BOMBSHELL story by Olivia Carville @bloomberg.com Internal Report Shows TikTok Kept Safety Feature From Millions A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement NO PAYWALL www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

TikTok Withheld a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicide

A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement.

bloomberg.com

Bombshell new report out from my investigators this morning spanning our four year investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records. This report shows exactly how Wall Street protected Epstein and enabled his sex trafficking for decades. Mega thread following with some key points:

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, BofA Enabled Epstein, Wyden Report Says

Democrat Ron Wyden cited nonpublic documents held by the US Treasury in a report that says banks delayed reporting suspicious financial transactions and calls for tougher anti-money-laundering rules, ...

bloomberg.com

NEW: We dug through the files released by DoJ to track how Epstein’s sex-trafficking network worked in practice. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202... w/ @peterguest.bsky.social @jeffykao.bsky.social Christopher Cannon and @maxharlow.bsky.social

The Flight Network Behind Jeffrey Epstein’s Trafficking Operation

Thousands of flights booked by the pedophile financier’s staff connected associates and victims to a global network of properties

bloomberg.com

In which @suryamattu.com and I try to answer the age-old question: Are we smarter than Billy the Cat, the World Cup-predicting phenom? The answer is, definitively: No.

What Happened When We Let Claude Pick Our World Cup Brackets

Could Claude narrow the gap between a soccer expert and a novice? A World Cup prediction contest put AI-assisted forecasting to the test.

bloomberg.com

@agordon.me and I conduct a useless (but fun) experiment. Gift Link: tinyurl.com/cc-world-cup...

What Happened When We Let Claude Pick Our World Cup Brackets

Could Claude narrow the gap between a soccer expert and a novice? A World Cup prediction contest put AI-assisted forecasting to the test.

tinyurl.com

NEW: A tax loophole costs the US government $48 billion a year. That's more than the budget of NASA and the 2026 health subsidy cuts combined. The loophole allows ETFs to defer or avoid capital gains tax on winning stock picks.

The Top 1% Reap Most From Tax Loophole Costing $48 Billion

The ETF industry is exploiting the tax break at an unprecedented scale.

bloomberg.com

Full keyword list.

An interesting finding here is that TikTok’s “sensitive data” filter for state health sites is a bizarre keyword list with terms like MAGA, antifa, Teamsters, bhagavad, mulatto, queer, and nationalist. If your answer isn't on the list, it could still get sent w/ @suryamattu.com and Tanaz Meghjani

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker.com · 3mo ago

Excellent reporting, alarming findings. Bloomberg's @dmehro.bsky.social et al found U.S. state government health websites are sharing people's personal info (sex, citizenship & race data) with tech giants via pixel-sized webpage trackers. Several states pulled the trackers after Bloomberg disclosed.

Rhode Island folks! If you're interested in the intersection of data, journalism, and art, come listen to me moderate a talk with @suryamattu.com at RISD on Thursday, March 5, at 6:30pm.

Stake says influencers like Drake and Adin Ross don’t win more than the average gambler. We ran the numbers, and guess what :) Here's our year-long data investigation into Stake and Kick's influencer empire, with @oliviasolon.bsky.social and @leonyin.bsky.social: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Unlikely Wins and Comped Spins: Inside Stake’s Empire

Crypto casino Stake pays Drake and other stars to bet, spreading clips of big wins to impressionable gamblers. The numbers show unusual luck is at work.

bloomberg.com

Our Stake investigation found that Drake won four times more often than the average gambler playing Stake's own games. And he wasn't the only influencer getting very lucky livestreaming Stake slots on Kick www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Unlikely Wins and Comped Spins: Inside Stake’s Empire

Crypto casino Stake pays Drake and other stars to bet, spreading clips of big wins to impressionable gamblers. The numbers show unusual luck is at work.

bloomberg.com

This is 7th installment in our investigative series on Jeffrey Epstein based on previously unreleased emails Reporting by Max Abelson, @suryamattu.com Harry Wilson, me, @jeffykao.bsky.social and Ava Benny-Morrison and @dmehro.bsky.social Full story at this 🎁 link www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

How Epstein’s Wall Street Contacts Helped Him Build Wealth and Power

The disgraced financier maintained an abundance of access across the finance industry and was willing to play hardball to secure wealth and influence.

bloomberg.com

And as Epstein was directing his high-powered attorneys to pressure the government into offering him a light sentence, he threatened legal action against Bear Stearns and top executives for steep losses.

