Category: Laptops

• Elon Musk has been weighing in more and more on political issues since buying Twitter.
• Once positioning himself as neutral, he now shares anti-Democratic conspiracies and endorses the GOP.
• “Any argument that he’s trying to empower the center is patently bullshit,” a researcher on extremism told Insider.

Though he has long touted himself as “somewhere in the middle” on politics, Elon Musk has been sharing increasingly more conservative political views on Twitter since he first showed interest in purchasing the platform, and is now regularly amplifying anti-Democratic conspiracy theories while endorsing Republican candidates across the country.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk wrote in a tweet this May. He then bashed the Democratic Party, adding: “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.” 

In November, he called on “independent-minded voters” to vote Republican to curb a Democratic majority. While such an endorsement may seem commonplace in today’s political landscape, critics warn Musk’s widespread influence and increasingly conspiratorial posts appear to be favoring far-right extremism.

“I think he’s intentionally empowering right-wing extremists,” J.M. Berger, a researcher on extremism on social media like Twitter, told Insider. “Any argument that he’s trying to empower the center is patently bullshit and should be treated as such.”

Far-right conspiracy theories

Berger — who has written several books about extremist movements and is a fellow with VOX-Pol, a research network focused on violent online political extremism — told Insider it has become more difficult to talk about extremism without discussing mainstream politics, as views shared by Republican candidates have “increasingly overlapped with kind of extremist points of view,” such as a Florida GOP candidate who was banned from social media after he said he would legalize shooting federal agents on sight and another who said federal agents would leave his home “in a body bag” if they attempted to execute a search warrant, as they did at Mar-a-Lago.  

“So if we’re talking about empowering centrist voices…if you look at polling and you look at people’s attitudes, a centrist platform would not empower anti-LGBTQ+ activism and violence, because most people support equal rights for LGBTQ+ people,” Berger said. 

Musk recently amplified a debunked rumor that Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked by a lover in a sexual tryst gone wrong, sharing a link to an article that claimed Pelosi and his attacker met at a gay bar, and saying there “might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

The 82-year-old husband of the Speaker of the House was beaten with a hammer in a “politically motivated” attack, according to the San Francisco District Attorney. 

“What we’ve seen since he did this takeover is that he started off positioning himself as super neutral and he’s sort of explicitly saying he’s politically neutral,” Berger said. “And then there are two things that we’ve seen since then: First is in his interactions on Twitter, he is increasingly palling around with, and apparently paying heed to some of the worst people on the far right.”

Lately, Musk’s Twitter mentions and replies include promising users like the infamous right-wing account Libs of TikTok — which is known for promoting anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories — that Twitter will be “much better” than it was prior to his ownership, accusing The New York Times of going “full woke,” and replying to MAGA activist Charlie Kirk’s musings about Anthony Fauci’s daughter working at Twitter with a quip that it’s a “small world…“

‘Skewed’ content moderation

In addition to Musk’s ongoing interactions with popular alt-right figures, Berger and other experts are concerned that Twitter’s current take on content moderation is encouraging extremism and hate speech on the platform.

“The way that Twitter’s content moderation has changed since he’s taken over has definitely skewed towards favoring the far-right,” Berger said.

Since his acquisition, Musk has reinstated the accounts of Kanye West, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andrew Tate, and the Babylon Bee — each of which was banned for posting antisemitic, misogynistic, or transphobic content in violation of Twitter’s policies. Musk also reinstated the account of Donald Trump after the former president was banned for inciting violence on January 6. 

Berger, who began tracking some of the English-speaking reinstated accounts that appeared on the site, said that the bulk of accounts were “abusers and harassers and trolls” empowered by the lack of robust content moderation to mobilize harassment against users. In some cases, he said, this could escalate towards violence.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate found, in the week immediately following Musk’s takeover, that use of the N-word tripled the 2022 average, anti-LGBTQ slurs were up between 39% and 53%, and antisemitic slurs rose 22%. The New York Times reported antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the first two weeks while accounts supporting ISIS came roaring back.

—𝗝.𝗠. 𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗚𝗘𝗥 #readoptimal (@intelwire) December 4, 2022

“So whatever [Musk’s] beliefs were in the beginning, or whether there has been an evolution or whether it’s something that was there all along, his tenure at Twitter has been marked by a huge increase in both the presence of far-right accounts on the platform and also in how he personally elevates some of these accounts by seeming to take them seriously and engaging with them on questions of policy,” Berger said.

