ICYMI: Cornell Rigged a Faculty Search to Exclude White Applicants. This PhD is Taking Legal Action. Newly obtained internal emails show that Cornell University deliberately excluded qualified candidates from a faculty position solely because of race. In December 2020, the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, Associate Vice Provost, and Vice Provost in the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity of Cornell University instructed faculty members to “do something a little out of the ordinary” in their search for a vacant position: Secure a predetermined “diversity hire” by eliminating open competition entirely. To ensure their “hoped-for diversity hire” was appointed, these administrators implemented a process that inherently discriminated on the basis of race. Despite being exceptionally qualified, Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) was illegally shut out of the hiring process — not based on merit, but based on the color of his skin. Now, he’s taking legal action. Read his full account, complete with the internal messages from Cornell faculty, threaded below. 👇

NEW IN PIRATE WIRES: The blue place is trapped in a doom loop. Last year, the platform closed a $15M Series A, and it now plans to launch a paid subscription service. But the fact of the matter is that growth on Blu*sky is stalling. Since March 1: • Daily active users are down 35%. • Daily posters are down 30%. • Daily posts are down 24%. • Daily likes are down 46%. Blu*sky’s largest growth spike was on November 18, when daily posters surged to 1.475m in the wake of the election. Today, that number is around 680k. The platform’s core problem is that its growth is powered almost entirely by protest. As @AshleyRindsberg reports for Pirate Wires, an analysis of the network reveals that new user acquisition reliably spikes following political events or policy changes on X — but when they get to Blu*sky, ~80% of those users churn. It’s an erratic growth pattern that, lately, has been trending down. On a deeper level, Blu*sky is an ideological ghetto. Every non-corporate account in its top 100 is strongly aligned with the left. The platform is also now a basecamp for leftwing protest movements, like the anti-Musk campaign, Tesla Takedown. Because political resistance is the platform’s main growth lever, it’s painted itself into a corner. It can’t afford to lose its deep blue identity, but it also can’t afford to perpetually remain a left-wing refugee camp that’s inhospitable to real, scalable, long-term growth. Read the full analysis in Ashley’s piece (threaded below) 👇

NEW: ChatGPT-Induced Psychosis Isn’t Real If you are a human who has had access to the internet over the last few months, you’ve probably seen stories about ChatGPT turning people crazy. The framing of these articles is generally the same. A not insane person starts using ChatGPT innocently enough (help with legal advice, etc). Then, the not-insane person asks ChatGPT about the simulation theory or AI sentience or blood offerings to Molech — and the not-insane person proceeds to go completely insane as the app turns increasingly deceptive. It leans into their delusions of grandeur. Once ChatGPT told a not-insane person that if he believed hard enough, he could jump off a tall building and fly — and makes them feel, for one sweet moment (or, in the case of that guy, actually, for 16 hours a day) — that they are special, seen, and connected to something larger than themselves. The not-insane customer then spins out of control and becomes violent, hospitalized, unemployed, or, in the case of one such tragic unraveling last Spring, literally dead. Obviously, according to the predominant narrative, this is all demonstrative of an unacceptable failure on the part of OpenAI to protect the most vulnerable. But the truth is, as @dodgeblake writes: “It is just a touch more complicated than that.” In this analysis of blob state media’s coverage of so-called “ChatGPT-induced psychosis,” Blake argues these “not-insane” people were, in fact, already insane long before coming into contact with this app. Sorry, but if you believe ChatGPT when it says you’re literally Neo from The Matrix or that you have a cosmic invisible lover named Kael (all true stories)? That’s on you. Full piece threaded below 👇

NEW: The Tea “Hack” (Not Actually a Hack) The Tea app (basically, revenge Yelp for women) got “hacked” on Friday... however, in a stunning turn of events, it turns out this wasn’t a hack at all — just sloppiness. Today for Pirate Wires, @default_friend breaks down how an app meant to “protect women from predators” became 2025’s most ironic security disaster. On July 24, Tea dethroned ChatGPT as Apple’s #1 free app. Shortly thereafter, on July 25 at 6:44am, Tea announced “unauthorized access” into their app. Except there was no unauthorized anything. 4chan users simply *found* a public Firebase URL containing 72,000 images, including government IDs and verification selfies, plus GPS metadata. All with no authentication or password needed. Tea let women anonymously review men they were dating: photos, names, allegations, and details about their jobs and personalities. Onboarding required photo verification to prevent abuse. First, Tea required government IDs before deprecating that for surprise selfies. The IDs then ended up in an unprotected cloud bucket literally anyone could download. The kicker? Firebase buckets are private by default. This wasn’t just negligence, it was sloppiness. Shipping fast and fixing things later works in some cases. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when you’re collecting driver’s licenses and STD accusations. The story of Tea is beyond parody. After the “hack,” one individual even built “Teaspill” to rate the leaked selfies, and now women who shared men’s info without consent are furious their data was exposed the same way. Read the full, insane story of the little hack that wasn’t threaded below 👇