After stories of Epstein’s teenage victims spilled into the open, Wall Street continued to stay in touch. He had access to prestigious names in global finance, including the investment firm of billionaire Carl Icahn.

They also show that Epstein’s ties on Wall Street were broader than previously known, involving not just standard banking relationships but some of the most sought-after hedge funds, such as Renaissance Technologies, whose reputation for success is almost mythical.

The emails provide new details about Epstein as an investor and adviser, including how he leveraged influence when his bets lost money.

NEW investigative report: "Things will get really nasty." Hedge funds. Brokerages. Billionaires. Jeffrey Epstein’s financial ties on and off Wall Street were broader than previously known, a cache of emails @bloomberg.com obtained earlier this year reveals 🧵 www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

How Epstein’s Wall Street Contacts Helped Him Build Wealth and Power

The disgraced financier maintained an abundance of access across the finance industry and was willing to play hardball to secure wealth and influence.

bloomberg.com

This is the 6th story in our Epstein's Inbox series, which is based on 18K emails we obtained earlier this year. Find all of the stories here www.bloomberg.com/latest/epste...

Epstein’s Inbox: Trending News, Latest Updates, Analysis

See the latest on Epstein’s Inbox. From breaking news to in-depth reporting, Bloomberg tracks the full story in real time.

bloomberg.com

The lawyer also demanded that Bloomberg “immediately send such documents to the Estate and destroy any copies in its possession.” (Bloomberg declined.)

An attorney for Indyke, in his role as the Epstein estate co-executor, said that his client’s email to Epstein was subject to the attorney-client privilege and that Bloomberg should not “publicly disclose the email itself or report on its contents.”

The email’s reference to “an Arab/Jewish thing” is unclear. There wasn’t a response from Epstein in the inbox.

Three days later, Indyke sent Epstein an email under the subject line, “Important.”

On Jan. 15, 2008, a few weeks after the HSBC letter was sent, Epstein’s personal attorney in New York, Darren Indyke, and his legal representative in Paris, Marie-Joseph Experton, traded emails about the closure of Epstein’s account. Experton said she would try to get to the bottom of it.

Epstein and Brunel clearly had a close relationship, which in the emails is shown through friendly banter about life, strategy about business rivals, Croatian models and industry gossip. One day after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement, Brunel sent him a lament, the emails we obtained show

Compliance staffers also flagged that Epstein’s stated business purposes for the withdrawals were dubious. A due diligence review on Epstein turned up “Informations défavorables,” or negative information, on Epstein in US media after news reports covered his arrest in Florida

Compliance officers at HSBC found that the French account had numerous round-dollar deposits and withdrawals were suspicious and bore hallmarks of money laundering and other financial misconduct.

An HSBC spokesman declined to comment. But two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the bank closed Epstein’s account because red flags were raised concerning financial transactions involving young women associated with the French modeling agency MC2 and its owner, Jean-Luc Brunel.

This is part of a series of stories based on emails sent to and from Jeffrey Epstein's private Yahoo account obtained by @bloomberg.com Emails and attachments from that account weren't included in more than 20,000 pages of documents that a congressional committee released publicly on Nov. 12.

The previously unreported closure, which HSBC officials announced to Epstein in a letter dated Dec. 21, 2007, is the only known instance of a major bank closing one of his accounts before he pleaded guilty to sex offenses in Fla. in 2008.

NEW/EXCLUSIVE: A French branch of HSBC closed a bank account maintained by Jeffrey Epstein in 2007 after compliance officers flagged transactions for suspicious activity, including payments tied to a modeling agent later accused of rape & sex trafficking 🧵 www.bloomberg.com/features/202...