In February, #Marc #Andreessen described the #Chatham #House group chats to the podcaster #Lex #Fridman as “the equivalent of [Soviet era] #samizdat”
“The combination of encryption and disappearing messages really unleashed it,” he said. The chats, he wrote recently, helped produce our national “vibe shift.”
They have rarely been discussed in public, though you can catch the occasional mention in, for instance, a podcast debate between #Mark #Cuban and the Republican entrepreneur #Vivek #Ramaswamy, which started in a chat.

But they are made visible through a group consensus on social media.
Their effects have ranged from the mainstreaming of the monarchist pundit #Curtis #Yarvin to a particularly focused and developed dislike of the former Washington Post writer #Taylor #Lorenz.

They succeeded at avoiding leaks (until, to a modest extent, this article) in part because of Signal’s and WhatsApp’s #disappearing #message features,
and in part because the groups had formed out of a mix of fear and disdain for journalists they believed were “out to get us,” as one member put it.
“People during 2020 felt that there was a monoculture on social media, and if they didn’t agree with something, group chats became a safe space to debate that, share that, build consensus, feel that you’re not alone,”
said #Erik #Torenberg, an entrepreneur who was the first employee of the tech community hub Product Hunt.
As #Krishnan was setting up a set of tech group WhatsApp chats at a16z, #Torenberg independently founded a group of tech chats on WhatsApp and some more political Signal chats.

“They’re having all the private conversations because they weren’t allowed to have the public conversations,” Andreessen told Torenberg on a recent podcast,
after claiming in the name of secrecy that he’d never heard of such groups.
“If it wasn’t for the censorship all of these conversations would have happened in public, which would have been much better.”
Their creations took off:
“It might not seem like it, because of all the sh*t that people still post on X, but the internet has fragmented,”
the Substack author #Noah #Smith wrote after my inquiries for this story spilled into public Saturday.
“Group chats are now where everything important and interesting happens.”

https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america

Over 5 Million Turn Out for #MayDay in Cuba

from # WorldOutlook

By Duane Stilwell
HAVANA, #Cuba, May 1, 2025 — About 5.3 million people, nearly half of the country’s population of 11 million, filled the streets of cities, towns, and municipalities across the Caribbean island today to celebrate International Workers’ Day. Estimates of the turnout came from eyewitness accounts and reports in the #Cuban media.

https://world-outlook.com/2025/05/03/over-5-million-turn-out-for-may-day-in-cuba/

#VivaCuba #LetCubaLive #CubaSi #EndTheBlockade #CubaSolidarity #EndTheEmbargo
#EndSanctionsAgainstCuba #OffTheList
@cubainfo

… Miami Herald: “A #Cuban woman living in #Tampa who came to the US in 2019 and is married to a US #citizen was abruptly detained by# ICE and #deported to Cuba, leaving behind her one-year-old child. Heidy Sánchez was among 82 Cuban migrants sent on a plane from Miami back to Cuba. Her #deportation has been so sudden and traumatic for their infant daughter, still breastfeeding and with ongoing health issues, that her grandmother was taking her to the hospital.”