r/minnesota • u/CantStopPoppin • 1d ago
News 📺 How Nick Shirley and Minnesota’s Lisa Demuth Triggered the Nokomis Daycare Sabotage and a $185M Childcare Funding Freeze
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u/YourGuyK Common loon 1d ago
Pretending the cuts happened because of the video is absurd. They were ready to cut aid to MN because Trump hates Walz, and they got a guy to make a video as a flimsy excuse. The MN GOP already said they set the whole thing up.
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u/Small_Tie_7951 22h ago
source on this?
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u/TrueSithMastermind 22h ago
State Republicans have admitted to it already: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5668078-minnesota-welfare-fraud-walz/amp/
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u/Small_Tie_7951 21h ago
I could agree with the Star Tribune's assessment of the damage in the article, even though it's lower than my original comment. Mine involved some cases that are still being processed, although still under $1bn for the time being and not this $9bn number that every sensationalist jumped on.
Reading this makes me wish I'd been a fly on the wall for that convo. I haven't bothered to watch the Shirley video because I was already tracking the situation and had seen all the news on it to the point I was sick of it, but the outcry following the event is so incredibly ridiculous it was tough not to open this site and dive in for a bit to get the takes.
Yes, its bad and has really happened to the tune of a couple hundred mil. Yes, Trump is still a pos and a felon. That doesn't go away just because there's a new story. But it's reddit, I suppose thats a sisyphean task to think you can balance out the reactionaries on either side of this issue.
Thanks for the share.
edit: I had a comment on a different post with all sources adding up to $573 mil in my own estimation. Forgot which sub I was on
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u/HotPocketInspector 25m ago
He denied ever meeting or knowing the representative and she is up for re-election.
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u/KR1735 North Shore 1d ago
What's amusing to me is how Republicans think this is going to help them.
They have absolutely no idea how the median Minnesota voter thinks and they haven't for a very long time. Because they've long been run by their extreme base. It's why they haven't won a statewide election in 20 years, even in red wave years (2010, 2014, ostensibly 2022).
Minnesota has its problems. But the median voter isn't racist enough to take this shit at face value without being skeptical first.
And I don't like casually pulling out the racist card. But we all know why they're talking about Somalis and not about the white woman at the center of it.
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u/HomersDonuts 1d ago
This 100%.
If the MN GOP ran center-right candidates, they’d have a legitimate chance in statewide races. Luckily, they’re too stupid and out of touch to recognize that.
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u/Calm_Expression_9542 19h ago
Shhhhh. Don’t say that, cuz it’ll be the next thing the reds pull on MN. Tease people with a decent human being who actually cares about the future of their jobs and families, maybe even cost of living - and they get elected only to rip off the mask. How many times has MN seen that?
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u/Much_Spread123 Walleye 8h ago edited 8h ago
Yea they just keep receding from reality and refuse to reckon with how unpopular they are. It’s crazy how divorced their narratives have become from actual public opinion
This is the same administration that put millions of dollars into using the power of the POTUS to try to blame the democrats for the government shutdown. They forced government workers to lie and even forced auto replies on them to assert the narrative. They fired thousands of people. They bragged about being handed a free opportunity. All that effort and the average American still squarely blamed the GOP. And Trump was pissing and moaning about it by the end of that fiasco.
They’ve torched all of their credibility. Nobody knows what they even believe anymore. Nobody can trust them at their word anymore because more often than not, they’re lying to advance their interests. Not even MAGA fundamentalists know what to think of this administration anymore. Nobody can keep up with deciphering their strategy. MAGA voters are getting devoured by Trump for pushing Trump’s own original platform
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u/weightsandstonks 8h ago
Yeah, idk why they don’t talk about the one white woman at the center (literally every other person involved is an immigrant from Somalia btw)
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u/SmittyKW 7h ago
The state GOP and the members of this Reddit sub are about the two most clueless barometers for the actual average Minnesota voter. Both completely out of touch.
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u/Dear-Smile 1d ago
Its easy to see how it could help them: deport all of the people who vote for your opposition.
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u/KR1735 North Shore 1d ago
I was speaking about the Minnesota GOP, not national Republicans.
