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Quid pro quo, brother?

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has been on the receiving end of criticism from pro wrestling fans over the past few days as the company has seemingly embraced its ties to President Donald Trump.

However, one of WWE’s most recent overtures to Trump and his MAGA movement appears to have gone unnoticed: The company just provided the niece of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, an opportunity at becoming a WWE Superstar.

While WWE was in the tri-state area for its second biggest show of the year, the two-day WWE SummerSlam event, the company held tryouts in New Jersey for up-and-coming athletes as part of its WWE Recruit program.

One individual who was invited to try out at becoming a future WWE wrestler was Zoe Hines.

Her biography as covered by news outlets, pro wrestling blogs, and other online media makes mention that Hines previously played softball for Boston College and now plays in France.

However, what seemingly went unnoticed and unmentioned is that Zoe Hines is RFK Jr.’s niece.

Zoe Hines is the daughter of Rebecca Hines, the sister of RFK Jr.’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

Photographs taken at the tryouts show that Cheryl Hines was in attendance at the WWE tryout in support of her niece Zoe.

On Instagram, Zoe Hines has previously posted photos with her aunt and uncle, including photos of her attendance as a guest at Trump’s election night party in November 2024 and Trump’s Inauguration weekend events in January of this year.

It should be noted that both RFK Jr. and WWE Chief Content Officer Paul Levesque, better known by his ring name as Triple H, posted on social media about a meeting the two held with each other earlier this year in June concerning the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition.

“Thank you for having us, @SecKennedy,” Triple H posted on X on June 13. “Always striving to do whatever we can to help make our nation’s youth as healthy as they can be.”

Six weeks later, on July 24, wrestling news site PWInsider would report the first athletes confirmed for the WWE tryout held this past weekend. Alongside a former football player for Michigan State and an amateur wrestler, Zoe Hines was one of the initial six names to be invited to the tryout.

While not a required trait for athletes attending WWE tryouts, it should be noted that Hines has no pro wrestling experience or training.

In addition, out of the dozens of athletes, Hines was one of the only tryout attendees to be featured by name in a photo of the event shared by Triple H.

Wrestling fans have criticized the WWE in recent days for embracing Trump by promoting Triple H’s recent meeting at the White House with the president on July 31, just days before SummerSlam.

Hooking up RFK JR.’s niece with a tryout is just yet another extension of WWE’s MAGA embrace. Or, as Triple H used to say “what’s best for business.”

Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is currently banning links to “Signal.me,” a URL used by the encrypted messaging service Signal. The “Signal.me” domain is specifically used by the service so that users can send out a quick link to directly contact them through the messaging app.

X, formerly Twitter, is blocking users from posting a “Signal.me” link through DM, public post, or even in their profile page. When trying to post a Signal link, users receive a variety of different “message failed” prompts depending on what version of the X platform they use (i.e. X for web, X for iPhone, etc.)

“We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by X or our partners as being potentially harmful,” reads one failure prompt when attempting to post a “Signal.me” link on X.

“This request looks like it might be automated” reads another prompt. “To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can’t complete this action right now. Please try again later.”

An attempt to add a “Signal.me” link in a profile bio resulted in an error message saying “Account update failed. Description is considered malware.”

X is also blocking users from clicking existing “Signal.me” links published prior to the URL’s ban.

Users who attempt to click on a “Signal.me” link already posted to X are currently met with a warning page from X that reads “Warning: this link may be unsafe. The link you are trying to access has been identified by X or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe, in accordance with X's URL Policy.“ However, users are given the choice to ignore the warning and click an additional link on the warning page to direct to the original “Signal.me” URL.

Its unclear when X blocked “Signal.me” links on the platform. However, it seems like a fairly recent change as users have previously been able to include “Signal.me” links in public posts and in their profile bio. Other Signal links, such as Signal.org, do not appear to be blocked. Only the “Signal.me” URLs which are used to directly contact users through the app appear to be affected.

