[volleyball]

So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok.

Paramount(being run by Larry Ellison's son) is looking to install the pro-israel-propagandist who has variously masqueraded as a liberal, a conservative and anti-woke free-speech champion, Bari Weiss[1] as CBS's editor-in-chief or co-president[2]. It also bears mentioning that Ellison is a life-long zionist, friend of the IDF and close personal friend of Netanyahu to whom he even offered a post at Oracle.[3]

This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.

[1] - https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...

[2] - https://archive.is/20250916040811/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Ellison&old...

[throwawayqqq11]

Thank you for providing the media take over angle. I wish the people down voting you would explain why.

[Retric]

He’s got the wrong guy on the paramount deal. It’s David Ellison though they’re related:

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-warner-bros-disco...

[vincnetas]

how do you know if anyone is downvoting a comment?

[spookie]

To be completly frank, its better to focus on the media consolidation part. That's the real problem.

[usefulcat]

Actually it's the opposite. Pre-internet, there were a handful of news sources in any given city (mostly newspapers and TV), so they couldn't afford to alienate half of their potential viewers/readers by leaning hard left or right.

Today, there are many, many sources of 'news' online. So many that the net effect is that most of those sources lean one way or the other, and by and large people choose to listen mostly or only to those sources they agree with.

No wonder political opinions are so highly divided today. Almost no one ever hears anything from the other side.

[hvb2]

For a large share of the population social media is the only media they consume, so this is part of your real problem

[palmotea]

> So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN.

That's not Larry Ellison, it's his nepo baby David Ellison.

[spacechild1]

This is just crazy. No single person should have this amount of power, in particular if they have the moral integrity of Larry Ellison...

[Retric]

It is two people here. David Ellison who took over Paramount is the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle.

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison

[seemaze]

>moral integrity of Larry Ellison...

Don't anthropomorphize Larry Ellison

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728

[seizethecheese]

Genuine question: what do you think the alternative is? Ultimately someone will have the power. I don’t know what’s particularly questionable about Larry Ellison. An entrepreneur controlling media seems better than the state or a foreign government.

[thesmtsolver]

Trying to be neutral. Did we consider China's relationship with Palestine? Were we ok with American minds being swayed by a foreign country?

[volleyball]

I would argue that on this matter and all matters relating to the middle-east, American minds are still being swayed by a foreign country and have been for the last 50 to 80 years. At least, with Chinese Tiktok, Elon's twitter and competition between the various social media platforms, Americans for the first time were exposed to voices from the other side. And between the two sides, were able to make up a more informed decision. This is a desperate attempt to reverse that. I doubt it will work in the long-term and i don't think it is expected to. But I think in near-term this is a measure to control the narrative to prepare for American misadventures in the region over the next couple of years. Which almost certainly includes a second war with Iran, Israeli annexation of the West Bank and even possibly a partial American occupation of Gaza.

[farseer]

That is one of the prime reasons congress banned TikTok.

[netsharc]

If we want neutral, how about a fair arena for opinions and ideas.. at the moment "The Right" yells and screams "Anti-Semite! Terrorist!" if someone protests against the starvation and slaughter of children... So having them control the medium doesn't feel right for me.

Ok someone's going to come and say that "The Left" controlled the medium and disallowed "non-mainstream" messaging about Covid... I admit my bias and consider such messaging lunacy too..

[nineplay]

> This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.

Again? People should be talking about the hostile take-over currently in progress and how it is getting exponentially worse. But the billionaire mouthpieces gave everyone a shiny new inconsequential talking point and no one cares about anything that matters.

[Imustaskforhelp]

> No one cares about anything that matters.

Maybe that's what they wanted all along.

Why fight a war against class, against oppression when we can sit on a chair and write a comment either defending or arguing against something as petty as religion.

It would be maybe the 3rd point worth discussing definitely after concentration of power & how they can influence our opinion of the masses.

But people made it the first.

There is no such thing as a moral billionaire imo, I saw a video like this and I sorta agree.

I wouldn't be comfortable with anyone owning this much amount of control.