The billionaire owner of Twitter has also recently suggested the now-collapsed crypto exchange FTX was used for laundering billions of dollars to the Democratic party. 

“You can kind of see — when you start looking at the stuff over time — you see some public figures who will sort of start dabbling in far-right stuff and then become increasingly oriented in that direction,” Berger said. “And it’s sort of hard to know whether it’s something they were always into, or whether they [are] making a transition in these attitudes that they have.”

Musk and the ‘mythology of the center’

In 2014, Musk described his political views as “half Democrat, half Republican” in an interview with The Atlantic reporter James Fallows, saying “I’m somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” Though he didn’t regularly weigh in on politics prior to this year, Musk said in May that he voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in recent elections — but “unprovoked attacks” against him “by leading Democrats” have caused him to switch parties.

Musk’s posts on Twitter appeared to shift to be explicitly political in February, when he shared (and then deleted) a meme comparing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler after a COVID-19 vaccine mandate was implemented among truck drivers. Since then, he has more frequently posted tweets amplifying right-wing accounts and viewpoints. 

“So, there’s a ‘mythology of the center’ that the far-right advances and that is the mythological center that Elon Musk is interested in promoting,” Berger said. “The idea is that most Americans, or typical Americans, are right-wing, family-values, red state kind of voters — and that’s evidently not true.”

While Congress is increasingly divided between extreme stances, Insider has found Americans are more united on common issues than the divide would suggest.

Insider’s 2017 analysis of partisanship in the country found 71% of Americans believe climate change is real — including a group of Trump-supporting Texans. 92% of Americans agree the government should be able to negotiate with drug companies and 86% of Americans want more infrastructure spending. Insider has also reported four out of five people support having more LGBT members of Congress.

“But by creating that mythology,” Berger said. “What they succeed in doing is tilting the entire conversation to the right and then making space for further and further kinds of right far-right views that verge into open extremism.”

Musk and representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Twitter will be getting rid of hundreds of surplus office supplies in a January auction.
• The items being auctioned off include kitchen appliances, Twitter sculptures, and office chairs.
• The lowest starting bids are $25 while the highest is $50.

Twitter fans may soon have an opportunity to own memorabilia and supplies from the social media company’s San Francisco office. 

The company is cleaning out perhaps some of its most — and least — interesting items in an auction next year.

Bidding begins on January 17, 2023, at 7 a.m. Pacific Time and ends on January 18 at 10 a.m., according to the website BidSpotter, which is listing the items that will be auctioned off by Heritage Global Partners.

The auction comes at a time when Twitter CEO Elon Musk is reducing expenses after purchasing the social media platform for $44 billion. Musk has cut everything from infrastructure budgets, employee perks like at-home Wi-Fi and travel allowances, and holiday pay for contractors.

However, in an interview with Fortune, Nick Dove, a representative at HGP, said the auction did not relate to the finances of the company, and that anyone who thought so was a “moron.” 

“They’ve sold for 44 billion, and we’re selling a couple of chairs and desks and computers,” Dove told Fortune. “So if anyone genuinely thinks that the revenue from selling a couple computers and chairs will pay for the mountain there, then they’re a moron.” 

Some unique memorabilia featured include bikes that can charge your phone, a 3-ft Twitter Bird statue, and a 6-foot “@” sign with artificial plants that can be replaced with real plants.

The auction items also include tons of industrial kitchen equipment, including refrigerators and pizza ovens, dozens of display screens, iMac monitors, and gray swivel office chairs.

Bidding begins between $25 and $50 on all items.

—Eddie Codel (@ekai) December 9, 2022

 

—Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 9, 2022

 

Ever since Musk purchased Twitter, the company and its headquarters have undergone some serious changes, including the firing of thousands of employees, the elimination of the company’s free lunch program, and a push towards a “hardcore” work culture.

Musk also began renovating some of the rooms at Twitter HQ into bedrooms and recently told employees that they should start exclusively working at Twitter’s San Francisco office.

