Facebook Helped China Build AI, NY Dem Gov's Surprisingly Brutal "Union Busting," Why James Bond Staying British Matters (The Five for 03/14/25)
Plus, Jon Hamm's new TV Show looks great. John Wick 4 inspires a new, unexpected action flick. Mega-popular rapper turns on BLM. 00's pop star returns with an impressive new single.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
Today is certainly a mixed bag in my personal life, as Amanda and I celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary, and also attend services to say goodbye to Andi Franklin (who attended our wedding 10 years ago today), a dear friend who passed away from unexpected postpartum complications. Andi’s husband Luke is now the solo parent to five children, including a newborn. If you would like to make a donation to help the family, click here.
On a day filled with so much emotion, I did want to take a moment and thank you for reading this publication. If my time on this earth was through tomorrow, I’d be glad I wrote thing, and thankful that you kept showing up to read it.
let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
A former Facebook exec, Sarah Wyn-Williams, claims Mark Zuckerberg was working with the Communist party in China, to allow the Authoritarian government to view every person’s posts and private message…in exchange for access to the country.
"China is Mark Zuckerberg's white whale," meaning a goal that he obsessively pursued, says Ms Wynn-Williams.
The country is the world's biggest social media market, but access to Facebook remains blocked there, alongside the likes of X and YouTube.
"It's the one piece on the board game that he hasn't conquered," she says.
Ms Wynn-Williams claims that in the mid-2010s, as part of its negotiations with the Chinese government, Facebook considered allowing it future access to Chinese citizens' user data.
"He was working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, building a censorship tool… basically working to develop sort of the antithesis of many of the principles that underpin Facebook," she told the BBC.
Ms Wynn-Williams says governments frequently asked for explanations of how aspects of Facebook's software worked, but were told it was proprietary information.
"But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back," she says.
"Engineers were brought out. They were walked through every aspect, and Facebook was making sure these Chinese officials were upskilled enough that they could not only learn about these products, but then test Facebook on the censorship version of these products that they were building."
Meta told the BBC that such claims about China had been "widely reported" at the time.
Facebook and Instagram have experienced some users fleeing those platforms due to controversy in the past…but this is, by far, the biggest bombshell allegation against parent company Meta.
Sadly, it’s also the one least likely to experience much public backlash. This pain point is just too abstract for the average person to feel, although it’s also the most objectively evil. And yes, when you offer to help a Communist government uncover private info on citizens that will be used to imprison, torture and murder dissidents…you’re evil, bro.
For a deeper dive on this, the Honestly Podcast from The Free Press is an excellent listen.
And the final kicker, Zuckerberg unwittingly helped China level up in the AI arms race, as Chinese AI Deepseek is built on top of the code Zuckerberg shared with the CCP while trying to gain access to the country.
Disgusting.
[two]
If you’re new to The Five, this publication has been covering a phenomenon the internet has dubbed “The Vibe Shift” over the last year.
The government of New York won’t rehire prison guards who participated in the illegal strike that upended the state for 22 days. That’s according to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who signed an executive order on Monday barring those involved from any future state employment, citing violations of the Taylor Law and a court order.
The order directs state agencies not to hire someone who got fired for taking part in the lawbreaking strike. Until April 9, several state laws are suspended or modified to prevent transfers, promotions, appointments, or changes of title for prison staff who did not come to work as of 6:45 a.m. on March 10. Even some training certifications are invalidated.
The strike began on February 17 when thousands of workers at state prisons across New York walked off the job and started picketing, citing forced overtime and safety concerns. Hochul declared a state of emergency on February 19, calling the strike a major public safety risk, and ultimately called in over 7,500 New York National Guard members to fill the staffing vacuum.
For context here…the prison guards were striking because their shifts sometimes lasted DAYS with mandatory overtime, and they were concerned about dying on the job.
”Union Busting” has typically been a Republican strategy, but it’s now coming from the left side of the aisle. And Hochul’s methods were brutal…she cut officers health insurance off, causing some spouses to not have access to chemotherapy, or medical appointments during pregnancy.
Elsewhere, a portion of the political left has turned against…electric vehicles, with Tesla dealerships and charging stations being vandalized all over the country. It’s a heck of a turn from years of Republicans trying to block EV grants/rebates/programs.
Finally, the other unexpected political flip comes in…hip hop. Mega-popular rapper Lil Yachty was on a cooking YouTube show with influencer Quenlin Blackwell, when the conversation took a very unexpected turn.
Blackwell: "How much have you spent on charitable causes this year... BLM?"
Yachty: "BLM is a scam... BLM was literally a scam. They had bought mansions."
I’m not in the business of predicting the future, but The Vibe Shift is real. Societal norms and lines are shifting before our eyes.
[three]
This publication had previously reported that we might not see another James Bond film until the 2030’s, because the Broccoli siblings, who have creative control and ownership of the franchise, were deadlocked with Amazon, who purchased OO7’s studio MGM.