Trump Signs Executive Order to Prevent Woke AI in the Federal Government This week, the president signed an executive order to ensure artificial intelligence models procured by the federal government prioritize truthfulness and ideological neutrality. Specifically, the order cited prior examples of AI models changing the race and sex of historical figures — including the Pope, the Founding Fathers, and Vikings. Back in February of last year, @micsolana was one of the first to write about this (hilarious, but concerning) trend of Google’s Gemini erasing white people from history, warning about its implications for the future. As he described it: “What we’re looking at here is an extremely radical racial dogma ruthlessly enforced for hundreds of millions of users.” Link to that piece threaded below 👇

“Well, look in the mirror, friend. Because we’re all cultural talking heads now.” @AJ_Odyssey with some thoughts on the Colbert fallout 👇

NEW: The People Who Think They Were Born Into the Wrong Race You may have seen Donna Briggs on social media: the platinum blonde “manifestation” influencer in head-to-toe Lilly Pulitzer. On its face, there’s nothing particularly unique about Donna: #LiveinAbundance, the universe provides — all the usual affirmations. Except... something about her felt off. And so, the internet “did its thing,” and people started digging. Someone found old videos: Briggs interviewing Mary J. Blige and Tyler Perry on the radio. Same name, almost the same face... but with one major difference. Briggs was a different race. The influencer wasn’t a white woman in these videos. She was black. Briggs says she just stopped tanning, but the receipts say otherwise — photos spanning years, former colleagues and family confused, a long, and rather successful life. These types of performances have deep roots. “Grey Owl” packed 1930s lecture halls as a Native conservationist (in reality, he was Archibald Belaney, a man from England). Rachel Dolezal still goes by Nkechi Diallo. Like most things on the internet, these are no longer isolated incidents: people who shift race in this way have now formed a community known as “transracialists.” They document each injection, each surgery. They share tips in Discords. Some people make videos promising to “manifest Korean DNA.” They’re not performing race; they’re “finding their true selves.” Briggs is American reinvention perfected for personal branding. Believe hard enough, edit consistently, tell the right story and you become someone new. Reality, after all, is what you can get away with. Fascinating piece from @default_friend about the people who believe race is a “feeling” threaded below 👇

lonely by accident is not the same as lonely by design @micsolana on the goonpocalypse

NEW: How partial acquisitions are killing startup culture — and what we can do about it. Earlier this month, after Google poached Windsurf’s braintrust and licensed its IP (Cognition later acquired what was left), @JustJake coined the term “shell-qui-hires” to describe pseudo-acquisitions in which a company is “acquired” by partially poaching the team. Today in Pirate Wires, he explains how these partial acquisitions are killing the culture that makes startups great. See, startups are a binding of fate. In a startup, you’re basically all in one boat (with lots of holes). It’s you and your crew against the world. Yeah, it’s a shitshow sometimes, but through sheer force of will, you have a shot at making a dent in the universe while capturing all the upside — if you can stick together. Partial acquisitions torch this dynamic. They create massive asymmetries and distrust. CEOs have to make subjective judgment calls about who’s acquired vs. not; employees might’ve been taken care of (paid) but it *looks* like their leaders bailed and left them with nothing; talented candidates and employees start asking themselves, “Is my CEO going to leave me for the Big Retirement home in the sky?” (Google). It’s up to founders to discard this behavior. Loudly. If founders don’t take action, Jake explains, they’re complicit in eroding the sacred trust allowing startups to do what they do best: build the future. He’s adopting an "All or None" clause for his startup (if the company is acquired, it’s everybody or nobody). VCs could do the same. And the FTC, hopefully, will see that current regulations have unintended side effects causing pain for startups — and move to update legislation to make sure everyone gets paid, together. Full story threaded 👇