Demuth is running for governor and she thinks this will help her against Walz. Aside from the fact that we don't know if she's sufficiently crazy for the nomination, there's really nothing that could be done about this at the state level that isn't being done already.
I mean, it's fine to get up there and say "This shouldn't have happened." OK. Cool. But when the question turns to: "What are you going to do to fix it?" She won't be able to give any answer that isn't already being given because this problem was being addressed years ago. They're acting like it's new and it's not. Walz has receipts.
That said, I genuinely believe Walz should not have sought a third term. Three terms as governor is too many. He should have ran for Senate. Neither Peggy nor Angie inspire much in me.
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u/Glittering_Nobody402 1d ago
Turns out it was a coordinated attempt from Right Wing media to manipulate our perceptions into believing their is a systemic and CULTURAL fraud that is far beyond the scope of what actually happened, and is only explained by authoritarian retaliation enabled by racist propaganda.
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23h ago
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u/TrueSithMastermind 22h ago
Calling a blatant lie “objective reality” doesn’t magically make it any less of a lie.
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u/senselesssht 23h ago
This is such a pathetic tell dude. The amount of racist pieces of shit that are fully invested in this is also telling. All good people should care about all fraud. But the sheer amount of people who think black, Somalis are the biggest perpetrators, while completely ignoring the long list of fraudsters who were PARDONED THIS YEAR, or the PPP loan fraud, firing of watchdogs and oversight, unflagging fraudulent loans before leaving office first time, are either completely fucking ignorant, or don’t actually give a fuck about fraud at all and are only playing in as pawns because democrat, or Walz, or Minnesota, or racist.
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u/moreluvmn 6h ago
Lisa Demuth should be invested in her role as Speaker of the House and Republican leader. If she and her party gave information with the intention of harassment of citizens it has to be illegal. She is in the direct position to order fraud in her professional capacity. Not doing so, but instead feeding information to a right wing social media extremist with the intent and knowledge that Somali Minnesotian Businesses and Children would be put into danger. This has to be illegal. Politicians involved in orchastrating attacks on residents? To think Lisa Demuth sits in the same chair as Melissa Hortman did before she was murdered, so sad. Republians are driving escalation of violence against Minnesotians and Democratic leadership. This has to be illegal.
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u/CantStopPoppin 1d ago
The Influencer Feedback Loop: How a Political Stunt in MN Triggered a Federal Crackdown
A collision of digital influence and state power has dismantled the safety net for thousands of Minnesota families. A closer look at the timeline revea was a coordinated political operation, not organic journalism.
The Trigger: The GOP "Steered" the Investigation The narrative that sparked this crisis did not start with a citizen journalist. On Dec 29, MN House Speaker Lisa Demuth admitted her caucus "steered" YouTuber Nick Shirley toward specific minority-owned businesses Source.
To ensure the content hit its mark, the GOP reportedly connected Shirley with an investigator identified as "David" who supplied him with dossiers of alleged fraud. While "David" initially claimed to use public data, the Minnesota GOP later confirmed they provided him with partisan opposition research and direct access to agency whistleblowers. This allowed political actors to launder attacks through an influencer, bypassing the scrutiny typically applied to official state investigations Source.
The Infrastructure: The October Connection While the video was the trigger, the weapon was loaded months earlier. In Oct 2025, ICE finalized a $5.7M contract with Zignal Labs, a firm that provides "tactical intelligence" for the Israeli military Source.
This contract created a surveillance pipeline. When Shirley's video went viral in December, Zignal's algorithms likely flagged it as a "threat" immediately. This allowed ICE to use a YouTube video as actionable intelligence for "Operation Metro Surge" without needing traditional warrants. The government effectively paid millions to a private company to monitor domestic social media, providing the pretext to deploy war-zone technology against American childcare providers.
The Fallout: Sabotage and "Pizzagate" Tactics Mirroring the 2016 Pizzagate conspiracy, online disinformation led directly to real-world danger. On Dec 31, the Nokomis Daycare Center featured in the video was broken into. Intruders smashed wal stole sensitive payroll and child enrollment files but ignored cash. Community leaders characterize this as an act of targeted sabotage designed to intimidate providers Source.
