself as “the newsletter Hollywood enjoys to dislike and hates to enjoy,” will be the company’s editorial director and chief columnist.

“One of the issues that seriously bought me on doing this with Richard is he gave me visibility into the subscriber checklist, and it’s crazy,” Ms. Min stated in an job interview. “It’s a Who’s Who of energy in the amusement group, and from that base I experience like there is so a great deal probable to training that level of affect.”

Mr. Rushfield wrote for BuzzFeed, The Los Angeles Times and Gawker before heading solo with a publication in 2017, a move he manufactured since he felt there was space for coverage that was “sharper-elbowed, extra irreverent and much more exciting than what was out there,” he explained.

The Ankler started off as anything he wrote to amuse his friends. Finally, he moved it to the digital newsletter system Substack, and he now prices $10 a thirty day period for a membership. In accordance to Substack’s community leaderboard, which ranks newsletters by revenue, it is in the platform’s leading three organization publications.

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Calls for legislative changes have intensified in recent weeks, after a whistle-blower at Facebook leaked internal research that said Instagram led one out of three teenagers to feel worse about their body image and for as many as 16 percent of some teenagers in Britain to have thoughts of suicide. The documents obtained by the whistle-blower, Frances Haugen, often contradicted public statements made by Meta officials, who have long underplayed or rebutted criticism that Instagram harms the mental and emotional well-being of younger users.

“You better tell the truth,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat of Minnesota, told Mr. Mosseri. “You’re under oath.”

Mr. Mosseri, 38, was appearing before Congress for the first time. He is a longtime executive at Facebook and is considered a close lieutenant of the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. He joined the company in 2008 as a designer and gradually rose in the ranks to run the News Feed, a central feature of the Facebook app. In October 2018, he was named head of Instagram, weeks after the sudden resignations of the app’s founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

He told lawmakers that Instagram often had a positive role in the lives of teenagers, such as by helping them establish connections during difficult times. He tried to direct attention at rivals, noting that more teenagers use TikTok and YouTube. He also acknowledged the skepticism among members of Congress toward Meta.

“I recognize that many in this room have deep reservations about our company,” Mr. Mosseri said. “But I want to assure you that we do have the same goal. We all want teens to be safe online.”

On Tuesday, Instagram announced new safety features for children. Mr. Mosseri mentioned those changes in the hearing, which include tools like a “take a break” function that is meant to help limit time spent online. (TikTok has a similar function that appears when users are spending too much time on the app.)

But Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the ranking Republican member of the subcommittee, said even the basic promises of privacy and security from the company had failed users.

This week, her staff set up an experimental account for a fictional 15-year-old and were surprised to find the profile automatically set to public exposure. Instagram says teenage accounts automatically default to the private setting.

Mr. Mosseri acknowledged the error and said Ms. Blackburn’s office exposed a flaw in Instagram’s controls that sets teenage accounts that were created on a web browser — and not on a mobile app — to public. “We will correct that,” Mr. Mosseri said.

Mr. Blumenthal’s office has received hundreds of calls and emails from parents about their negative experiences with Instagram, he has said. One parent recounted how her daughter’s interest in fitness on Instagram led the app to recommend accounts on extreme dieting, eating disorders and self-harm.

Mr. Blumenthal has homed in on the algorithms, which he called “800-pound gorillas in black boxes,” that push such recommendations.

Lawmakers, including Mr. Blumenthal and Ms. Blackburn, have proposed stronger data privacy rules aimed at protecting children and greater enforcement of age restrictions. They have also called for young users to be able to delete information online. Lawmakers have pursued similar legislation before, with little success. Though lawmakers often show bipartisan unity in the hearings, dozens of data privacy bills have been stymied by intense industry lobbying and partisan disagreement over how stringent laws should be.

Senator John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, has introduced a bill that would force companies to reveal more about their algorithmic ranking system. He asked if Instagram would allow users to rank their content chronologically, instead of through opaque decisions based purely on engagement.

