Plus: It seems like a Redditor can track secret US at-sea missile strikes ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

November 07, 2025 | Read online
# Meta's mass scam machine, Microsoft refund mistake and Sizzler Say Plus: It seems like a Redditor can track secret US at-sea missile strikes
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Edition 2456
Photographer: Barbara Minishi (Flickr: EU)
# The News
### Meta has created the world’s most sophisticated scam targeting machine, and we’re all suckers
Meta knows it is making billions of dollars from scams every year on billions of scam ads it shows to users every day — and its answer is to deprioritise fighting scams, ignore complaints, focus on areas when it faces legal action and allow potential scammers to keep advertising as long as they pay extra. That’s what internal Meta documents obtained by Reuters’ Jeff Horowitz reveal in a truly bombshell investigation (Reuters).
The report looks at how the company’s employees came to terms with how much their platforms are being used by bad actors and how they tried to raise the alarm about the scale of the misuse. And, it appears, the response from above was that the company’s goal is to reduce scams — just as long as it didn’t disrupt their other work and helped them avoid consequences from politicians and the courts.
The Sizzle: There are a lot of good, normal people who work for big tech companies, and Meta is no exception. And I know these challenges are tough. But there is no way you can read stories like this or Horowitz’s reporting on Meta’s lack of safety for kids using AI earlier this year and not think that this company is rotten to the core. I mean, what else can you say when you read things like:
The documents further note that users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests.
Reuters
Meta has built an global system that lures people into the target zones for harm. And its actions suggest it does not see counteracting the damage that it facilitates as important as any of it other goals. We cannot trust this company to regulate itself. It only responds to external consequences and so we must make sure it faces them at every turn.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Microsoft’s 365 AI refund email didn’t offer refund lmaoooo
When you publicly eat shit and offer millions in refunds as you face being dragged through the courts, you’d probably assume that this was rock bottom. But, as Microsoft showed, it can always get worse.
An email was sent to Australian Microsoft 365 customers offering a refund and a chance to opt-out of the more expensive AI plans. Seems fine, right?
Now what’s wrong with this…
Except, the email sent to 365 Family customers didn’t actually offer them the chance to downgrade their plan without the AI. Instead, it gave them the chance to downgrade to an AI-free plan but only for a personal account, not for a family account covering up to six users. It was like Microsoft was saying “sure you can get rid of AI but looks like everyone will have to stump up for their own subscription. Isn’t that a shame!”
Fixed
This appears to have been an error and 365 Family subscribers were sent a follow up email offering the AI-free downgrade and refund for the family plan. But, still, not great!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### The Sizzler Say: 3D-printed retro TV, Gun Lady and the new Mac icons suck
As always, if you wanna get involved (or even be able to read what’s on Slack) you can join the Slack server and forum via these links.
- Stop what you are doing and look at Quilgy’s incredible retro 3D-printed TV and VCR that he posted on the forum. Thank you to everyone who got in touch about the “Gun Lady” image that I used earlier in the week. Wesley pointed out that it appears to be a photograph taken by Philip Greenspun of — according to a Redditor — his former girlfriend and tech company colleague Eve Astrid Anderson who is now…. a director at Google!
  Such a sick photo lol
Bonus points to Simon who said “If that's a Powermac 7100, she's pointing the gun in the right place. That piece of shit was an absolute dud and Apple refused to ever acknowledge it.”) The Sizzlefather decryption has thoughts on MacOS26’s new icons that he shared in Slack. If you have (or want to read) recommendations for a laptop fit for uni, go to this forum thread. A bit of clean up from yesterday: mnarkbr pointed out on the forum that there is a number attached to the Big Short guy’s short (US$1.1b), but I wrote back why that number doesn’t actually properly explain how much he stands to gain/lose from his bet.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
I went on 7AM to talk about ChatGPT and erotica. 2 Billion Email Addresses Were Exposed, and We Indexed Them All in Have I Been Pwned (troyhunt.com) AI-tainted Deloitte report was worse than previously thought (Australian Financial Review, $) Roblox should be snared by Australia’s social media ban for under-16s, experts and MPs say (The Guardian) New Australia New Zealand power initiatives are an attempt to balance Apple's consumption (AppleInsider) Porn not 'inherently harmful', says first inquiry of its kind in Australia (The Conversation)
Rest of the world:
Tesla shareholders approve Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package (The Verge) OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says company is not seeking government backstop, after saying it wanted government backstop (CNBC) FBI Demands Data from Provider Tucows to unmask Archive dot today (heise online) Rockstar Games delays Grand Theft Auto VI – again – to late 2026 (The Verge) Google's proposed Android changes won't save sideloading (Android Authority) The World's Growing Information Black Box: Inequity in Platform Research (TechPolicy.Press) How Saudi Arabia's Neom Dream Unravelled (Financial Times, $) YouTube rolls out AI age verification to a new wave of users (9to5Google) Firefox forcing LLM features (equk.co.uk) End of Japanese community at Mozilla due to the introduction of AI-based translation (Mozilla Support) The Benefits of Bubbles (Stratechery)
Oops
I would go so far as to say very bad
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### It sure seems like a Redditor can track US's secret at-sea strikes
Full disclosure: this could be completely full of shit, but at least it’s compelling.
A Redditor says that he can use public NASA data to identify the Trump Administration’s at-sea, definitely legal, missile murders strikes. In a post on the open source intelligence subreddit, u/No_Plant_2335 shows how temperature hotspots that can be seen in real time using public feeds appear to line up with what we know about the US’s attacks on “narco-trafficking".
But don’t just take his word for it: he’s made a website so you can watch out for yourself. Please email in if you see an extrajudicial mass murder!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
UGREEN FineTrack Smart Tag USB C (Apple Find My) 4-Pack - $50.39 at UGREEN via Amazon AU SanDisk MicroSD Express 512gb - $169 at Officeworks audioengine S6 Subwoofer Black or White Colour Only - $382 at audioengine Garmin Venu 3 Smartwatch - $597 at Amazon AU SVS SB-1000 Classic Subwoofer - $899 at WestCoast Hifi (Down from $1199) DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo with DJI RC 2 - $1529 at Amazon Business AU Samsung S95F 65" QD-OLED 165Hz 4K TV - $2738 at Samsung Education (Down from $5,299) Samsung 77" OLED TV S95F - $4998 (Down from $7995)
Computing
Corsair Nightsabre Wireless RGB Optical Gaming Mouse - $99 at Mwave (Down from $229) Brother HL-L2480DW Compact Mono Laser Printer - $199 at Officeworks Alienware AW2725D 26.7" 1440p 280Hz QD-OLED Gaming Monitor - $621 at Dell Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 34" Curved WQHD Gaming Monitor - $999 at Samsung HP OmniBook 5 NG AI 16" 2K OLED Laptop: Snapdragon X X1-26-100 (8-Core), 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD - $1199 at HP Australia
Mobile
Google Pixel 10 Pro at JB Hi-Fi 128GB for $1357 256GB for $1477 512GB for $1637
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
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