How do these countries determine who is their enemy? What common factor unites Russia and Iran, for example?

It also depends how long they have to pay. The recent $18B settlement must be paid over 10 years. So that basically doesn’t matter to a company like Meta.

Interestingly enough, even when these nations differ in terms of their dominant religions, cultural factors, and histories, they unite in their mission to undermine democracy around the world.

This is captured perfectly in Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy Inc

Unprecedented!

“U.S. President Donald Trump had said in a social media post Sunday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to what he described as an “energy ceasefire” without offering specifics on terms.

In an interview with Axios, Zelenskyy said Trump’s post was the first he had heard of the deal“

🤦‍♂️

Seems like someone is desperate for good news to report.

Maybe a hotel development deal would change their minds.

“I love the Canadian people, but the leaders have taken advantage of our stupid leadership for many, many years. They felt emboldened. … They act like they’re totally innocent. They’re not. They were very bad. But now they’re being taught a little lesson.”

That’s rich coming from a frequent visitor of Epstein Island (though I suppose no lessons have been learned in his case).

“Canada has taken advantage of us for so many years. The worst of any country,” Trump said.

Someone should tell this moron that repeating something excessively does not make it true.

“I think I’m seeing tremendous self-policing.“ - Donald Trump

🤦‍♂️

Edit: added quote attribution in case it wasn’t obvious

Oh, you mean the Peter Navarro who invented a trade expert named Ron Vara in his books to add credibility to his own views on China?

“In six of his books about China, Navarro quotes a purported trade expert named “Ron Vara”, whom he describes as a China hawk and former Harvard PhD doctoral student in economics. Vara makes Sinophobic remarks about China and the Chinese, such as “you’ve got to be nuts to eat Chinese food” and “only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby crib into a lethal weapon, and a cellphone battery into heart-piercing shrapnel”.[227] However, a 2019 investigation by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that no such person existed, and that “Ron Vara” (an anagram of Navarro) appeared to represent views that Navarro himself held.[227][228] When he was asked about Vara by The Chronicle, Navarro admitted to making up the character, an author surrogate, and quoting him in his books.[228]” Source

Same here. I wish Canada had a company making something similar since I’d rather not support the US economy. Choose your poison, I guess.

Hopefully they aren’t given 10 years to pay it off like the recent $18B fine for harming children.

In 2024, 10% of Meta’s annual revenue ($16B) was derived from ads for scams or banned goods (Source). Even better, they actually charge a higher price for ads that are automatically flagged as potentially problematic, augmenting the revenue generating capability of, and Meta’s dependence on, these ads. Internal documents also showed that Meta consciously chose a tempered approach to combatting such ads because of the revenue they bring in. But Zuckerberg draws the line at accepting ad revenues from a movie about an awful tech bro. Cool.

“During his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump threatened Iran with annihilation, laid claim to Venezuela’s oil as the spoils of victory, and justified U.S. strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean.“

The FIFA Peace Prize recipient, ladies and gentlemen.

He’s desperate to have some wins to sell to the populace so he’s massively overselling everything. Based on his social media post, the US now basically owns Greenland (which really doesn’t seem to be the case).

Yeah but if you have a world renowned deal maker at the table… 😂

“Even if Lithuania opened its port of Klaipeda ⁠to Belarusian potash exports, the relatively low current value of potash makes it hard to justify exports through the Baltic and across the Atlantic Ocean, Linville said.” Source

Go for it.

Ah yes, gorgeous view in Edmonton