A representative for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has picked his crew for his flight to the moon on SpaceX’s Starship.
• A crew of artists, content creators, and athletes from around the world will fly to the moon as soon as next year.
• More than a million people from 249 countries and regions had applied to fly with Maezawa.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has picked a motley crew for SpaceX’s first private lunar flight planned for next year, including DJ Steve Aoki and K-pop star T.O.P of boy band Big Bang.

Maezawa announced a crew of 10 — which includes two backups — for the mission called “dearMoon” in a YouTube video and a tweet posted on Thursday. Artists, content creators, and athletes from around the world, like American YouTuber Tim Dodd, and Indian television actor Dev Joshi are also part of the crew.

SpaceX said Maezawa and his crew will travel within 200 kilometers of the moon’s surface.

“The dearMoon crew will be the first humans Starship will launch, fly around the Moon, and safely return to Earth,” SpaceX said in its statement on Thursday. More than a million people from 249 countries and regions around the world had applied to fly with Maezawa, the company added.

Maezawa, a Japanese fashion tycoon with a net worth of $1.7 billion, had purchased all the seats on the Starship flight back in 2018. His unconventional choice of travel companions for his moon mission is in line with his eclectic and flamboyant persona. 

Last year, he gave away money as he was returning to earth from the International Space Station after a 12-day trip.

In 2020, a year before he launched an open competition for the moon mission, Maezawa announced he was specifically looking for a romantic “female partner” to accompany him to the moon. He later called off the search.

• The price cap on Russian crude and EU’s oil embargo present “new economic shocks,” the Bank of Russia said.
• They could “significantly reduce” Russia’s economic activity in the coming months, per the bank.
• Russia is mulling options to counter the price cap, including banning oil sales to some countries.

Despite the Kremlin’s general skepticism over the West’s myriad economic sanctions, analysts at the country’s central bank foresee “new economic shocks,” thanks to a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil and the European Union’s ban of the country’s crude.

The European Union, G7, and Australia have set a price cap for Russian crude that kicked in on Monday. On top of that, the EU has also banned all seaborne Russian crude.

The two measures could “significantly reduce” Russia’s economic activity in the coming months, analysts at Russian central bank’s research and forecasting department said in a report on Wednesday. They caveated that their findings may differ from the official position of the institution.

The uncertainty posed by the sanctions and restrictions came just as Russia’s economy overcame a “short-term decline” caused by President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation of men for the Ukraine war in October, according to the central bank. The bank’s analysts attributed to recovery to an increase in government orders of goods. 

While Western price and import restrictions on Russian oil could curtail the country’s economic activity in the short term, the analysts said the country’s production could decline in the longer term.

Russia’s oil production has already decreased slightly in October, the analysts added in their report, and its dynamic in the future “depends on the effect of various restrictive measures on the part of unfriendly countries.” 

Moscow has denounced the West’s price cap on its oil exports and is still working on a response to to the restrictions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, according to state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

Russia is considering several options to counter the price cap, including banning oil sales to certain countries and setting a maximum price discount for its flagship Urals crude against Brent oil, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing two sources close to the cabinet. 

Alexander Novak, the deputy prime minister said on Sunday the price cap an “interference” that could cause “destabilization, shortages of energy resources and reduction of investment” in the market, according to TASS, another state-owned news agency.

The price cap is already causing shipping disruption — oil tankers are piling up off the coast of Turkey because Ankara is demanding paperwork that the vessels are fully insured, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

With ten paid vacation days and zero paid leave days, the US — dubbed the “no-vacation nation” — has the world’s least paid leave. It’s also the only developed country with zero statutory paid leave, compared to the global average of 18.2 days.

Getty Images

That’s according to a report published by Resume.io, a career resource website that analyzed data collected in August.

“The United States’ lack of paid vacation days negatively impacts work-life balance in many ways,” Lotte van Rijswijk, a content team lead at Resume.io, told CNBC.

“Studies show that 50% of American workers are not taking vacation time. This lack of downtime could lead to burnout and stress — and in more severe cases depression and mental health conditions,” van Rijswijk added.

Conversely, Iran offers the most paid vacation days — 27 public holidays and 26 paid leave days, per the report.

To compile the report, Resume.io reviewed data on laws governing annual statutory paid leave and paid public holidays in 197 countries. Countries were ranked based on the combined number of statutory paid leave days and paid public holidays per year, the report states.