It appears that Signal is the only service currently affected. Links to other similar third-party services, such as URLs to contact users on Telegram, are allowed on X.

Security researchers at Mysk first noticed the issue on Sunday night, Feb. 16. They reached out to me via DM and we were able to confirm the various different ways (DM, post, profile bio, etc.) that X was blocking “Signal.me” links.

Signal has been an important tool for journalists over the years as really one of the few services that are truly private. All messages are end-to-end encrypted, everything is stored on device, and no content is kept on any Signal servers in the cloud. If a source wants to reach out to a reporter and be sure their communication would be as confidential as possible, Signal is usually one of the primary methods of choice.

Needless to say, Signal has been especially important over these past few weeks as federal employees have reached out to journalists to blow the whistle on what Elon Musk’s DOGE have been doing with access to data within numerous government agencies.

As of publishing, Signal users can still post their Signal handle on X, which users can then copy and paste into the Signal app.

Anyone who has tips or other news that they’d like to securely send my way can reach me on Signal @MattBinder.01 or via my direct “Signal.me” link: https://signal.me/#eu/P01wpUmC4nT2BBTwMrPAw7Nxcp81055tKHGbYwCkQbo7TNzMHPRKWquiWEttS85C

Remember the time that Donald Trump posted a link on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account about “Trump’s Meat” that featured a nude photo of himself?

No? Well, of course you don’t. It didn’t happen. But, then, how can you see this photo seemingly featuring the President Trump, fully nude, getting a spray tan, in a tweet that Trump posted back in 2013?

That’s because President Donald Trump’s posts on X were hijacked last week after an exploit was discovered on the link shortener platform Bitly by crypto pump and dump scammers.

Hijack, pump, and dump

Over the course of a few hours, memecoin creators were able to “hack” old posts on Donald Trump’s X account via Bitly short URLs and insert their own links that sent users to their pump.fun page where their their newly-created pump and dump tokens could be purchased.

Pump.fun a crypto platform that lets anyone easily create a memecoin to buy and sell. Many memecoins created on the platform are pump and dump schemes where the creator and early-buying insiders sell off large quantities of the token for a profit as soon as regular users start to buy-in.

For example, one tweet that Trump posted in April 2013 reads “Follow me on Instagram-.“ The link once included a short link from Bitly that forwarded users to Trump’s Instagram. However, after the crypto scammers discovered the Bitly bug, they were able to take over Trump’s old Bitly link that went to his Instagram and instead directed users to their newly-minted ”DJT“ memecoin listing on pump.fun.

The scheme appeared to work as some crypto traders did not want to seemingly miss out on what could’ve been another one of Trump’s official cryptocurrencies like the $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins that launched the weekend of the Inauguration. The DJT token had a $1 million market cap with over $7 million in trade value at one point. Some DJT holders made off with as much as six-figures in profit after selling before the token was dumped.

Bitly has since fixed the issue and killed the hijacked short URL links entirely.

“This link or QR Code has been deactivated,” reads a Bitly error page that Trump’s old Instagram Bitly link now forwards to since the flaw was patched.

Elon Musk’s X still displays the memecoin social media preview image in the tweets as seen here: https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/321663611766452224

While the crypto schemers did not have access to Trump’s actual X account, they quickly discovered that they could hijack links to a number of President Trump’s old posts that had included Bitly links.

“My thoughts on the @hannityshow and my appearance at The Tea Party this weekend....” read the aforementioned 2013 Trump post that now included a link to a memecoin called “Trump’s Meat.”

The social media preview image features a picture from a 2017 photoshoot spoof with a buck-naked Trump impersonator back in 2017. The preview image can still be seen on Trump’s post on X: https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/58919218913099776

At least one Bitly link in an old 2013 post from Melania Trump’s official account was also hijacked.

How did this happen?

When a user creates a short link on Bitly, it usually looks like this: “bit.ly/” followed by a randomized string of numbers and letters created by the service. However, users can also choose to customized the back-half that comes after the slash.

