Recent rioting in Great Britain has been fueled by right wing extremists using social media. Right now, Elon musk’s social media site, X (formerly known as Twitter) has been a primary source of hate speech. Hate speech is a ill-defined category U.S. law, but it’s generally protected under the First Amendment, courtesy of our U.S. Supreme Court. In recent history, hate speech on social media has generated enough anger and vitriol, that actual violence has been the result in a number of nations.
As noted by the Council on Foreign relations,
“A mounting number of attacks on immigrants and other minorities has raised new concerns about the connection between inflammatory speech online and violent acts, as well as the role of corporations and the state in policing speech. Analysts say trends in hate crimes around the world echo changes in the political climate, and that social media can magnify discord. At their most extreme, rumors and invective disseminated online have contributed to violence ranging from lynchings to ethnic cleansing.”
One example of hate speech and disinformation leading to ethnic cleansing is from Myanmar, where the Rohingya people were targeted by lies on social media, and ethnic cleansing followed.
More recently, violence in the U.K. was sparked by hate speech and disinformation online:
“The unrest began after a 17-year-old wielding a knife attacked a children’s dance class on Monday in the seaside town of Southport, which is near Liverpool. Three children were killed, and eight were wounded.”
“The suspect was born and raised in Britain, but online rumors soon circulated that he was an undocumented immigrant. To counter those false claims, the authorities took the unusual step of publicly identifying him. But with migration a flashpoint issue in Britain, especially on the far right, the rumors were all it took.”
Immediately after the attack, false claims began circulating about the perpetrator, including that he was an asylum seeker from Syria. In fact, he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived in Britain all his life.
The misinformation was amplified by far-right agitators with large online followings, many of whom used messaging apps like Telegram and X to call for people to protest.
The result? “Around 250 rioters have been arrested in connection to the attacks, which broke out in predominantly English towns and cities, but also in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Far-right groups were seen looting, attacking police and locals, and performing Nazi salutes in the street. As the mobs chanted ‘send them home’ and ‘Islam out,’ they also destroyed mosques, libraries, and graffitied racial slurs on homes.”
According to CNN, “throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 2 – 4) violent protesters congregated in city and town centers across the UK, many of them apparently intent on clashing with police and causing havoc.”
“The gatherings ostensibly started as anti-immigration marches, organized on social media platforms like X and on WhatsApp and Telegram groups. They quickly turned disorderly and violent.”
“Protesters set ablaze two Holiday Inn hotels, in the town of Rotherham, northern England, and in Tamworth, in the Midlands, central England, that were believed to be housing asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their claims. . .The Rotherham hotel at the time was “full of terrified residents and staff,” according to a statement by South Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Lindsey Butterfield.”
The U.K.’s Telegraph notes that as of Aug. 7, that “more than 100 far-Right demonstrations and 30 counter-protests are planned for tonight. . .Far-Right gatherings are planned at immigration centres, lawyers’ offices and hotels housing asylum seekers in 41 of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales. . .Almost 4,000 riot officers are being deployed across the country with a further 2,000 on standby.”
Jacob Davey, a director of policy and research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a group that has tracked online far-right extremism, said many social media platforms have internal policies that prohibit hate speech and other illicit content, but enforcement is spotty. Other companies like X, now owned by Elon Musk, and Telegram have less moderation. For Musk, who champions free speech in social media, has allowed a number of extremists back onto the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying that he is “neutral,” giving equal space to left-wing and right-wing extremists. Several studies, however, suggest that right-wing extremism is far more prevalent, and the mayor of Paris ended her account on X in late 2023, calling it a “vast worldwide sewer.”
The U.K.’s new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, condemned the violence as “far-right thuggery” and “racist rhetoric,” stopping short of describing the attacks as Islamophobic in a TV address. “Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: Violent disorder, clearly whipped up online—that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere,” Starmer said.
To which Musk, exercising his free speech rights, said, “Insane.”
Yet, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a London-based campaign group, found that slurs increased substantially after Mr. Musk’s takeover. The BBC analysed over 1,100 previously banned Twitter accounts that were reinstated under Musk. A third appeared to violate Twitter’s own guidelines. Some of the most extreme depicted rape and drawings showing child sexual abuse. Such content was also a scourge on Twitter for years before Musk acquired the platform.