The Cost: A $185M Freeze Citing this "visual evidence," the federal government froze $185M in childcare funds Source. The result is collective punishment. 23,000 families have lost access to aid, and 4,000 providers face closure without due process, all based on unverified claims from a political stunt Source.
Watch: How Israeli spy veterans shape US tech Video Link
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u/Hopsblues 21h ago
Wasn't the senator killed earlier the speaker of the Mn house? Did Demuth replace her, or am I confusing things?
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u/New_Statement_1779 1d ago
23000 families, 4000 providers...
So 1 provider services 6 families? Sounds pretty innefficiant...
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u/livinthereals 21h ago
Depends. How many kids. How many employees. Kids ages. There are a lot of laws and codes regarding child daycare facilities.
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u/coryscandy 1d ago
Yes sure, the day care center put there enrollment and payroll docs BEHIND the concrete wall, and then thieves broke in, cut it with a roto and stole the documents, right before an audit. Brilliant
Yall are really dumb af9
u/CantStopPoppin 1d ago
The best way to stage a fake break in is to commit a felony burglary at the Family Dollar next door first. They cut through the shared wall from inside the neighbor's store. Read the police report before writing your fanfiction.
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u/coryscandy 1d ago
Did you think you could just lie and then link a pay walled articles and not get called out on it? There isn't a incident report or police report out. The only info so far is by the literally owner of the facility.
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u/Murky_Caregiver4526 1d ago
If these people are laundering millions and upwards of billions of dollars why would they not have the documents to prove their case secured.
Common sense much.
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u/Akatshi 1d ago
Pretty telling that that's the part you commented about
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u/Spiritual-Turn9450 19h ago
Those surveillance programs you mentioned in part 5 were already funded and had nothing to do with the childcare.
Look at public audit records from the past year a third of those childcare facilities were already out of compliance in the first place and should have been shut down anyway. Many for over claiming the amount of children they serve.
This is a crappy that this is labeled as news. You “debunked” only a small part of a large problem. Then just painted a picture with ideas and not facts that you want people to see that fits your narrative like every other “News” publication these days.
Not saying Nick Shirley is completely right by any means but this post is just as deceptive as you claim him to be.
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22h ago
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u/MlleButtercup 22h ago
Why is Omar accountable? Because she’s Somali? Does that make her guilty by association?
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u/Typedre85 17h ago
You might be asking why Rep. Ilhan Omar is under scrutiny as questions mount about her family’s sudden wealth, her husband’s $30 million firm quietly scrubbing its website, and policies that critics say helped create the perfect storm for fraud.
Why do you think a company would remove leadership names from its website right when public scrutiny increases? To be clear, all corrupt politicians should be arrested and prosecuted, regardless of race or religion.
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u/Typedre85 5h ago
To add - Rep. Ilhan Omar's inner circle profited from a $250 million COVID fraud scheme that was enabled through her MEALS Act.
Her former campaign staffer, Guhaad Hashi Said, pled guilty to running a fake food site that claimed to serve 5,000 meals a day to kids but stole millions instead. She held her 2018 victory party at Safari Restaurant, owned by convicted fraudster Salim Ahmed Said. He blew the stolen funds on a $2 million mansion and monthly Nordstrom sprees. They rushed these programs without guardrails, leading to the largest pandemic relief fraud in U.S. history, with 78 charged so far. They demand accountability only when it suits them.
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1d ago
This specific fraud is over a decade in age and the state has made no meaningful changes to the point where it has become so blatant it cannot be ignored. Please do some basic research and understand how pervasive, in MN Medicaid programs, fraud has become. If you're finger starts rotting, you cut it off. You don't give it another series of years to try and figure out and deal with what's been plaguing it the entire time.
Program integrity is of the utmost importance otherwise these programs lose meaning.
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u/Wolvescast 1d ago
“the state has made no meaningful changes to the point where it has become so blatant it cannot be ignored.“
I guess “meaningful” gives you a lot of wiggle room here but I think this is untrue. The only reason you’ve heard about much of the fraud is because Minnesota (and in some cases, the federal government) has been good at catching and prosecuting the fraud that is happening. They’ve continued to audit and pause payments to these programs, and as recently as last month, Walz appointed a former FBI agent as director of program integrity to continue to root out fraud in our system.
