> After BuzzFeed News reached out to the White House for this story, all the friends on the president’s Venmo account were removed. A White House spokesperson did not have an immediate comment.
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> By late Friday night, the Venmo accounts tied to the president and first lady Jill Biden were no longer online.
Good on Buzzfeed to wait till the accounts were no longer active to publish the story, and good for the White House to have taken immediate action.
The public feed is there. And going through friends or friends of friends from your feed is there for any one to see. No reason for the site to even use the JSON stuff. That seems like it is making things seem more complex and Hackery to manipulate a lay person into thinking it’s more than what is already visible.
I skimmed the stories. Seems like it’s made up assumptions.
I’m not saying the way Venmo is, is right. Just that the site is painting a weird narrative.
We already know who his wife and grandchildren are, so it doesn't strike me as particularly dangerous to have the ability to see what the article describes as fewer than ten of Biden’s contacts. The man has been in public life for about 50 years, so presumably there has been ample time to collect information on him. Knowing his venmo ID and contacts doesn't necessarily carry much information that would empower a malicious actor. It's an interesting story for sure, but "privacy nightmare" is a stretch.
As long as you use venmo for transactions that are publicly defensible with connections that are publicly known, and you ignore all payment requests, what are the risks of keeping an account as a public figure?
Reading the plea deal from yesterday from Greenberg was so ridiculous at how little anyone tried to hide anything. The entire thing from start to finish was documented by them in one form or another, how it went on as long as it did shocks me.
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> By late Friday night, the Venmo accounts tied to the president and first lady Jill Biden were no longer online.
Good on Buzzfeed to wait till the accounts were no longer active to publish the story, and good for the White House to have taken immediate action.