Content moderation is regarded as “censorship” by Musk and by some U.S. state legislatures, like Texas and Florida, and those legislators would have social media platforms not “discriminate” against “conservative” media posts. But that’s a blog post for another day, as the legal twists and turns of state and federal attempts to regulate social media have largely been thwarted by First Amendment decisions and section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to social media platforms for posts by its users. Along with the legal but wrong proliferation of hate speech and conspiratorial nonsense on social media sites, social media is not creating the kind of “community” that Mark Zuckerberg has often proclaimed as a benefit for people everywhere. “Zuck” and Meta do just enough content moderation to keep Facebook from becoming a “sewer” that would turn off the profit faucet, but no more. Entirely legal, of course. Musk doesn’t even give a poop emoji about truth, and evidently has enough money not to care about supervising the sewer now known as X.
Under the brutal heat dome that hovered over the eastern seaboard in mid-June of 2024, my family and I were in Washington D.C. to do the typical tourist things: the Air and Space museum, Arlington Cemetery, the Holocaust Museum, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the U.S. Capitol tour, and more. My wife found an ideal location near Eastern Market and Capitol Hill. The space was cool and comfortable, and very well equipped –– other than just one dish towel, a notable absence of spoons and forks, and an air conditioning system that whined loudly and made for a sleepless first night until the second night, when we turned it off just before bedtime.
The afternoon before our last day, the fire alarm went off, although there was no smell of smoke; some water was dripping into our downstairs unit from above, and the noise from the alarm was loud and obnoxious; but I guess no one would ever sleep through it!
Some kind of corporate fire alert system had been installed near the entrance to property, which had six rental units in it. The alert system panel included a large number of buttons, including one to push to stop the alarm and one to immediately notify the company operating the system; but this turned out to be hopelessly useless. Even calling the number on the panel yielded nothing but the advice to call the fire department. So, after urgently texting our host and getting no response, we called the DC Fire Department, and they showed up right away, with a lot of interesting tools: special axes, hooks, and a unique looking crowbar.
We let them know that water was dripping through the ceiling in a couple of places, and they decided to check the upstairs apartments. When no one answered at the first one, we watched them break down the door, but they discovered nothing; above that apartment, they had to break down another door, and found a sink which had been left running by one of the tenants. (Later, a comment from the Captain in charge of the DC FD crew: “You’d be surprised how often that happens; stupid people keep us very busy.” Somehow, the property manager learned what was going on, and after the sink was shut off by the guys from the DCFD, we were told by a representative from the property management company that the property had to be vacated immediately for repairs.
So we called our “host,” someone purportedly named Paul, to let him know the situation. Here’s where it gets weird: we repeatedly asked “Paul” to call us by phone but he refused to do anything but text on the Airbnb app. Some of the responses were a bit stiff and non-responsive, but he eventually made an offer for us to stay in a different place in D.C. that he owned for our last night; but the location was not at all convenient. He refused to give us any other options or any sort of refund to find our own more convenient place, and refused to call. Our daughter in law, well experienced in corporate ways, looked at all of the texting between us and Paul, and quickly concluded that we were dealing with . . . a bot.
Bots don’t call, but they do text as though they were human.
WTF? Back when Airbnb was getting started, we used it a lot, and there was always a real person who was the host. A bit of investigation reveals that more and more Airbnb “hosts” are actually LLCs or other corporate entities. As noted in Vox, in November of 2023:
“Airbnb began as a more flexible, more social experience than hotels, but that sense of peer-to-peer exchange has all but disappeared. Airbnb hosts today are often professionals who intend for hosting to be their main job and source of income, and new hosts often list entire homes rather than home-sharing their primary residence. Many form LLCs, hire employees, or engage the services of professional property management companies to manage their listings. The majority of Airbnbs are run by hosts with multiple listings. That’s contributing to the persistent shadow now looming over Airbnb: the perception that it’s a social ill worsening the housing crisis.” (from What happened to Airbnb? Financially, the sharing economy darling is thriving, but guests, hosts, and cities have had enough.)
Notably, absentee owners generally are driving up affordability in many markets. Your commentator believe that Airbnb now has a lot of absentee owners.