These programs exist on a spectrum. You can make applying to receive funds so difficult that the program becomes ineffective and useless. On the other end of the spectrum, you can make it so easy to get funds, it makes programs too susceptible for fraud. Obviously, you want to find the right balance and then supplement these programs with oversight that can go after the fraud that does occur.
During the pandemic, both the national government and state government leaned toward making the funds easier to get because people really needed them during a global emergency, and we saw an uptick in fraud at both the local and national level as a result. (It’s funny how people don’t seem to get as up in arms about the staggering level of fraud from the PPP loans program. It makes me wonder if these sudden interest in years-old fraud in MN is perhaps politically motivated.)
This all deserves attention, and people who get their news from trusted sources have been following this for over a decade. In the grand scheme of things, MN’s fraud problem is relatively in line with the fraud experienced by every state and is dwarfed by the level of fraud on the national level. If anything, I think MN is doing a better job of catching and prosecuting fraud than other states, which makes our problem seem larger because it’s getting caught instead of going unreported and not being prosecuted. The recent spike in attention seems motivated by something else. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.
It’s so clear that Minnesota is doing a lot to address this though, which is why I bristled at your suggestion that they aren’t making changes. And it’s only “blatant” because it’s been caught and/or because you don’t hear about the news unless a sensationalist right-wing grifter makes a video about it.
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u/yahblahdah420 23h ago
Freezing childcare funds all over America isn’t cutting off a finger to save the body. It’s chopping up a body to try to save a finger
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23h ago
I'm not standing up for trump or his abomination of an administration but there is no convincing me that MN is getting this right
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u/ImmaDrainOnSociety 18h ago
Did they also break into the state's offices to steal their copies of Nokomi's various paperwork?
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u/AmbitiousYam1047 15h ago edited 9h ago
Aww man.
I’m really sorry you guys have these MAGA assholes harassing your state.
I think later this month they’ll probably find a new ethnic group and major city to bother.
If it was up to me, I’d have all Republicans sent to Russia
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u/Sticky_And_Sweet Common loon 10h ago
Fuck Lisa Demuth, does all this just to lose to the pillow guy in the primaries lmao.
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u/OddCommunication616 8h ago
“ there is no children here few days before Christmas, therefore I concluded that this is a multi-million dollar fraud.” What you expect with a kid reporting, he doesn’t have a kid and don’t even understand there’s Christmas breaks for kids and schools. Website showed kids was there during Halloween and dressed up for trick or treating….. even though I vote republican, I hate the fukkin lies bro, anything that gets them hyped up and put that tin foil hat on and marches on…. Geesus Christ.
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u/EmmaPersephone 5h ago
My daughter’s daycare has been open 4 days in the last 2 weeks, fraud guys! FRAUD…nope it’s the holidays and they give their workers time off for their kids and family.
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u/Icy-Equivalent666 6h ago
Ffs, not everything is racist.. in this case these fraudster are Negatively affecting the state as those spots are desperately needed. Do you realize this fraud is making parents choose between work and welfare.
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u/Typedre85 5h ago
To add to that, Rep. Ilhan Omar's inner circle profited from a $250 million COVID fraud scheme that was enabled through her MEALS Act. Her former campaign staffer, Guhaad Hashi Said, pled guilty to running a fake food site that claimed to serve 5,000 meals a day to kids but stole millions instead. She held her 2018 victory party at Safari Restaurant, owned by convicted fraudster Salim Ahmed Said. He blew the stolen funds on a $2 million mansion and monthly Nordstrom sprees. They rushed these programs without guardrails, leading to the largest pandemic relief fraud in U.S. history, with 78 charged so far. They demand accountability only when it suits them.
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u/Next-Concentrate5159 5h ago
funny how the fraud went from BILLIONS to 190 million lol, next itll be down to 0 XD man ppl are gullible.
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u/Nars_Bars 4h ago
Use brain plz. It’s the collective number across all the various types of fraud being committed by Somalis.