If a custom back-half of a Bitly link is already in use, Bitly will lets users know that its already taken.

However, it appears that there was a bug in Bitly that allowed users to create a custom back-half that was previously in use if the original link or Bitly account that created the link was deleted or deactivated.

Using this method, memecoin creators were able to promote their own pump and dump schemes in Trump posts that were originally published before Dogecoin, the first ever memecoin, was even created.

As previously mentioned, Bitly has since fixed the bug and removed the redirects that were hijacked.

While Trump and his team do not appear to be responsible for the security flaw, its clear that bad actors are looking to piggyback off of his legitimatization of the memecoin space, which is rife with scams and illicit activity, in order to profit – just like Trump is.

When Donald Trump rode out in a garbage truck a few days ago, his campaign and supporters thought they had something big on their hands. A possible gaffe from Joe Biden potentially gave the MAGA faithful a new “basket of deplorables” moment, harking back to Hillary Clinton’s blunder in 2016.

But, it doesn’t appear like that is going to happen this time. In fact, it appears the opposite may happen. Trump is the one with the misstep because his campaign and supporters are just way too online.

Garbage

When Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden last weekend, one very specific moment went viral: Rally speaker and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s comment calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

Hinchcliffe’s “joke” received such a negative reaction that the Trump campaign put out a press release not too short after distancing itself from the comments. However, the damage was already done. From mainstream media to clips spreading on TikTok, X, and other social media platforms, a Trump rally speaker calling Puerto Rico “garbage” was headline news.

Subsequent polls showed that among swing states with significant Puerto Rican populations, Hinchcliffe’s comment may actually make the difference.

Garbage Truck

Fast forward just two days later and Trump’s campaign and his supporters thought they had the antidote to Hinchcliffe’s comment, which was still being talked about.

During a Zoom call with Latino voters, Biden appeared to call Trump’s supporters “garbage” when discussing the Puerto Rico comment from just days earlier at Trump’s MSG rally. The White House claims that Biden said “supporter’s” with an apostrophe, as if he was just referring to Hinchcliffe. We can debate about what Biden really said but it honestly does’t seem to matter.

Trump’s campaign and his supporters pounced. Right wingers online were starting to refer to themselves as “garbage” like they did back in 2016 when Clinton called them “deplorables.” Trump fans shared their intent to wear garbage bags for Hallowen. Some even did.

But, the day before Halloween, while Trump was in Wisconsin, the former President decided to don an orange-and-yellow safety vest and hop into the passenger seat of a garbage truck. The thinking appeared to be that, much like his “day working at McDonald’s” stunt, Trump’s “garbage truck” stunt would endear him with regular, everyday people.

Too Online

Now, just days away from the election, the Huffington Post published an article basically confirming what I assumed might happen: Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico “garbage” went extremely viral and Biden seemingly calling Trump supporters “garbage” did not.

The HuffPost article focuses on Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania and found that Hinchcliffe’s “joke” is making a real impact with voters. You can read the article here.

However, one interesting moment towards the end of HuffPost’s piece is about Trump’s “garbage truck” comment specifically.

Two Puerto Rican voters tell HuffPost that “Hinchcliffe’s remarks were the reason they planned to vote for Harris on Tuesday.” One of those voters shares that Trump’s garbage truck stunt in Wisconsin was “an additional insult.”

“If he didn’t have nothing to do with it, what’s he doing in the garbage truck?” the voter said.

As I predicted, it appears that there are some voters out there who did not know that Trump’s garbage truck stunt was a reference to Biden’s comment. They assumed it was Trump backing or doubling down on Hinchcliffe’s joke.

Taking a look at Google Trends, it appears that Trump and his campaign may have thought that the Biden comment went much further than it did thanks to the right wing echo chamber.

Embedded in this post is both the past 7 days and 30 days of Google Trends data for searches on “Puerto Rico,” “Tony Hinchcliffe,” and search terms for Biden’s garbage comment and Trump’s garbage truck stunt.