Back in the heat dome, we spent most of the afternoon outside on the sidewalk, dealing with the “fire” at the Airbnb, and did find other lodging for the night; our daughter in law had plenty of “points” with Marriott, so we got a great location in City Center near the White House. Eventually, through my wife’s persistence, we were able to get a credit for the night’s stay we didn’t use, but we had to call Airbnb’s help line, not the host, and eventually, too, secured $250 for our inconvenience –– from Airbnb corporate.
So, what’s going on here? Wealthy individuals, or business entities, have transformed what was initially a room sharing service with hosts into a money maker for owners of Airbnb properties. The proper remedy is to do what both Asheville N.C. and Boulder Colorado have done: require Airbnb properties to always have a host in residence. To some, this may seem like bureaucratic “red tape,” impinging on the freedom of those who want to make more money. To us, it seems like good manners, good ethics, and plain old common sense to have a responsive host on hand for people visiting from other places. The “bottification” of Airbnb is really a story of how many corporate absentee owners will be content to count their dollars more than care about their customers.
Want to know if your Airbnb host is actually a “bot”? See how much personal information is provided about your host, and see if the same issues keep cropping up in customers’ reviews: for example, we noticed that the “host” had been notified about the absence of forks and spoons, as well as the noisy AC system, many times, with no resolution. That’s a solid sign that there is no “someone” who actually cares about your vacation. Again, as noted by Vox, that sense of “peer to peer” has all but disappeared. It’s a sad sign of our corporate-driven times. All “perfectly legal,” of course.
Headlines on January 31st claimed that Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, had apologized at a U.S. Senate hearing to parents whose children had died as a result of suicide from cyberbullying, asphyxiation from participating in the “blackout challenge,” body-image issues, and more. Parents for Safe Online Spaces had gathered at the hearing with framed photos of their children who had died.
The issue of teen suicide from internet use came to the fore in 2023.
Media outlets, whistleblowers, and lawsuits in 2023 reveal that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, fuels child sexual exploitation, providing a platform for pedophiles, and enabling sexually explicit and other harmful content that targets teens, especially teen girls. Meta has been sued by the District of Columbia and 41 states, which claim its products are addictive and potentially harmful to children and their mental health.
Other social media platforms are no better. Snapchat has been used to “lure and sexually exploit children.” The New York Times reported last year that X (formerly Twitter) has struggled to confront its child sexual exploitation problem. Parents are suing Roblox over sexual content on its platform. The U.S. surgeon general has warned about the mental health crisis among America’s youth and about the harm that social media can have on them. Children are vulnerable to influences they see online, and the impact of that content can even be life-threatening.
As a Washington Post article on February 1st noted:
“Zuckerberg is one of five tech executives called to testify during the hearing, which was primarily organized to address issues like the prevalence of child sexual abuse material or CSAM. The hearing has also covered other safety issues related to teens and children on social media, such as cyberbullying, body-image issues, grooming, drugs and suicide.”
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) pressed Zuckerberg to apologize to the parents, and “Zuck” turned to face them, saying “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered.” He added that the company was continuing to work on the issue to prevent other families from going through similar experiences.
After this “apology,” Hawley pressed on and asked, “You’re a billionaire. Will you commit to compensating the victims? Will you set up a victims compensation fund with your own money?
Of course he did not answer yes or no. Here’s what he should have said: “No, Senator, I am the CEO of a major U.S. corporation, and we make no apologies for making money within the limits of the law. That’s what I’m paid to do. I’m here to maximize shareholder value, for all the stockholders, including me, the very biggest shareholder. That’s what corporations are supposed to do in America. So I won’t apologize for being an American capitalist. It’s up to you lawmakers to set reasonable limits on what we do. If you can’t figure out how to legislate to protect the public instead of harassing me, that’s on you.”
In short, Zuckerberg’s non-apology was perfectly legal. True accountability, of course, would mean that victims could sue corporations for continuing to do harm when they are perfectly aware of the effects on innocent children. It remains for members of Congress, many of whom (legally) get campaign funds from Big Tech, to figure all this out. But don’t hold your breath.
Elon Musk might just be one of the most interesting people on the planet: head of Space X, Tesla, and the Boring Company, he seems to be everywhere all at once. Without his Starlink system (part of Space X), Ukraine would lack the ability to track Russian drone attacks. Walter Isaacson, who has written epic biographies of Steve Jobs, made Elon Musk the subject of his latest biography, which has been well received, and pays tribute not only to Musk’s genius, but his “dark side” (or demon mode) as well. Listen to this wonderful interview of Isaacson by David Axelrod on “the Axe Files.”