Keep reading for a look at the ten countries globally that offer people the least paid time off, ranked in descending order. Rankings denoted with a “T” symbolize a tie. Paid leave refers to the statutory minimum time off an employee can book in a year. Vacation days are the combined total of paid leave days and paid public holidays.

Resume.io did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Chinese cities have loosened COVID restrictions in the wake of mass protests, lifting Chinese stocks. 
• But market watchers are still preparing to see if China is ready to announce a full reopening of its economy. 
• Here are five things experts say they’re watching in China after protests shook the market. 

Chinese equities finished higher last week after cities throughout the country relaxed some strict COVID-19 restrictions, but questions remain whether the government will fully scrap the zero-COVID policy it put in place after the outbreak began in 2019.  

Protests in at least 17 cities erupted last week after 10 people died in an apartment fire in the city of Urumqi, with local residents angered by the building being blocked off by lockdown measures. Protestors, in a rare display of dissent against China’s authoritarian government, called for President Xi Jinping to resign.  

China’s top pandemic official last week appeared to signal a softening in the zero-COVID policy but the government has yet to pledge a comprehensive step-down. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 6.3% and the Shanghai Composite gained 1.8% last week but each remained sharply lower for 2022, down 20% and 13%, respectively.

“Hopefully … the Chinese government will start to unlock a little bit more. But knowing China, they have a habit of keeping a tight fist, “Darrell Martin, founder and CEO of Apex Trader Funding, a proprietary trading platform, told Insider. 

Retail investors should be prepared to move defensively should Beijing’s decisions on zero-COVID policy go against their respective positions, Martin said. 

“I think you definitely need to learn how to trade short in this market. That’s something that many retail traders are foreign to – where they can sell first and buy second,” he said. “There are short ETFs … and for more active investors, they can short the market in  a regular trading account or investing account.”  

Here’s what some market experts are looking at as global investors watch for developments surrounding the Chinese government’s zero-COVID stance. 

More crackdowns, more market losses. 

Emerging markets investing legend Mark Mobius said last week that Chinese stocks may come under further pressure in the face of the government’s response to dissent. 

“It’s clear to me that Xi cannot tolerate any protests, so there will be a very tough crackdown on any protesters,” Mobius told Bloomberg TV. “More people will be arrested and they will probably go further in terms of population control in many areas.”

“So if you have that kind of scenario, then you’ve got to consider that the market will probably not do that well in the short term,” he added.

FOMO is back in China 

The “recent pickup in China equity inflows … suggests the fear of missing out is back,” Emmanuel Cau, European equity analyst at Barclays, wrote this week. “China mobility in 2022 is now lower than it was in 2020, when the pandemic started, while it is the opposite for Europe and US,” he wrote. 

“So while reopening may not be a smooth process, all else equal, it seems reasonable to expect a positive growth impulse, or less growth drag, from zero-Covid next year in China compared to this year, in our view.” 

Metals prices to get a lift 

A China reopening would contribute upside potential for certain metals, Bank of America said, noting China accounts for 50% of global metals demand. 

“A second leg higher in the Fed’s tightening cycle in 2H23 remains a key downside risk to commodity prices, particularly gold. Yet we expect Chinese economic activity to pick up firmly as Zero Covid policies are gradually eased lending support to the commodity complex,” wrote Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities at BofA. 

The bank said it’s increasingly constructive on transition metals like copper as Chinese spending on infrastructure and its electrical grid should combine with rising sales of electric vehicles. Copper could rise to $12,000 a ton next yea and aluminum may reach $2,738 a tonne.  

Position for China’s re-opening 

Being bullish on energy stocks in the way to be positioned if China were to “truly” reopen its economy in the second quarter of 2023, Anastasia Amoroso, chief investment strategist at iCapital, wrote in a note. 

The “country’s traffic congestion, airline bookings and flights, and overall mobility should [recover] meaningfully, supporting more demand for oil in an otherwise constrained supply environment,” she said. 

Brent crude oil traded above $85 a barrel on Friday and has lost about 13% over the past month. The S&P 500 energy sector has risen modestly over the past month but it’s zoomed up 64% during 2022. 