The Biden “garbage” comment never gets anywhere near as viral as searches for Hinchcliffe or his joke about Puerto Rico. However, searches for Trump’s garbage truck stunt surges beyond the Biden comment and seems to garner the same interest as Hinchcliffe’s joke.

So, it seems there are quite a few people out there who have heard about Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico joke at Trump’s rally and have heard about Trump’s garbage truck stunt, however, they may not have any idea about Biden’s comment. According to at least one Puerto Rican voter, what’s left to do but assume that Trump was endorsing Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico being garbage?

Earlier this week, you might have seen the headlines involving the death of a TikTok influencer named Taylor Rousseau Grigg. Over the weekend, her husband announced on Instagram that the social media star sadly passed away at the young age of 25. 

In numerous videos over the past few years, Rousseau Grigg had shared with her more than 1.4 million TikTok followers that she was experiencing health issues. Although, she never disclosed exactly what they were. 

With over one million followers on her TikTok account @itstaylorrousseau, Rousseau Grigg’s passing made headline news. NBC News, TMZ, E! Online, HuffPost, People magazine, New York Post, and many more covered the “sudden” death of the TikTok influencer.

Anti-vaxxers quickly glommed on to Rousseau Grigg’s death to spread conspiracies– regardless of the fact that the TikTok influencer previously went viral due to her own anti-vax beliefs.

“Died Suddenly”

In quoting Rousseau Grigg’s husband, many media outlets described the 25-year-old TikTok creator’s passing as having “died suddenly.” 

The phrase “died suddenly” has become sort of a Bat-Signal for anti-vax conspiracy theorists who falsely believe the COVID-19 vaccine has been responsible for recent deaths involving young people.

X / Twitter user Matt Wallace, a regular right-wing disinformation spreader, received nearly 6 million views and over 11,000 likes for his post about Rousseau Grigg’s.

“Christian Tik Tok  influencer Taylor Rousseau Grigg has been found dead “suddenly and unexpectedly,” Wallace posted to his more than 2 million followers on X. Wallace included a video compilation of photos depicting Rousseau Grigg’s health struggles. 

Wallace’s followers immediately started speculating that it was the COVID-19 vaccination that led to Rousseau Grigg’s death.

“The jab? That’s so sad.. so young,” replied @akafacehots, another right-wing X user with more than 400,000 followers.

Similar anti-vax conspiracy theories also spread on other social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, regarding her death.

Taylor Rousseau Grigg: Viral anti-vaxxer

Aside from conspiracies about vaccine-related deaths having been debunked, it seems unlikely that Taylor Rousseau Grigg’s was even vaccinated.

Rousseau Grigg was mostly known as a “lifestyle” influencer. Most of her content appeared to just be about her everyday personal life. Her Christian faith was a regular topic of her videos. And her content did sometimes overlap with right-wing ideologies. In one TikTok video, for example, she referred to herself as “anti-feminist.”

When I first saw the stories pop-up in my feeds about her death, I knew she looked familiar regardless of the fact that I don’t normally watch this type of content. Then, I realized that there was one video of hers I had previously watched that had crossed over to those outside her fanbase – it was an anti-vax video.

In October 2020, Rousseau Grigg’s went viral across multiple social media platforms thanks to a video she posted on TikTok about COVID vaccines, which she refers to as “the mark of the beast.” 

In the scripted video, Rousseau Grigg appears as, seemingly herself, a blonde girl wearing a red cap while a melodramatic, slowed down version of “Train Wreck” by James Arthur plays in the background. She turns down the COVID vaccine after another character (also played by Rousseau Grigg) accepted the vaccination and had a “chip implanted.”

“Do you understand that if you deny it, you will be killed…” reads on-screen dialogue.  Rousseau Grigg’s character accepts these terms as she appears to be physically beaten by an entity off-screen. After depicting herself with a black eye and blood pouring down her mouth and nose, Rousseau Grigg’s character is executed.

