Hot Topix: Was Russia involved?

Pavel Durov is a Russian business executive and entrepreneur serving as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the secure messaging service, Telegram since 2013. Telegram is basically the WhatsApp if Eastern Europe.Along with his brother Nikolai Durov, he founded the social network VKontakt, a Russian version of Facebook, in 2006, which quickly became the most popular social network in Russia before founding Telegram in 2013 and leaving Russia for Dubai.As of 25 August 2024, Durov was the 120th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $15.5 billion, according to Forbes largely driven by his ownership of Telegram. On 24 August 2024 Durov was arrested on criminal charges relating to an alleged lack of content moderation on Telegram and refusal to work with police, which allowed the spread of criminal activity.  To this day, Durov remains in custody in France.What’s next for Pavel Durov?  Should he be on the Russian sanctions list? Tune in as the Decentralists discuss Durov, Telegram and Ukraine.

It’s time for yet another Hot Topix involving everyone’s favourite Billionaire nemesis, Elon Musk.For those of you who have been living under a rock, Elon Musk is a South Africa-born, American tech entrepreneur who made his initial fortune co-founding and then selling the online payment platform PayPal. With his millions from PayPal, Musk embarked on a Howard Hughes like adventure, taking whacky ideas from the fringes, electric cars and colonising Mars and made them mainstream with Tesla and SpaceX. Like Hughes, Musk has amassed a ridiculous fortune from his crazy ideas and also like Hughes, the money and fame seems to have gone to his head. Howard Hughes made his fortune from Oil wells in Texas and decided to build the Spruce Goose, the largest airplane ever built that flew once for a grand total of 30 seconds before being turned into a museum. Elon turned his passion for snide commentary and provoking the government in rants to his 200 million Twitter followers into a $44 billion bid to take Twitter private, change the name to X and turn it into a free speech platform.Howard Hughes ended up living in Las Vegas hotel penthouse refusing to cut his toenails and drinking his own Urine, Musk has become a big supporter of Donald Trump’s third bid to become President of the United States.Just like Michael Corleone said in the Godfather part 3 "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!", the Decentralists are back talking about Elon Musk. Tune in to this episode of Hot Topix to find out why?

The war in Ukraine is at a stalemate and a ‘new’ conflict has exploded in Gaza occupying the world’s attention. Partisan politics has tied up American funding in Washington, and Ukrainians are freezing in the dead of winter. To make matters worse, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are threatening the world more than ever before. There’s a palpable sense that we’re on the brink of something terrible, especially considering the spectre of a second Trump Presidency.To quote Malcolm Gladwell, the war in Ukraine is a tipping point. What’s really at stake in Ukraine? Tune into this episode of The Decentralists to find out.

It has now been a little over six months since Meta rolled out "Threads" - Their supposed X (Formerly known as Twitter) killer.  Like Twitter, Threads is available as both an app and a desktop client, and it offers users the ability to post and share short text posts, images, and videos, as well as interact with other users' posts through replies, "reposts," and likes. Current estimates put total Threads users at around 160 Million accounts.The path that Threads is following is littered with has-beens, wannabes and hand-wringing venture capitalists - Gab, Truth Social, Parler, GETTR, Bluesky... And that's just the ones we can think of.Is Threads going to leave X hanging on by a thread? Does microblogging have a future? Tune in to this episode of The Decentralists to find out.

On October 7th, full scale war broke out in Gaza between Hamas, a terrorist group and Israel. Thousands of rockets from Gaza pounded Israeli settlements killing 1200 people, Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed tens of thousands. The Israel / Hamas war has taken public attention away from the frozen conflict in Ukraine just as Winter sets in.  Is the Israel / Hamas war a coincidence or is there someone in the background pulling the strings? Tune in to this episode of The Decentralists as Henry, Mike and Geoff discuss some interesting coincidences that point to the Kremlin.

In October 2022, Elon Musk spent $44 billion buying Twitter which he subsequently renamed "X". Musk's purchase of Twitter took almost a year as the drama played out in front of our eyes. Elon first went public in early 2022, ironically on Twitter with a public spat with founder Jack Dorsey over what her perceived as a lack of free speech on the platform. When Jack didn't take the bait, Musk upped the ante by declaring that if he couldn't get satisfaction, he would buy Twitter and do it himself. This is our third podcast on the Twitter drama and given recent events on X, it might be our last as Musk's anti-semitic rants have driven adverstisers away in droves and revenue has tanked.What are Elon's plans for X (formerly Twitter)?  Does he even have a plan? Tune into this episode of The Decentralists to find out just how badly Elon could mess up X (formerly know as Twitter)

International momentum is growing to seize Russian state assets, including central bank reserves to pay for the rebuilding of Ukraine. Otherwise, western taxpayers will end up footing the bill.Canada leads the world with Senator Ratna Omidvar's recent amendment to the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA) allowing the seizure of Russian state assets and private assets to rebuild Ukraine. Other countries are poised to follow suit, but there’s concern that seizing assets could lead to a loss of leverage with Russia in terms of pressuring Putin to end the war.On this episode of The Decentralists we speak with Peace Coalition members, Dr. Jon Unruh and our very own Mike Cholod about their recent Opinion piece in The Conversation.Will seizing state assets discourage Russia from ending the war? Or is it a new tool for peace-making? Join the Decentralists with special guest Jon Unruh to find out.

After being summoned by the Government of Canada, Mike’s about to walk into several meetings with some of the highest-ranking officials and Ministers in Ottawa. Learn all the details including ‘what it’s really like’ within the hallowed halls of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill. Mike was rather surprised!Please join us to learn who’s involved, what was discussed, and the next steps to move forward on this episode of The Decentralists.

After more than nine months, Mike is back in Canada. Why? Well, he was summoned by the Government of Canada. An influential Member of Parliament and a well-respected Senator have heard about the unique plan to rebuild Ukraine that The Peace Coalition has developed, and they want to talk.Please join us to learn who’s involved, what was discussed, and the next steps to move forward on this episode of The Decentralists.

The war in Ukraine is not just a physical war of tanks, trenches, artillery and attrition. It’s also being fought across the Internet on the social media front line and deep within the darkweb where armies of hackers from both sides fight a brutal cyberwar. Sometimes these electronic battles erupt into the daylight with both horrendous and hilarious results. Are there legitimate reasons to train national cyber-soldiers - a professional army of hacktivists? Find out what we’ve discovered in Ukraine on this episode of The Decentralists.