China policy, after all, is “impossible to predict” 

Activist short-seller Carson Block said this week on CNBC that China has not been outlining its economic policy goals and investors need to price in such risk. 

The founder of Muddy Waters Research said projections from Wall Street investment banks about China’s next COVID policy moves are viewed from the “prior lens” of a government that was open to foreign investment and raising its citizens’ standards of living. 

“You have to understand that nobody has an edge as to predicting China policy anymore. The guy you know who’s got lots of ‘guanxi’ or relationships in China? No, that doesn’t matter anymore,” Block said. “So you have to price in to what you’re willing to pay the understanding that you wake up one morning and [say], ‘It’s down 90%.’ Because that’s what China is now. It is impossible to predict on a macro level.”

• Shannon Epstein, the niece of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, was arrested on Spirit Airlines. 
• Epstein reportedly asked passengers she thought were Latino if they were carrying cocaine
• Epstein had to be handcuffed to a wheelchair, The Times-Picayune reported.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s 25-year-old niece was arrested on a handful of charges, including six counts of battery, after causing a scene on a Spirit Airlines flight departing from Louis Armstrong International Airport on Thanksgiving Day, the Times-Picayune reported. 

Before the plane’s departure for New Jersey, Shannon Epstein reportedly made passengers uncomfortable after asking a family she perceived to be Latino if they were “smuggling cocaine,” Capt. Jason Rivarde of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office told the Times-Picayune. 

After employees requested she be removed from the flight, Epstein resisted and began struggling with deputies, the Times-Picayune reported.

Six deputies were injured, including one who was bit by Epstein. Another deputy was kicked in the groin, the outlet reported.

Epstein was eventually detained after seven deputies handcuffed her to a chair, but the politician’s niece reportedly taunted law enforcement by telling them they would get in trouble for arresting her as a result of Christie’s connections to former President Donald Trump, the outlet reported.

Epstein was released from Jefferson Parish Correctional Center the same day after paying $10,750 bail. She is set to appear in court on January 23. 

The case will most likely end up under the jurisdiction of a federal court, due to federal laws that pertain to passenger disruptions on planes.

The Jefferson Parish Police Department, Spirit Airlines, and representatives for Christie did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Twitter’s decision to throttle stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop prompted bipartisan criticism.
• Though the laptop was authenticated, some reports about its content have not been confirmed.
• Some lawmakers have since called to repeal Section 230, a law “that created the internet.”

Newly published internal communications regarding Twitter’s decision to throttle a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in late 2020 revealed the social platform fielded widespread bipartisan criticism over its decision. The criticism has since intensified a movement to repeal Section 230, which could change the Internet forever. 

Matt Taibbi, who writes the Substack newsletter “TK News,” on Friday posted a thread of tweets he titled “The Twitter Files” that included screenshots of internal correspondence about the social platform’s content moderation system. In a note to his readers on Substack, Taibbi wrote he had to “agree to certain conditions” in order to publish the files, though he did not reveal what those conditions were. 

When reached via phone, Taibbi declined to comment to Insider.

Much of Taibbi’s thread focused on Twitter’s handling of the New York Post’s October 2020 story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which the Post reported was left in a Delaware repair shop. Early reports about the laptop were met with skepticism by social media platforms — which faced heavy criticism about content moderation following the 2016 controversy regarding then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails — and warnings from law enforcement about disinformation campaigns spread through social apps.

Elon Musk and representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself confirmed in an August interview with Joe Rogan that his platforms suppressed reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election, saying it “fit the pattern” of misinformation Facebook had been advised by the FBI to look out for. Though the laptop and some of its contents have since been authenticated as belonging to Biden, some reports about its content have not been confirmed. 

The documents published by Taibbi focused on internal discussions among Twitter staff regarding the laptop story and the ultimate decision to slow its reach across the platform and label it using the platform’s “hacked materials” policy. At the time, the veracity of the reporting was under question and it was unclear whether the material reported to be on the laptop had been legally obtained, though critics were quick to question why Twitter had chosen to throttle the material.

“I say this as a total Biden partisan and convinced he didn’t do anything wrong,” Taibbi reported Rep. Ro Khanna wrote in an email to the head of Twitter’s legal department, Vijaya Gadde, at the time. “But the story now has become more about censorship than relatively innocuous emails and it’s become a bigger deal than it would have been. It is also now leading to serious efforts to curtail section 230 — many of which would have been a mistake.”