“Well done, good and faithful servant,” God says to the TikTok influencer as she appears in heaven.

Shortly after this video was released, it was everywhere on social media. Mainstream outlets, like the BBC and Vox, all covered her video at the time. Thanks to the anti-vax rhetoric combined with the over-the-top dramatics from Rousseau Grigg, the TikTok influencer unintentionally created a perfect internet comedy video. It instantly became a viral hit.

But, none of the media outlets covering her passing mentioned Rousseau Grigg’s biggest claim to mainstream fame. It seems to have been completely forgotten. 

The cause of Rousseau Grigg’s tragic death has not been disclosed. But, its safe to say it wasn’t due to the vaccine.

X owner Elon Musk has once again hijacked a rare coveted username from its original user.

This time, however, the takeover wasn’t for the good of X the company, it was so Musk could promote Donald Trump for president.

On Saturday, Musk appeared at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler Pennsylvania. However, earlier that day, Musk began promoting his pro-Trump Super PAC, called America PAC, using a brand new handle @America.

“Read @America to understand why I’m supporting Trump for President,” Musk’s new bio said as of approximately 1:30pm ET on Saturday, Oct. 5.

The @America handle appeared attached to a brand new account setup just this month, in October 2024. However, this rare, one-word geographic handle had already been long registered by another X user more than 14 years prior to Musk taking the handle from them, in September 2010.

According to a person familiar with the situation, X took the handle from the user much like how Musk’s social media company took the @X handle from its original registrant last year. 

The taking of @America

Back in July 2023, Musk had just rebranded then-Twitter to X. However, there was one problem: A user was already on the platform with the handle @X. 

The original user behind @X, event photography owner Gene X. Hwang originally registered the rare one-letter handle way back in March 2007.  

More than 16 years after he first registered the @X account, the company now-run by Musk took it from him.

"[I] got an email basically saying they are taking it," Hwang told me at the time.

Users do not technically own their handles on X. The company has policies that outline how they can basically repossess a handle at anytime, although this usually pertains to copyright issues or misuse of a particular handle.

And, as it pertains to the @X handle, the company had a good case that they should have ownership of it as part of the rebrand to avoid confusion and potential platform safety issues – although clearly they could have handled the situation better.

However, in the case of @America, there is no X company-related reasoning to take the handle. Musk, the platform’s owner, decided he wanted the @America handle to promote his presidential candidate of choice, Donald Trump. 

“There is only one candidate in this race who is on the right side of these issues: Donald J. Trump,” the @America handle posted after Musk took it over.

So, what happened to the original @America account? X changed the handle on the account to the much-less unique and catchy @America123_12. Their posts still exist. It appears the original owner hasn’t posted on X since it was called Twitter, in May 2020. 

The original @America user had previously criticized both Trump and Musk. Posts exist on the account from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic called Musk “irresponsible” and Trump’s actions “anti-American.”

“Freedom is not the question here, its safety. You're irresponsible. Are you even a full time resident?” the original @America account posted in May 2020 in a reply to Musk.

X’s policies do make mention of how inactive accounts are eligible to have their usernames taken, so X certainly has extra cover there. It should be noted though, that before Musk took over the company, Twitter rarely stole usernames from users who originally registered them unless there were copyright or impersonation issues. The company itself would often register new handles, like @TwitterSupport, instead of taking the more generic @Support from the original user who registered it.

However, again, X taking @America wasn’t done in the company’s interest or due to copyright issues or even to create a neutral resource for citizens in the country represented by the rare handle.

“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” Musk posted in April 2022, when he originally shared his intent to acquire the company then-known as Twitter.

This past weekend, he abused his power at that same company in a politically biased way.

X helped its owner, Elon Musk, gain access to the X handle @America by taking it from its original user so it can be used in a politically biased way – to promote presidential candidate Donald Trump.