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<\/p>\nSeth Stern is the director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s Meta<\/span> remains<\/a> embroiled in litigation<\/a> over whether its products are designed to hook kids. But Zuckerberg\u2019s got nothing on another centibillionaire pushing to expand his influence over the next generation: Larry Ellison, the octogenarian oligarch of Oracle. Ellison not only brags<\/a> about having even more data about us than Meta but runs a global surveillance machine<\/a> and is a major military contractor<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n A toothless<\/a> consent decree intended to resolve an antitrust case<\/a> brought by a group of state attorneys general may clear the way for his and son David\u2019s President Trump-facilitated<\/a> takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, HBO, and a major film studio, Warner Bros. Pictures. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin still needs to approve the decree, and she noted<\/a> in an order on Tuesday that she has some questions about its \u201cfactual and legal underpinnings.\u201d<\/p>\n If it goes through, the merger will give the Ellisons unprecedented control<\/a> over what the next generation watches and reads on social media, news, TV, and in movies. Trump steered co-ownership<\/a> of TikTok to Oracle earlier this year, a move enabled by the Biden administration\u2019s<\/a> misguided TikTok ban<\/a>. And last year, David\u2019s Skydance Media became Paramount Skydance, gaining control of CBS<\/a>, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, and more in a massive consolidation bankrolled<\/a> by Ellison senior.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen the Ellisons\u2019 willingness to censor content in exchange for Trump rolling out<\/a> the regulatory red carpet<\/a> for their media acquisitions<\/a>. Larry Ellison reportedly<\/a> promised Trump to overhaul CNN if the deal went through, and David Ellison echoed promises of \u201csweeping changes.\u201d\u00a0A Paramount spokesperson said \u201cno [such] commitments\u201d were made regarding CNN, but there\u2019s no dispute that David made editorial concessions<\/a> to the Federal Communications Commission<\/a> in exchange for approval of the Paramount\u2013Skydance merger, and the Bari Weiss-helmed network is already following through<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just how far they will go to push narratives that bolster their far more lucrative interests in war and surveillance tech (and suppress<\/a> ones that don\u2019t<\/a>) isn\u2019t yet clear, but it\u2019s not looking good. For a preview, take a look at this Flock Safety commercial masquerading<\/a> as a short-form news segment, recently published by The Free Press, the blog<\/a> Paramount bought from opinion columnist Weiss to pave the way to put Weiss in charge of CBS News.<\/p>\n Proponents of the lawsuits against Meta worry about algorithms warping kids\u2019 minds, while critics are concerned<\/a> with surveillance and user privacy, as well as the First Amendment implications<\/a> of liability for sorting content. Now both sides can find common cause: The future $111 billion \u201cWarner-Mount\u201d deal threatens to brainwash kids and bolster surveillance all at once.\u00a0<\/p>\n The perfect feedback loop: Stoke America\u2019s fears about crime, terrorism, and anything else they choose to inspire further public investment in Oracle\u2019s products.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Like Meta, Warner-Mount will have a profit incentive to design algorithms that keep kids glued to their screens, even if it leads them to dark corners of the internet. But the Ellisons\u2019 agenda reaches far beyond likes and follows. Their \u201creally profoundly scary technology\u201d empire (that\u2019s a quote<\/a> from Oracle Vice Chair and former CEO Safra Catz about the tech it provided Israel after October 7) relies on government spending which requires a public primed to accept its tax dollars being diverted to those scary technologies under the guise of keeping us safe.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no better way for the Ellisons to accomplish that end than buying up as many media holdings as possible while their buddy is president. It\u2019s the perfect feedback loop: Stoke America\u2019s fears about crime, terrorism, and anything else they choose to inspire further public investment in Oracle\u2019s products.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before handing the Ellisons control of even more of our media, we should remember their track record, which dates back long before they took control of CBS News.<\/p>\n A decade ago, Larry boasted<\/a> about Oracle\u2019s invasive surveillance products tracking how long a person lingers in a particular aisle of a specific store, which led to a privacy lawsuit<\/a> that settled for $115 million. He bragged that 5 billion people were in Oracle\u2019s \u201cID Graph\u201d back then. \u201cHow many people are on Earth, 7 billion? Two billion to go,\u201d he added<\/a> at the time.\u00a0In fact, Ellison and his companies have settled<\/a> all manner of consumer<\/a> and investor fraud lawsuits<\/a>. But those dings are just the cost of doing invasive business for a behemoth now valued at somewhere around $440 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCitizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n For a glimpse into how Ellison sees Oracle\u2019s role in shaping the future, he told investors<\/a> in 2024: \u201cCitizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that\u2019s going on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At the World Governments Summit in Dubai in February 2025, he said<\/a> countries worldwide should \u201cunify\u201d all of their national data into a single database an AI model could study, as he argued this is the only way to unlock AI\u2019s full value for governments.<\/p>\n Oracle already has a nearly $7 billion contract<\/a> to run its software across the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and the Coast Guard. It\u2019s a founding partner of Stargate, the $500 billion data center buildout Trump announced<\/a> during his first week back in office, with Ellison by his side.<\/p>\n So the same person who wants to surveil us to keep us on our best behavior, sell \u201cprofoundly scary weapons\u201d to foreign armies, and unify the world\u2019s data into one AI brain will now control a huge slice of the news and entertainment industries? It goes far beyond foxes guarding henhouses.<\/p>\n Of course, there\u2019s never been a firewall between elite interests and the media. Hollywood framed<\/a> U.S. regime-change wars<\/a> and foreign interventions<\/a> as heroic<\/a> underdog stories<\/a>. TV shows<\/a> and news outlets have done their share<\/a> of propaganda-laundering as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as with Meta and its algorithms, the entertainment industry\u2019s motives have, until now, been more straightforward, like gaining access to government sources<\/a> and selling movie tickets. War profiteers that do news and movies as a side hustle have far more to gain, and they\u2019re likely to push their narratives far more aggressively because the stakes are so much higher.<\/p>\n\n
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