Religion seems so petty to me yet it seems that the world is coming back to it. Fighting us vs them.

We have all forgotten what the people in 1970's esque dreamed of 2025 etc. (I am a genz but I have seen such videos of people thinking what)

And the funny thing is, is that we ourselves have forgotten how to dream of what will happen in 2100

Do we really want to grow old in society where even after 70-80 years, one of our children or grandchildren sees yet again some comment like this and writes something like this that I am writing?

I feel a little frustrated.

[tinyhouse]

What's the problem with being pro-israel? Everyone needs to be pro-whatever-you-prefer? I'm pro-israel too.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What's the problem with being pro-israel?

There are tiny pockets of this country that assume this is the singular issue that animates everybody, every day, and that it is impossible to believe in both Israel's right to exist and defend itself and the Palestinians' right to not be bombed because the Israeli PM doesn't want to go to jail.

[Imustaskforhelp]

The problem is that the pro stands from problem.

Whenever we take a stance, We identify our ego with that stance. We shall die but die a pro X or pro Y

As such many debates happen in bad faith as well.

Of course everyone has their agenda but one has to understand that agenda is just a framework for understanding the world.

And we need to understand the world because it has no inherent meaning.

So like, if we really have to deduce meaning, if we really have to be pro something that we can die on a hill towards, I'd rather have it be a humanitarian thing.

I am not saying that palestine is good either but rather that in genocide/wars, the people fighting the war/military/families displaced suffer, not the old man causing the war.

I feel like I am a humanist. Wishing to understand the world, yet I feel like some people in this world have hurt me so much that sometimes I just wish the world to burn.

I am sure that people are gonna comment on something like "oh do you support a genocide etc."

But I am trying to make the point that the world should really be just anti suffering,accepting. Yes I am naive but surely with all of this technological improvements, we can improve the structure of society to not be fucking brewing with hate and bullying and resentment.

We can do so much better as a society without even trying much. Just small acts of kindness and basically creating a environment that rewards it and punishes bullying/hate speech etc. might be really nice if I am being honest.

Not sure why we can't be pro this instead of defining ourselves with the confict of two other foreign nations

[lmm]

Did you miss the news that they're conducting a genocide?

[JumpCrisscross]

> hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man

Ellison read and responded to the political situation more skilfully than Elon.

He used Stargate to cement himself as a power broker in AI. He used that influence to provide antitrust assurances that gave his son a leg up for Paramount. Meanwhile he used that proximity to media to get a foot in the door with TikTok.

The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy. This is a project all the major Trump donors and high-level supporters contributed to. That Ellison is coming up as one of the new aristocrats is closer to a dice roll; that we have oligarchs, now, is very much by design.

[wnc3141]

In authoritarian regimes the industrial capacity of an economy is appropriated by the state, where the fruits of the industry are enjoyed by party loyalists.

In this case using the state to choose which business is viable, no doubt being businesses that play ball with the party.

-its why sectarian conflicts and power delegation is so high stakes in many parts of the world.

[andrekandre]

  > The root cause is the partisan politicisation of the economy.

well, tbf in the old days, it was literally called ‘political economy’ for a reason… maybe the name should make a comeback.

[hn_throw_250915]

Larry the lawnmower Ellison?

[volleyball]

The lawnmower in question is a big-time donor to the Israel state and the IDF. Regarding the IDF the lawnmover seems to have caught some feelings:

  Through all of the perilous times since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone.

When Oracle opened a data-center in Jerusalem, his colleague and CEO Safra Katz had this to say :

  ...when you connect with Oracle you understand that we are committed to the U.S. and Israel. We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don't agree with our mission to support the State of Israel then maybe we aren't the right company for them. Larry (Ellison, co-founder of Oracle) and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country and no one should be surprised by that.

"our commitment to Israel is second to none". Does America fall under [none] here? Something to consider when looking at these acquisitions.

[jimbokun]

He (or she) lists several other characteristics of these people as well.