Mr. Mosseri said the company was working on the feature, which could be available next year.

Though Mr. Mosseri repeated his support for regulations, he demurred when asked about specific proposals. He said he hadn’t read a bill introduced by Mr. Blumenthal and other lawmakers that could hold Meta liable for hosting harmful content. He wouldn’t commit to give up completely on the idea of building a version of the Instagram app for users under the age of 13. And he didn’t directly answer questions as to whether victims should be able to sue Meta for hosting sex-trafficking content.

Child advocacy groups said Mr. Mosseri failed to provide any greater assurances that Instagram would prioritize child safety.

“Today’s hearing was just more of the same: evasions, empty promises, and too-little, too-late gestures aimed at forestalling congressional action instead of meaningfully addressing Instagram’s harmful business model and design choices,” said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay.

Leaders of the subcommittee said they would hold additional hearings, which may include more executives of Meta. Mr. Blumenthal said Mr. Mosseri’s vague commitment for “directional” support on laws “doesn’t cut it.”

“This industry has said it is in favor of government regulation but they have opposed specific measures with armies of lawyers and lobbyists and tons of money,” Mr. Blumenthal said.

Her trial is now moving into its end stage. Either side may call final witnesses over the coming days, followed by closing arguments and detailed instructions to jurors for their deliberations on a verdict.

“The jury got to know her over six days,” Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School, said of Ms. Holmes. “If the defense is successful, that might be the decision that will make the difference.”

For most of the proceedings, the jury heard witnesses testify about the details of Ms. Holmes’s alleged fraud. Theranos rose to prominence, raising $945 million in funding, by claiming that its revolutionary machines could perform hundreds of tests using only a tiny drop of blood. The hype made Ms. Holmes a fixture on magazine covers that hailed her as the next Steve Jobs.

But a 2015 expose in The Wall Street Journal exposed problems with Theranos’s blood tests, kicking off a downward spiral of regulatory crackdowns and lawsuits. The company dissolved in 2018, and Ms. Holmes was indicted.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the blood testing start-up Theranos, stands trial for two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud.

Here are some of the key figures in the case →

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout. She raised $945 million from investors and was crowned the world’s youngest billionaire, but has been accused of lying about how well Theranos’s technology worked. She has pleaded not guilty.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

Ramesh Balwani, known as Sunny, was Theranos’s president and chief operating officer from 2009 through 2016 and was in a romantic relationship with Holmes. He has also been accused of fraud and may stand trial next year. He has pleaded not guilty.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

David Boies, a prominent litigator, represented Theranos as its lawyer and served on its board.

He tried to shut down whistle-blowers and reporters who questioned the company’s business practices.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

The journalist John Carreyrou wrote stories exposing fraudulent practices at Theranos.

His coverage for The Wall Street Journal helped lead to the implosion of Theranos.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung are former Theranos employees and were whistle-blowers. They worked at the start-up in 2013 and 2014.

Shultz is a grandson of George Shultz, a former secretary of state who was on the Theranos board.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

James Mattis, a retired four-star general, was a member of Theranos’s board.

He went on to serve as President Donald J. Trump’s secretary of defense.

Who’s Who in the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

Erin Woo📍Reporting from San Jose, Calif.

Edward Davila, a federal judge for the Northern District of California, will oversee the case.

Kevin Downey, a partner at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, is the lead lawyer for Holmes.

Robert Leach, an assistant United States attorney for the Northern District of California, will lead the prosecution for the government, along with other prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Read more about Elizabeth Holmes:

Since her trial began in September, prosecutors have called dozens of witnesses, including former board members, lab directors, employees, investors, patients and business partners. They have revealed the details of falsified documents, outlandish financial projections, unrealistic promises and faked demonstrations at Theranos. Witnesses often spent hours on the tedious minutiae of finance, chemistry, technology and phlebotomy.

