#payola — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #payola, aggregated by home.social.
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Washington Post: Inside a MAGA influencer’s turn against the right-wing machine. This link goes to a Yahoo-syndicated version of the article with no paywall. “[Ashley] St. Clair’s transformation from a self-described ‘good little foot soldier’ to MAGA turncoat has unspooled in near-daily monologues to more than 77,000 followers on her TikTok feed, where she applies makeup from her New York […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/08/washington-post-inside-a-maga-influencers-turn-against-the-right-wing-machine/ -
New York Times: Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/03/new-york-times-big-banks-seeking-a-piece-of-spacexs-i-p-o-must-subscribe-to-elon-musks-grok/ -
New York Times: Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/03/new-york-times-big-banks-seeking-a-piece-of-spacexs-i-p-o-must-subscribe-to-elon-musks-grok/ -
New York Times: Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/03/new-york-times-big-banks-seeking-a-piece-of-spacexs-i-p-o-must-subscribe-to-elon-musks-grok/ -
New York Times: Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/03/new-york-times-big-banks-seeking-a-piece-of-spacexs-i-p-o-must-subscribe-to-elon-musks-grok/ -
New York Times: Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/03/new-york-times-big-banks-seeking-a-piece-of-spacexs-i-p-o-must-subscribe-to-elon-musks-grok/ -
Wall Street Journal: Trump administration set to receive $10 billion fee for brokering TikTok deal This is an MSN-syndicated version of the article and has no paywall. “The Trump administration is set to receive a roughly $10 billion fee from investors in the recently completed deal to take control of TikTok’s U.S. business, delivering it a windfall for keeping the popular social-media app […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/03/14/wall-street-journal-trump-administration-set-to-receive-10-billion-fee-for-brokering-tiktok-deal/ -
"Splish Splash" is a 1958 #novelty #rockSong performed and co-written by #BobbyDarin. It was written with DJ #MurrayTheK (Murray Kaufman), who bet that Darin could not write a song that began with the words, "Splish splash, I was takin' a bath", as suggested by Murray's mother, Jean Kaufman. The song was credited to Darin and "Jean Murray" (a combination of their names) to avoid any hint of #payola. It was Darin's first hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSA-yHzkvP8 -
#Payola gibt's auch in der Wissenschaft:
Google Scholar is (still) doing nothing about citation manipulation
https://reeserichardson.blog/2025/05/06/google-scholar-is-still-doing-nothing-about-citation-manipulation/ -
Engadget: The Social Security Administration is reportedly moving all official communication to X. “The Social Security Administration is planning to stop issuing press releases and move all of its official communications to X, according to Wired. The change is happening amidst cuts at the department directed by DOGE, the organization created by Elon Musk, the CEO of X.”
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As reported on by Louis Rossman, #YouTube is now pushing the same #payola scam that #Amazon #Kindle did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wFqblQY6Dk
EEVBlog actually bought into this as an experiment and his video did WORSE than projected without ads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxvXaqJnSrY
I think I have an idea as to why. Do you remember how Canada Bill #C11 was going to screw over Canadian creators by having their videos served to people who don't want them? I think buying YouTube ads for your own video does the same thing.
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