[acdha]

Ignoring the genocide topic for the moment, it’s relevant from a speech perspective: that’s an alliance of hard-right groups who have spent the last year conflating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism and trying to shut down voices which disagree with them (e.g. cuts to research grants based on unrelated actions on campus). Consolidating a large chunk of the information space under a unified group opposed to free speech should concern all of us.

[cultofmetatron]

I'm gonna go on a limb and guess that since its a social media platform where people have been widely protesting a zionist led genocide by a Israel. the fact that the investor is a zionist and Israel supporter is probably very relevant.

more or less akin to a coal miner operator taking control over the EPA even.

[ryeights]

Partially, yes? I don’t see that as particularly controversial at this point. We are beyond consensus manufacturing and into explicit governmental crackdowns on anti-Israel voices in the US.

[JumpCrisscross]

> to support Israel? Is that what this is about?

It’s for money and power. Because of the partisan nature of the power grab, a certain grab bag of evangelical, fossil fuel and anti-gay tenets are going to get reïnforced. But treating those as the cause dangerously misses that this is being started at home.

[volleyball]

In large part, yes. There is also Trump, Republicans and their drive to carve out a bigger conservative-space in a liberal-dominated media landscape. There is Silicon valley, the rising digital-military-industrial complex, the china hawks, the intelligence apparatus and the security state, and the usual self-interests of the billionaire class. All of these forces are currently colluding to control the narrative (i.e. minds) in their favor. But I will argue the Israel angle is a big part of it which is being under-reported on ( by design).

Trump went after TikTok in his first presidency but was ultimately unsuccessful. It was the Biden government that successully banned TikTok last year in a bipartisan bill. What was the impetus then and why did it succeed? Listen to Charlie Kirk's personal take[1] on why Tiktok got banned (and how the right capitalized on it) :

  [..] the buried lede of the October 7th was that it it got TikTok banned and remember the Tiktok ban stalled based on just China concerns, but TikTok was the the hub of a lot of the anti-israel sentiment that was brewing with Gen Z and all of a sudden the TikTok ban got resurfaced. Mitt Romney said at a security conference "we are Banning Tik Tok because it is sowing anti-israel sentiment in the United States."   

Multiple congressman and representatives have cited anti-israel sentiment as their reason [2].

Tiktok recently hired Erica Mindel - an instructor in the Armoured Corps in the Israeli army’s spokesperson’s unit - to lead the company’s hate speech policy. The potential hiring of Bari Weiss to head the CBS news division reveals a similar underlying motive. One which is laid out by the CEO of the ADL, in his address to the Israeli Knesset[3] :

  "Pushing extremists off Wikipedia might not seem equal to the challenge of pushing Hezbollah to north of the Litani River; capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon (A mountain peak in Syria which Israel conquered in their undeclared invasion of Syria late last year); libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen but this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline. Make no mistake it's real we saw that in the propaganda that anti-israel groups pushed out in America on October 7th accusing Israel of committing genocide."

[1] - https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279 https://xcancel.com/DelGroyp/status/1856577467596845279

[2] - https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest... https://archive.is/20250918033631/https://theintercept.com/2...

[3] - https://x.com/infolibnews/status/1968177947724198243 https://xcancel.com/infolibnews/status/1968177947724198243

[4] - https://jewishinsider.com/2025/07/tiktok-hate-speech-manager... , https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/tiktok-hires-ex-israe...

[tomhow]

You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter how right you are or feel you are. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[nwah1]

This kind of hyperbole is both ridiculous and offensive.

[TSiege]

Is the argument that the Larry Ellison doesn't have huge sway over the companies he's owns outright or in part, or that saying him and Elon Musk have outsized control over America's information environment is conspiratorial? Either seem laughably wrong since these things are all public information

[tensor]

The consolidation of US media under a small number of right wing owners is an easily verifiable fact, not some conspiracy. Also, it's bad. Free markets need diversity, both in products AND in ideas.

[paxys]

Nothing hostile about it. This is what the American people voted for.

[slg]

In 2020, 22.4% of the US population voted for Trump. In 2024, 22.7% of the population voted for Trump. I hate how people draw drastic conclusions regarding what the American people want based off the shift of less than half a percentage point of the population.