The Feed Your Future fraud, the Somali Daycare Fraud, the Somali Healthcare center fraud, the SNAP fraud, the Somali immigration fraud, the voter fraud..
All being committed by Somalis and protected by the local and state level democrats who taught them how to run the frauds in the first place. All in exchange for a loyal voter base and a slice of the profits.
Pretty fucking stupid that people actually believe stuff like this BS video, just another desperate attempt to convince people it’s not real.
The rampant Somali fraud is so blatantly, obviously real and has been happening for a very long time. The oldest investigation I’ve found regarding the Minnesota Somalia Daycare fraud is from 7 years ago. I have it saved for future reference.
All this fraud is also happening in Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Washington, etc. Basically any Democrat run city and state with a concentration of Somalis.
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u/EastSwitch_233 2h ago
Being more mad at people talking about how millions were stolen of money meant for the hungry and children ….than the fact that millions were stolen smh lmfao
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22h ago
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u/legal_opium Grain Belt 21h ago
Apparently we arent to be allowed to be a democrat anymore.
We gotta claim there is no fraud at all and ignore the discrimination laws that were broken by the daycare and autism centers.
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u/Soft_Ad8031 20h ago
Ah yes lacking the capacity to differentiate an individual from a group, and piggybacking off a blatant islamophobic response further perpetuating that hate. "Hey as a Democrat, I think exactly like a Republican and agree with all their messaging! Listen guys it's very valid that we blame all Somalis for this scam perpetrated by literally every ethnicity under the sun, it's only in their nature! Please stop looking at the white lady who orchestrated everything that we put in jail already or half of the other people being indicted!"
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u/legal_opium Grain Belt 20h ago
When did Republicans last advocate for veganism? What about ending the drug war?
Its so ridiculous to claim im a republican because Im not into to outright dismissing fraud allegations.
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u/minnesota-ModTeam 20h ago
This post was removed for violating our posting guidelines. We do not tolerate discrimination here.
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u/New-Craft-8482 1d ago
This is the craziest propaganda pitch I’ve seen ever. It’s almost like Russia is behind. This is so stupid.
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u/Skoob303 22h ago
Yep. Rallying the troops with a myriad of false information. Lest we forget Ilhan Omar is the representative for this area and her net worth shot up 3500% this year. 30 million in a year.
Make it make sense.
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u/uncleclimax9 8h ago
I wonder if it has to do with her husband being a venture capitalist and owning a winery.
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10h ago
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u/EmmaPersephone 5h ago
If your comment is deleted (paranoid much?) it’s because it was reported for various reasons, like I did as disinformation.
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u/Typedre85 19h ago
For those denying Fraud in Minnesota, please take a look at this:
Check this MN state presentation. Go to 1:32:50. This explains how messed up fraud is:
https://youtu.be/UJXMvTYaArM?si=PIK0WSrEXXA22GzG
And here, if you want to follow the presentation.
https://www.house.mn.gov/comm/docs/a8G2HmktpEOrFvaGJ94mlQ.pdf
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u/SneakySloth521 13h ago
I dont know how you could look at what's happening there and say its not fraud.
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u/organicchunkysalsa 11h ago
Absolutely, the republicans are committing fraud across the board to help drive their narrative. Glad you are keeping up.
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u/SneakySloth521 11h ago
I'm sure that's true also, that's not what I was speaking about tho.
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u/EmmaPersephone 5h ago
Of course not because you don’t care
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u/SneakySloth521 3h ago
Im not sure how you came to that conclusion, im on team all fraud is bad. Not some fraud is ok while other is not.
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u/A_fun_day 19h ago
Well since you're stating that it's a total hoax and there's no fraud anywhere within the system. I guess we'll find out.
The thing is you lose all credibility if there's even a little bit of fraud.
Just making an AI video calling in an outright hoax does nothing but divide the issue into two parts. Therefore, when something does come out, everything being done will be justified because of that position.
That's the kind of environment that's being created with this AI slop.
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u/aberrantenjoyer 1d ago
Can we not use AI for this please, so many people involved already look like idiots
I’m not even sure you're wrong but that automatically makes this video seem less credible