Doubtless, Musk really is a genius, especially when it comes to technology. But, as Isaacson notes, Musk has difficulty looking people in the eye, and lacks “emotional receptors,” so instead of buying Twitter, should have “stuck to batteries and rocket ships.”
Speaking of Twitter, and the lack of EI (emotional intelligence), why is he so tone deaf that he is still “tweeting” (or “Xing”) that tired and fully discredited Q Anon claim about Comet Ping Pong Pizza harboring sex trafficking Democrats?
(Readers of this blog will recognize an earlier post on the Comet Ping Pong Pizza, a delightful establishment in Northwest D.C. that your faithful chronicler visited in June of 2022.)
Recently, NBC News has reported that Musk has referenced “Pizzagate” five times in the past two weeks.
Here’s a gentle reminder to our readers: matters of “right” and “wrong” begin with the truth.
I had a first grade teacher, Mrs. Marts, who was frustrated with one of my classmates’ acting out, and she pretty much lost it, saying in a loud voice, “Don’t you know the difference between right and wrong?” (“I guess not,” said the boy.)
It occurs to me now that if you can’t tell truth from fiction, as Musk evidently does not, or does not care to, you can’t tell what’s right or wrong, either. What’s most concerning about “the world’s richest man” [1] is that on something as basic as truth vs. fiction, he knoweth not. A mighty tech titan, for sure, but morally? Lacking EI (ethical intelligence) makes Musk a bit of a moral midget, don’t you think?
[1] BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55578403
The antics of Silicon Valley “alpha dogs” have reached a new and disturbing level. In the public interest, PLBW offers some extraordinary writing by Lora Kelly of the Atlantic magazine. By way of preface, your “perfectly legal but wrong” commentator notes that much of the world’s problems these days come down to men that want to “swing their dicks” (so to speak) and show that they can beat down anyone else. For example, both Donald Trump and Vladamir Putin seem like two peas in a pod in that particular way.
But raising yourself by beating down others is the essential madness of toxic masculinity: being “top dog” will always be short-lived, and is no way to live life as a human. Do you really want to feel great about yourself because you can beat down all challengers? Take some advice from George Foreman, former heavyweight boxing champ, in his interview with Terri Gross on Fresh Air from 1995:
“I’m having knockout after knockout, starting to look at myself in the mirror ––I see this body, I see this face ––I see this man who’s going to be heavyweight champ of the world. He is the king of men: he can beat anybody in the room and you get into a room with guys and you start thinking nobody can whip me. So it wasn’t something you could turn on and off it was something that stayed with you all the time. As a matter of fact I remember winning the championship of the world –– I defeated Joe Frazier and I remember thinking I can beat anybody in the world, anybody, and it followed me around everywhere I would go. And that got in the way of my life because I no longer had a life; I mean I wouldn’t meet a friend, I was like I’m meeting people that I could whip, I would size you up you know, you know you can’t whip me, so you know you lose a life because 24 hours a day you are the heavyweight champion of the world in your mind.”
“The king of men” but “You lose a life. “ Wow. All in pursuit of being the biggest, toughest, meanest, strongest, richest. . . .whatever.
So, it now happens that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have embraced this hyper–masculinity and are now in a serious pissing contest: they have actually agreed to go at each other in a “cage fight.” As Lora Kelly writes on June 27, 2023:
“Something strange is happening on Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram. For years, he posted periodic, classic dad-and-CEO fare: anniversary shots with his wife. Photos of his kids and dog being cute. Meta product announcements.”
“In recent months, though, Zuckerberg has been posting more about fighting. Not the kind that involves firing back at critics on behalf of his oft-embattled social-media empire, but actual mixed-martial-arts training. Earlier this month, he posted a video of himself tussling with a jiujitsu champion. On Memorial Day, he posted himself in a camouflage flak vest, flushed after an intense army workout. And last week, Zuckerberg and Elon Musk said they were going to have a cage fight. The men apparently have ongoing personal tensions, and Meta is working on building a Twitter competitor. But announcing in public their intent to fight takes things to another level.”