Much of the case against Ms. Holmes has relied on her emails and text messages to tie her directly to the company’s problems. Prosecutors must convince the jury that Ms. Holmes knew about the problems and failed to disclose them to the people pouring money into Theranos and to the patients relying on its blood tests to make medical decisions.

In her defense, Mr. Holmes’s lawyers tried showing that the witnesses’ stories were more complicated than they had let on. Defense lawyers hit investors for not doing enough research on Theranos before investing. And they tried blaming lab directors for problems with the accuracy of Theranos’s tests.

Through it all, Ms. Holmes sat up stick-straight in her chair and stared straight ahead, her expression obscured by a mask.

After prosecutors rested their case last month, and before calling Ms. Holmes to the stand, her lawyers introduced brief testimony from a biotechnology executive who joined Theranos’s board of directors after it came under fire from the media and regulators.

Ms. Holmes then offered a variety of excuses for Theranos’s shortcomings. She said others had misinterpreted her statements about what Theranos’s technology could do. She said that, until a 2015 regulatory inspection revealed a host of problems and forced Theranos to void its tests, she believed its tests worked. She said she hadn’t been qualified to run a lab and had relied on the statements of others.

She also admitted to adding the logos of pharmaceutical companies to a series of reports, which implied the drug makers had endorsed Theranos’s technology when they hadn’t. For this, she expressed regret.

Her direct testimony ended with a bombshell revelation that Ramesh Balwani, her former boyfriend, business partner and alleged co-conspirator, emotionally and physically abused her. Through tears, she testified that Mr. Balwani had controlled every aspect of her life — including her schedule, diet and presentation — and had even forced her to have sex with him against her will.

On cross-examination, she choked up again when prosecutors had her read text messages with Mr. Balwani that showed a more affectionate side of their relationship. Prosecutors elicited several more mea culpas from Ms. Holmes, including regret over how she handled the Journal exposé and a positive Fortune cover story about the company that was later heavily corrected.

This week, prosecutors homed in on the discrepancies between what Ms. Holmes said in her testimony and what investors said she had told them. Numerous Theranos partners and investors testified that they had believed the company had contracts with the military and deployed its technology in medevacs and on battlefields, for example.

One of the prosecutors, Robert Leach, an assistant U.S. attorney, asked Ms. Holmes different versions of the same question repeatedly to hammer the lack of military contracts. She confirmed that Theranos had not had the contracts.

To show that Theranos was never paid for work with the drug maker GlaxoSmithKline, Mr. Leach also repeatedly asked Ms. Holmes about the lack of revenue, posing the question for each year from 2007 to 2014. Ms. Holmes said no each time.

Ms. Holmes resisted many of Mr. Leach’s lines of questioning by testifying that she didn’t recall or didn’t know. She also tried to dispute details in certain questions.

Ms. Holmes’s lawyers questioned her for a second time Tuesday afternoon with a rapid-fire series of statements meant to undermine Mr. Leach’s points and reiterate her initial testimony. Once again, Ms. Holmes said that Mr. Balwani had created Theranos’s unrealistic financial projections and that Theranos’s scientists had put together reports on its technology.

Until a regulatory inspection revealed deeper problems, she testified, she thought Theranos’s lab was “excellent.” Ms. Holmes also repeatedly stressed her concerns over exposing Theranos’s trade secrets as an excuse for withholding information from investors and partners, testifying again that she worried the company would lose its ability to compete. Discussing Theranos’s use of third-party machines would have violated Theranos’s own trade-secret policy, she said.

Mr. Leach tried knocking down that argument by noting that most of Theranos’s investors and partners had signed nondisclosure agreements that Ms. Holmes expected to be followed.

He further noted that, despite Ms. Holmes’s holding a patent for some technology, a patent did not “necessarily mean the invention described in the patent works.” Mr. Leach asked her if she had created a pill that measures lipids in blood, as described in one Theranos patent.

Ms. Holmes smiled, leaned into the microphone and said, “Not yet.”

Erin Woo contributed reporting.