Jeremy Arnold

The Save Journalism Committee. Let’s make the news better. Lover of context, nuance, and whatever the opposite of tribalism is.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@CarOnPolymarket They clarify many things, and not always in the same direction. Which one are you referring to?

Separately, by your logic Microsoft is MSFT. Short forms ≠ tickers.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

Minor bombshell re: Polymarket / MicroStrategy drama.

Will post full article a bit later, but quick teaser that afaik is original and v. additive to debate.

I was digging into the reality of whether PM really had strong "precedents" re: reporting data that falls outside an event window being inadmissible.

Basically the answer across multiple case reviews seemed no. Or at least v. inconsistent.

But then in looking at the most quoted example I found something that afaik no one else has pointed out.

Team No argues that PM's clarification on a similarly ambiguous Sep '25 MS market is binding on the current disputed one.

Weirdly, and contra to popular opinion, PM actually got a lot better after that clarification at explicitly tying new MS markets to announcement dates (vs. just "buy/sell by x date" where announcements may follow later). This was good! Ambiguity gone! It also made the '25 clarification itself more a historical footnote.

So why was this May '26 market an exception?

Because its rules were written in Dec '24!

The May '26 market is a child in an older parent event page originally created 1.5 years ago, and its key resolution terms are verbatim copy from that older parent! While the May '26 market was only created a month ago, presumably the UI lets you clone existing in-family markets and then it's up to admins to edit them. Someone may have just forgotten to update that part!

I spot-checked 10 similar MS markets that PM created after Sep '25 and 0 had this ambiguity. It appears this was just a truly unfortunate legacy exception.

As a point for Team Yes: if all the other MS markets post Sep '25 are consistent in using "announce" vs. buy/sell, why would one not take buy/sell wording at face value? How is one supposed to intuit that the wording is just a legacy holdover and that it can't be interpreted in distinction to other current contracts?

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@Birdyword Tbf substantially more of us Canadians live in C than B!

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@scottastevenson Still a killer product abroad tho, esp in countries where the purchasing power arb for guests meets fairly low build/reno costs for hosts.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@brodo_baggins1 Just an FYI: this ticket is worth about ~$5300 at fair value. Which is to say you could hedge it today and lock in that much as a guaranteed profit independent of outcome.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@lydialaurenson Imo ai is still pretty meh at writing new songs. Same lyrical problems as in prose. That said its ability to port existing songs into new genres can be astonishing. Eg: https://t.co/Ft4B1LEZP9

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@benmoores2 Carcassonne may be a bit route one for you, but on aesthetics very hard to beat! Whole functioning town inside too with tremendous food.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

A local reporter dug in and found that the data centre (QTS) was a victim of bad national journalism.

- The house with the water pressure issue was drawing from an unconnected well. The county put in pressure readers across its own system and found zero issues.

- The rogue use was a county issue. A usage meter hadn’t been properly integrated into its new digital billing system and was tracking manually. When discovered, the county billed QTS ~$100k in missed charges, which QTS paid without issue.

- QTS is paying 2x the price of local residents for the same water.

- The whole QTS complex uses ~1% of the county’s water output (mostly for construction), and thanks to closed-loop cooling will drop down to the consumption of about four individual homes upon completion.

- Quoting the county admin: “What can we do to get the facts out and to normalize this so people understand what happened?”

Good q for Politico!

link: https://t.co/JVWFDuPaBG

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

Counterpoint: Politico premised their story on a *single* water pressure complaint from a house that wasn’t even on the same water system!

[Kim Zetter @KimZetter]

A story likely to be repeated in other places where data centers are located. An Atlanta data center was siphoning 30M gallons of water unnoticed until residents complained about low water pressure. Officials discovered unauthorized pipes feeding center https://t.co/Mel4YoS6og

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@robertgraham Tbf tho his argument is incredibly funny and on that level I support it.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@ev_rat @JohnCarreyrou Fwiw I re-read your wired piece last night and just wanted to say I appreciated the humility and honesty of it! And that you thought to look at the code and not just writing samples. Factoring latter alone seems an obvs limited approach.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@mkonnikova Def agree re: cover art. They also changed subhead from “sports gambling” to just “gambling” based on one session of blackjack (where he seemingly didn’t use PS or know what the house edge was). Piece was an insider edit away from being much stronger.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@jackmitchell @DrDavidMiano

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@simonowens Appreciate you sharing our piece! Tho fwiw the due diligence aspect is different when the ads are for securities (vs say just products/services). The gov mandates a level of scrutiny for former, as potential loss are much higher.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@jli022 @niubi Tbf it was worse than just invented backing (though that too). It was deceptive claims around revs, contracts, tech, profitability, etc. And while obvs *growing* startups raise at v high book multiples, the startups we covered are mostly mature + growth-negative.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@HarelDan @hntrbrkmedia Main red flag was the massive gaps between underlying disclosures and the claims in the ads. When you can't sell at high vals on fundamentals, what can you sell on?

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

Also did a companion piece on what reform could look like—were Congress / the SEC to make it a priority.

Note that I don't speak for Hunterbrook in this one. My commentary and proposals are my own.

https://t.co/PHtxAzffP9

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

New from me, in partnership w/ @hntrbrkmedia.

This one pained me. I love startups and newsletters. But these cases are unusually bad and a stain on both industries.

I hope thoughtful reform follows.

[Hunterbrook @hntrbrkmedia]

BREAKING: Newsletters—from Morning Brew, Robinhood, the WSJ—helped struggling startups crowdfund from small investors using sponsored ads.

We investigated—and mapped a wild west of shady deals, staggering losses, and shirked accountability.

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@AmadeusPagel @hntrbrkmedia Thanks for flagging!

Right URL here: https://t.co/QRDnT957yS

[Jeremy Arnold @jdotarnold]

@peterneil62 @Milo_Edwards I read this in Malcolm Tucker’s voice and really enjoyed it