“If you rolled your eyes at the cage-fight news: fair enough. The idea of two middle-aged executives, each facing an onslaught of business and public-image problems, literally duking it out is a bit on the nose. But the fight itself—and whether or not it happens—is less important than what it tells us about how Musk is reshaping Silicon Valley. Musk is mainstreaming new standards of behavior, and some of his peers are joining him in misguided acts of masculine aggression and populist appeals.”
“Leaders such as Musk and Zuckerberg (and, to some extent, even their less-bombastic but quite buff peer Jeff Bezos) have lately been striving to embody and project a specific flavor of masculine—and political—strength. . . .”
“The two executives’ cage-fight announcement is ‘a reflection of a really tight monoculture of Silicon Valley’s most powerful people, most of whom are men,’ Margaret O’Mara, a historian at the University of Washington who researches the tech industry, told me. In other words, the would-be participants embody the industry’s bro culture.”
“Zuckerberg’s recent interest in waging physical battles marks a departure for the CEO, who a few years ago seemed more interested in emulating someone like Bill Gates, an executive who parlayed his entrepreneurial success into philanthropy, O’Mara added. Zuckerberg has been very famous since he was quite young. His early years at the helm of his social-media empire—“I’m CEO, Bitch” business cards and all—were lightly, and sometimes ungenerously, fictionalized in The Social Network by the time he was in his mid-20s. He has consciously curated his image in the years since.”
“For a long time, Zuckerberg led Facebook as a “product guy,” focusing on the tech while letting Sheryl Sandberg lead the ads business and communications. But overlapping crises—disinformation, Cambridge Analytica, antitrust—after the 2016 election seemingly changed his approach: First, he struck a contrite tone and embarked on a listening tour in 2017.The response was not resoundingly positive. By the following summer, he had hardened his image at the company, announcing that he was gearing up to be a “wartime” leader. He has struck various stances in public over the years, but coming to blows with business rivals has not been among them—yet.”
“Musk, meanwhile, has a history of such stunts. At the onset of the war in Ukraine, he tweeted that he would like to battle Vladimir Putin in single combat, and he apparently has ongoing back pain linked to a past fight with a sumo wrestler. That Zuckerberg is playing along shows that the rules of engagement have changed.”
“Musk has incited a race to the bottom for Silicon Valley leaders. As he becomes more powerful, some other executives are quietly—and not so quietly—following his lead, cracking down on dissent, slashing jobs, and attempting to wrestle back power from employees. Even as Musk has destabilized Twitter and sparked near-constant controversy in his leadership of the platform, some peers have applauded him. He widened the scope of what CEOs could do, giving observers tacit permission to push boundaries. ‘He’s someone who’s willing to do things in public that are transgressing the rules of the game,’ O’Mara said.”
“During the first few months of Musk’s Twitter reign, few executives were willing to praise him on the record—though Reed Hastings, then a co-CEO of Netflix, did call Musk “the bravest, most creative person on the planet” in November. A few months later, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, told Insider that executives around Silicon Valley have been asking, “Do they need to unleash their own Elon within them?” The Washington Post reported this past Saturday that Zuckerberg was undergoing an “Elonization” as he attempts to appeal to Musk’s base, the proposed cage fight being the latest event in his rebrand. (Facebook declined to comment. A request for comment to Twitter’s press email was returned with a poop emoji auto-responder.)”
“Whether or when the cage match will actually happen is unclear. Musk’s mother, for her part, has lobbied against it. But whether Zuckerberg unleashes his ‘inner Elon’ in a cage or not, both men are seeking to grab attention distinct from their business woes—and succeeding.
The tech industry has long offered wide latitude to bosses, especially male founders. Musk didn’t invent the idea of acting out in public. But he has continued to move the goalposts for all of his peers.”
“In a video posted on Twitter last week, Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, told TMZ that he had spoken with both men and that they were “absolutely dead serious” about fighting. He added something that I believe gets to the heart of the matter: ‘Everybody would want to see it.’”
