The CEO Retort with Tim El-Sheikh Misinformation Watch: Who profits from political violence?
In this emergency episode of Misinformation Watch, in light of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I discuss how social media platforms, crypto bros, and the Trump family profited financially from the barrage of misinformation swirling around the event. Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) played the key roles as you may expect.
As someone involved in AI as a deeptech entrepreneur and innovator for almost 25 years, specialising in AI recommendation systems (the AI models used by social media), and building language models to fight misinformation since 2012 at Google Campus London, I discuss how a relentless, AI-powered misinformation campaign around the assassination of Charlie Kirk caused mass anger and division.
My key discussion points are based on the evidence presented to us over the past 12 months with my previous guests, who are experts in multiple areas around the media and tech sectors, and human rights.
More alarmingly, I discovered that some entities that promoted this misinformation campaign have reaped significant financial gains worth millions of dollars, while the rest of us fight among ourselves.
Join the conversation and learn how to battle against misinformation that is consuming our societies around the world. Above all, I hope you will see that we should not allow these entities to divide us, since it will make them richer and make the rest of us angry and depressed.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) – Preview
(00:00:30) – Misinformation and the Charlie Kirk assassination
(00:04:03) – Similarities with the UK's 2024 Far-right summer riots and the key players
(00:07:55) – The role of AI recommendation systems in spreading in manipulating behaviours
(00:11:50) – Who actually benefits from spreading misinformation?
(00:18:40) – Forget the politics and just step back and ask yourself: Why are you upset?
(00:24:53) – Who has financially benefited from Charlie Kirk's assassination?
(00:29:04) – Social media platforms use the "freedom of speech" excuse to spread the assassination video with intention, not accident!
(00:35:13) – The consequences of mass misinformation on innocent victims and wrong accusations.
(00:36:21) – How AI fueled false claims and conspiracy theories after the assassination event!
(00:40:06) – Call to action for unity and not allowing those in power to manipulate us. It's in your hands!
Episode Notes & Citations:
https://ceoretort.com/podcast/solo/2025/10/16/misinformation-watch-who-profits-from-political-violence/
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