# In This Issue

- Elon Musk not guilty of defaming Vernon Unsworth

- Ericsson busted bribing governments around the world, fined US$1b

- Bipartisan Australian government investigation into “Foreign Interference through Social Media”

- Wanna watch the 2020 Olympics in 4K? You’ll need a Fetch Mighty PVR on Optus 5G

- Cheap iTunes cards, Xiaomi Android TV, Amazon Echo Sub, Ironwolf NAS HDDs, Samsung 970 EVO SSD

# News

#### Elon Musk not guilty of defaming Vernon Unsworth

Vernon Unsworth lost his defamation case against Elon Musk on Friday night. The four day trial ended with a jury not being able to link the "pedo guy" tweet Elon made directly to Unsworth. One juror said that "the judge laid out five points for defamation as soon as we got to point two, which was about being acquainted [with the defamed person], we decided," said Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles attorney who served on the jury. "The people that read Musk's tweet wouldn't have known who he was talking about". Elon Musk said that his "faith in humanity is restored". I'll admit, it's hard to find that Vernon was actually damaged by Musk's tweets as everyone kinda knew Musk was talking shit - but it's painful to watch a billionaire talk shit about an innocent person and not get punished for it.

#### Ericsson busted bribing governments around the world, fined US$1b

Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson has been fined US$1b by the US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission for "violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) from at least 2000 to 2016 by engaging in a scheme to pay bribes and to falsify books and records and by failing to implement reasonable internal accounting controls". According to the DoJ, "Ericsson used third parties to pay bribes to government officials to secure and keep business" and "consultants were retained to create slush funds and transfer money to third parties". Egypt, China, Djibouti, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Kuwait are just some of the countries where Ericsson bribed governments to get their kit installed. Huawei and ZTE are spies and Ericsson are dodgy bastards. Nokia's gotta have some skeletons in their 5G closet.

#### Bipartisan Australian government investigation into “Foreign Interference through Social Media”

I totally missed this, but Labor, backed by the government, has established a Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media. The committee will "focus on the use of social media for purposes that undermine Australia's democracy and values, including the spread of misinformation and international policy responses to cyber-enabled foreign interference". Penny Wong said that fake news is bad, undermines democracy, etc. etc. and the Australian government needs to "protect our democracy from malicious foreign actors". Yep, cool, good, yes. The reason I found out about the Select Committee is because Albo's going around saying Facebook should take down politicians' posts if they're bullshit. Good point, shame he won't win an election and make it law.

# Not News

#### Wanna watch the 2020 Olympics in 4K? You’ll need a Fetch Mighty PVR on Optus 5G

Here's some crap news for fellow couch potato sports lovers - Seven has sold the 4K rights for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to Optus, who will only broadcast it in 4K to their 5G customers with a Fetch Mighty PVR. I get why Seven won't broadcast in 4K as rejigging their channels is a big deal and the extra bandwidth needed for 4K will mean they'll have to lose some of the shitty but profitable SD channels. But why not broadcast in 4K online as part of some kind of premium subscription, either from 7 or Optus? At least then, those of us with first world internet connections can enjoy the Tokyo Olympics (which unlike the last few Olympics, are in a reasonable time zone for us) in glorious 4K. That's the kinda thing I'd upgrade my 1080p TV for. Maybe I should sign up for Optus 5G just for the Olympics? No! That's what Optus want me to do. Fuck them.

# Bargains

- 15% off iTunes gift cards at ALDI

- Xiaomi Mi Box S 4K Android TV - $85 from TobyDeals

- Amazon Echo Sub - $99 at Officeworks

- Seagate Ironwolf 8TB/10TB NAS HDDs - $311.20/$419.20 from Tech.mall on eBay

- Samsung 970 EVO NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD 500GB/1TB - $126.40/$239.40 from Futu Online’s eBay store after redeeming Samsung’s cashback offer.

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😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.​