I, for one, will refuse to watch. It would be perfectly legal to do so, just like it’s perfectly legal for Musk and Zuck to go at it in a cage fight. But, for goodness’ sake, my “fellow Americans” (as LBJ used to say): why do we keep encouraging celebrity nonsense? “Misguided acts of masculine aggression and populist appeals” (Lora Kelly‘s choice words) says it all. This country has given far too much attention to celebrities, and too much credit to the swaggering dominant male energy that wants to take on all comers. At the same time, we pay too little attention to the daily heroics of good men who stay humble, work hard, and practice random acts of kindness and caring, and not nearly enough attention to the ethically questionable things that Musk and Zuckerberg have been doing right before our eyes. Proof? For Zuckerberg, check out
But true celebrity covers up serious ethical flaws, and both Musk and Zuck are, let’s face it, celebrities. Political celebrities like Berlusconi in Italy, or Trump in the U.S. are just as flawed, or even more. Here’s a sad fact: trending right now, late June 2023 on You Tube is Bobby Kennedy Jr. doing pushups and bench presses, featuring chiseled pecs, nice abs, and looking super fit for a 69 year old. This is getting millions of views. Too many people in this country would vote for a vaccine conspiracy theorist if he’s got a famous name and the right “look” ––the alpha male who “alone” can fix it –– instead of any sober-minded public servant who takes facts seriously and actually cares about the public good.
Politically, and in business, it looks like America is getting exactly what it deserves: celebrity antics rather than thoughtful innovations in products and policy that further the public good. Meanwhile, to borrow a metaphor from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the democracy “doomsday clock” ticks ever closer to midnight.
It’s fairly commonplace for CEOs of U.S. companies to move quickly into crisis management mode after a public relations disaster. Alan Shaw, CEO of Norfolk Southern, was in just such a mode after the February 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Beyond visiting the community several times, he penned an Op-Ed in the Washington Post (March 8, 2023) with the comforting title, ““We’re committed to helping East Palestine recover.” After detailing many of the safety steps that the railway was committing to, he said:
“. . . .we are firmly committed to the residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I’ve been to the area five times since the accident. Many of the people I’ve met are angry, scared and concerned about the future. I understand their skepticism that a big corporation such as Norfolk Southern will do the right thing, and we are determined to earn their trust.”
And later:
“The steps we are taking are just a beginning. I’ve met with community leaders, business owners, school officials, clergy and residents to begin to identify ways we can invest in the future prosperity of East Palestine and support the long-term needs of its people. . . .We will see this through. We are going to make it right.”
Well, no, at least not right now. Shortly after this op-ed was published, it became known that Norfolk and Southern was not interested in paying community members for the loss of their property values as a result of the railway’s negligence.
As CNN Business reported, Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked Shaw four different times at a March 9 Congressional hearing to commit to compensating homeowners, only to hear Shaw repeatedly reply, “Senator, I’m committed to do what’s right.”
Markey said that wasn’t an acceptable answer. When Shaw was asked by Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, “Will you pledge to no more stock buybacks until a raft of safety measures have been completed to reduce the risk of derailments and crashes in the future,” Shaw again dodged the question by answering only with, “I will commit to continuing to invest in safety.”
According to CNN Business, paying the homeowners and businesses wouldn’t necessarily be difficult for Norfolk Southern. “With a population of about 5,000 people, there are roughly 2,600 residential properties in East Palestine, and the average value of a property there in January of this year, prior to the derailment, was $146,000. Taken together, the value of all residential real estate in the town adds up to about $380 million, including single family homes and multi-family properties.”
“Those values are only a fraction of the money that Norfolk Southern earns. Last year it reported a record operating income of $4.8 billion, and a net income of $3.3 billion, up about 9% from a year earlier. It had $456 million in cash on hand on its books as of December 31.”
“It’s been returning much of that profit to shareholders, repurchasing $3.1 billion in shares last year and spending $1.2 billion on dividends. And it announced a 9% increase in dividends just days before the accident.”
CEO Shaw’s op-ed assurances are part of the standard playbook for CEOs, and, of course, perfectly legal. “Determined to earn their trust?” If you want to regain and keep people’s trust, keep your promises. As my mother always said (and, most likely, your mother, too): “Actions speak louder than words.” A corporate CEO in disaster PR mode will always sound reassuring, but ultimately must look after the company’s “bottom line.” Paying out promptly to East Palestine property owners who have lost value because of the company’s negligence would be a promise kept (“We’ll make this right.”), and set a high standard for corporate responsibility. Norfolk and Southern could afford to do it. But I’m not holding my breath.