Section 230 is a clause in the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which its advocates have called “the most important law protecting internet speech.” The 26-word phrase “that created the internet” limits legal liability for tech platforms hosting user-generated content — that is, in other words, a social media platform like Twitter cannot be held legally responsible for any illegal content posted by its users.

The section says: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Tech companies view a potential reversal as a threat to free speech that would force small web hosts to close their sites or risk legal liability for what their users posts.

Representatives for Khanna did not answer questions about the congressman’s current position on whether or not to repeal Section 230.

“I believe our Constitution and First Amendment are sacred,” Rep. Khanna of California said in a statement emailed to Insider. “As the congressman who represents Silicon Valley, I felt Twitter’s actions were a violation of First Amendment principles so I raised those concerns. Our democracy can only thrive if we are open to a marketplace of ideas and engaging with people with whom we disagree.”

Khanna was not alone in his criticism of Twitter’s move – which the site’s former trust and safety chief has since said was a mistake. Taibbi reported 9 Republicans and 3 Democrats surveyed by a research firm in 2020 also disapproved of the decision — and bipartisan calls for the reform or reversal of Section 230 have increased since the Hunter Biden laptop story.

“I’m more determined than ever to strip Section 230 protections from Big Tech (Twitter) that let them be immune from lawsuits,” Sen. Lindsay Graham tweeted in January 2021, just months after the Hunter Biden story surfaced and shortly after he introduced legislation to repeal section 230. “Big Tech are the only companies in America that virtually have absolute immunity from being sued for their actions, and it’s only because Congress gave them that protection.”

Donald Trump made Section 230 a staple issue of his presidency, singling out Twitter for what he called “selective censorship” after the platform added warning labels to several of his tweets regarding voting by mail. In the final weeks of his presidency, Trump vetoed a $740 billion defense bill, in part because it did not repeal Section 230. 

Republican criticism of Section 230 often centers around claims of tech platforms censoring conservative viewpoints, while Democratic critics say the law allows social companies to avoid doing more to combat hate speech and disinformation.

“I’m calling on Congress to get rid of special immunity for social media companies and impose much stronger transparency requirements on all of them,” Al Jazeera reported Biden said earlier this year, calling to repeal Section 230.

Should Section 230 be repealed, free speech advocates worry the digital landscape would radically change — by forcing website hosts to be held liable for the content posted to their sites, moderators would likely eliminate potential legal risk by drastically limiting what they allow users to post or by shutting down entirely. 

“Repealing Section 230 is a drastic step that would upend the internet, punishing successful firms and internet users for the behavior of an antisocial minority,” read an essay by Will Duffield, a policy analyst for the think tank Cato Institute. “Heaping legal liability on platforms will not render them more thoughtful or judicious. It will cause some to close, and others to exclude all but the most inoffensive sentiments.”

• Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” is the most streamed throwback song on Spotify this year.
• Spotify defines “throwback songs” as those released over 20 years ago.
• The song saw a 8,700% increase in Spotify streams this year, thanks to Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things.

Kate Bush’s classic “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” has taken the pole position as the most streamed throwback song on Spotify in 2022. 

A Spotify Wrapped report on November 30 showed that streams of the song rose by more than 8,700% globally, during the Spring. 

“Throwback songs” are defined by Spotify as songs that were released over 20 years ago. 

The 64-year-old English singer-songwriter’s pop song — which was first released in 1985 — saw a chart resurgence back in June thanks to the latest season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” The 1985 hit played a crucial role in the series, as it was used to symbolize the isolation and alienation that Max Mayfield –portrayed by actor Sadie Sink– felt.

Since the series premiered on May 27, the song went on to top both Billboard global charts in June, dethroning Harry Styles’ “As It Was.” Back in 1985, the then newly-released song only managed to climb to 30th position on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, per Billboard. 

The song has also broken three Guinness World Records: The record for the longest time taken for a single to top the UK single charts, the record for the longest gap between No. 1 singles on the UK single charts, and the record for the oldest female artist to score a top hit on the UK single’s chart.

The song was given a “whole new lease of life” by young fans of the Netflix series, Bush said in a statement. 

Spotify and Bush did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.