Well, after Barbara Broccolli called Amazon execs “f***ing idiots,” after a Moneypenny spinoff show was proposed. Jeff Bezos allegedly handed his team a blank check, and is credited with saying “I don’t care what it costs, get rid of her.”
More pointedly, what does the sale mean for Bond’s future? Amazon, of course, had purchased MGM, Bond’s longtime home, in 2022 for $8.5 billion, mostly to get its hands on 007 IP and build it into a Marvel-style universe filled with bingeable TV spinoffs. The only things stopping them were Broccoli and Wilson, who had very different ideas for their father’s legacy, as well as a decades-long deal with MGM guaranteeing them creative dominion over all things Bond. But now that they’re out of the picture, Amazon can do whatever it wants. A TV show about Moneypenny? Why not. A prequel about Blofeld’s teenage years? Sure. More 007 game shows? Please no. But anything is possible. Amazon is now free to milk the franchise dry.
“Don’t let anybody else screw it up,” Cubby Broccoli warned his children before he died. “You can screw it up if you want to, but don’t let other people screw it up.”
Barbara, 64, was 2 years old when Dr. No opened in the U.K., and by the time she was a teenager, she was working on her dad’s movies. Michael, 83, took a more circuitous route to the family business, studying law and engineering before officially joining the franchise in 1972 (though he did have an early gig as an extra in 1964’s Goldfinger). The point is, Broccoli and Wilson were practically raised on the 007 soundstage at Pinewood. Bond is in their blood. So, when they inherited their father’s franchise, they took his words to heart.
“For Barbara and Michael, it’s always been franchise first,” says one Bond insider. “Nothing else got in the way.”
It’s understandable that the siblings were guarding the franchise so closely, as it’s so personal to them. And, to be fair, the pair did lead the Bond brand to billions of dollars in profits with Daniel Craig starring in five films.
But perhaps the IP is in good hands, as now that Bezos paid an ungodly amount of money to get the siblings to exit, Amazon is dedicated to keeping Bond “male and from the UK.” (Does this mean we could get a Scottish or Northern Irish Bond?)
It’s a good move…as female led action movies can be huge hits. My favorite action flick ever, T2: Judgement Day, features a female lead character. But women-led action flicks work because the characters are women, not gender-swapped.
If you make James Bond a French Woman, there’s no character left, because 007’s actions and motivations don’t make sense in another context. The same would be true if you gender swapped Sarah Conner of the Terminator series or Ripley of the Aliens franchise to be played by a man…those characters connect with the viewer BECAUSE they’re women.
Race/gender swapping gets a lot of hate, but sometimes it doesn’t matter. The Little Mermaid race swap for the live action—it didn’t bother me because I’m a heterosexual adult male, and only losers whine about such things. And also, I didn’t see the movie, as my girls were too young when it came out. But, considering Mermaids don’t actually exist, the ethnicity of the lead actress can’t impact the story.
But for Bond, the setting, and the values (for the Queen and all that) make the character…you can’t pull out a couple of bricks and not expect the structure to collapse.
This matters, not because I’m a huge Bond fan (I’m tepid at best), but because Hollywood seems to be coming to the realization that the story has to come first, not force-feeding the audience a message.
[four]
Well, a project Disney was likely projecting as a billion-dollar money-printing machine five years ago…is going to flop dramatically this weekend.
The live action Snow White remake has taken such a bad turn after years of negative PR…that Disney isn’t even allowing the cast to speak to the press.
As broke earlier this week, Disney is taking next-level measures to stage manage the film’s world premiere in Los Angles on March 15. While the event won’t be scaled back, as some headlines claimed, the studio isn’t allowing regular red-carpet press to attend in order to prevent Zegler and Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen, from answering questions on the spot. (The studio’s position is that they opted for “a more celebratory, family-friendly afternoon event to match the tone and target audience for the film.”)
Snow White isn’t the first major film to manage a red carpet in such a restricted way. Warner Bros. did much the same for the world premiere of The Flash, starring the embattled Ezra Miller. But Miller had been accused of several criminal acts, whereas Zegler has simply generated social media blowback for comments ranging from criticizing the original film to slamming Donald Trump. While Gadot is a divisive figure on social media due to the Israeli actress speaking out in support of Israel since the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas. After her appearance at the Oscars, a baseless rumor circulated online that the Wonder Woman star refused to present Best Documentary to the Palestinian film No Other Land (her reps say she was never asked).
Even before the L.A. premiere news, however, there was a sense that Disney was being a bit Bashful about Snow White. One theater owner and a rival studio source says Disney’s massive marketing machine has been uncharacteristically quiet until quite recently, noting advance ticket sales didn’t commence until Monday — less than two weeks before the film’s release. Many of the studio’s live-action family tentpoles in recent years have typically become available to book least one month before the film opens, including last year’s Christmas Mufasa: The Lion King and 2023’s summer tentpole The Little Mermaid. Snow White, however, is a spring title coming out during a particularly quiet year, meaning it has little competition of rival films for girls and older females.
“They’ve been going through the motions on Snow White, all but saying, ‘we need to get this thing over with,'” an exhibition source tells THR. “An advance sales cycle of less than two weeks just screams ‘we have zero faith in this thing.’ And it couldn’t come at a worse point, when the industry is just trying to limp along to May.’”
Some of this couldn’t have been predicted (the Israel/Hamas war, and Gadot’s very presence in the film being controversial due to her mandatory military service as an Israeli citizen), but Disney’s dwarf controversy (“dwarf” in this case, refers to the fictional characters, for the record) and Zegler’s idiotic negative comments about the animated film could have been prevented.
The company once known for flawless branding and customer experience…has certainly lost it’s movie magic.
And when a company this large stumbles, it’s bound to effect the entire film industry, in one way or another.
[five]
[movies] The Accountant 2, the Ben Affleck/Jon Bernthal actioner showing up a decade after the first film barely made any money. But the sequel may outshine the original, if rave reviews from outlets like Variety, IGN and The Hollywood Reporter after screening at SXSW Festival are to be believed. Out 04/25 || Also buzzy at South By, DROP, a thriller about a woman being held hostage on a first date when she gets a series of iPhone airdrops with instructions she must follow, or the anonymous sender will murder bot her sister and her young son. Variety and The Guardian raved about it, and audience were thrilled. Out 04/11.
[shows] Well, the MCU finally has a hit again. Captain America: Brave New World flopped, but Daredevil: Born Again is a huge hit for Disney+, picking up 7.5 million viewers on the streaming service.
[music] Elton John is releasing a joint album with indie country artist Brandi Carlile. The first single is solid (YouTube) || Speaking of collabs, 90’s hip hop icon Lauryn Hill brought out Doeccii, the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album since Hill herself, for a duet on the former’s classic “Doo Wop (That Thing).” The results were great. (YouTube). || Dolly Parton has released a single in tribute to her late husband Carl. The pair were married for 60+ years, and despite his wife’s fame and income, Carl worked a regular job laying asphalt. (YouTube). || 00’s pop starlet (and terrible actor) Jessica Simpson is making a musical comeback (better than an acting comeback). Her new single, which deals with her ex-husband’s alleged infidelity, is pretty dang good—and I’ve not been a fan of any of her previous music. (YouTube).
Novocain was heavily inspired by John Wick 4 (I’m sold already) and tells the story of a guy who loses the ability to feel pain, and uses that to take on bad guys.
If you’re looking for an actual plot, I suggest turning elsewhere. For those of us who like this stuff…heck yeah. In theaters now.
In his first leading TV role since Mad Men, St. Louis native Jon Hamm plays a guy who gets divorced and loses his job…and turns to being a home burglar in his rich neighborhood to stay afloat. This looks awesome. On Apple+, release date is still TBD.
[new music]
Jason Isbell is one of the most talented, if complicated, artists in the Americana world. Complicated, because he joined the pioneering Americana/Rock outfit Drive-By Truckers as a teenager, and later left the band amidst accusations of alcoholism and possibly spousal abuse (Isbell married, then divorced DBT bassist Shauna Tucker).
I actually hung out with Jason, his then-girlfriend Amanda Shires and his friends for about two hours one time (one of the most memorable nights of my life after a show in Nashville during his “fame dip.”
Jason and Amanda divorced last year, and he has a new girlfriend, who became a famous painter buy dating an octogenarian art dealer at the age of 30 (gross) rather than relying on talent, and he also had a pretty big falling out with bassist Jimbo Hart, a beloved band member who had been with Jason since day one was was central to Jason’s sound. (Jason shared these grizzly details via an interview with MSN).
Despite all the reasons to find Jason’s personal life to be disturbing (and the reasons are legion), there’s no denying that very few people can sit down and record and entire album on acoustic guitar, with no backing instruments, and make something this compelling.
After a couple listens, I’m not QUITE ready to put this in my “album of the year” contenders yet, but Foxes in the Snow is a very special record.
[read & listen]
Although I haven’t read it yet, the buzz around Sarah Wyn-Williams’ whistleblower memoir Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work is getting so much buzz, it’s worth noting. I plan to get to this one soon. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts
The most notable podcast this week comes from Navy Seal Combat Vet Shawn Ryan’s interview with Randall King.
Randall is the founder of The X for Boys, a charter school in Albany, Georgia, that mentors young men by teaching traditional academics, trade skills, and the principles of masculinity, manhood, and community responsibility. The school offers programs like automotive repair, construction training, a book club, and firearms training to equip students with practical skills and strong values.
Until the next one,
-sth