Browsed by
Category: Social media

Authorities monitor online criticism of New Orleans immigration crackdown

Authorities monitor online criticism of New Orleans immigration crackdown

The Associated Press reports: State and federal authorities are closely tracking online criticism and protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in New Orleans, monitoring message boards around the clock for threats to agents while compiling regular updates on public “sentiment” surrounding the arrests, according to law enforcement records reviewed by the Associated Press. The intelligence gathering comes even as officials have released few details about the first arrests made last week as part of “Catahoula Crunch”, prompting calls for…

Read More Read More

The bad reasoning in the Meta antitrust ruling isn’t even the worst part

The bad reasoning in the Meta antitrust ruling isn’t even the worst part

Tim Wu writes: On Tuesday, the federal judge James Boasberg dismissed the U.S. government’s main antitrust case against Meta, ruling that the company, worth more than $1.5 trillion, does not possess a monopoly in personal social networking. He did so in the face of strong evidence to the contrary, not to mention common sense. But to dwell on the shortcomings of Judge Boasberg’s reasoning is to overlook something even worse: the message that his ruling sends to the country. The…

Read More Read More

Elon Musk’s X where nothing is as it appears and everything is possible

Elon Musk’s X where nothing is as it appears and everything is possible

Charlie Warzel writes: Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X rolled out a feature that had the immediate result of sowing maximum chaos. The update, called “About This Account,” allows people to click on the profile of an X user and see such information as: which country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the feature was “an important first step…

Read More Read More

How Trump lost control of the Epstein spin cycle

How Trump lost control of the Epstein spin cycle

David Gilbert writes: For almost a decade, President Donald Trump has managed to control the conspiracy theory spin around disgraced financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The conspiracy theories benefited him; they were one of the factors buoying him to office. It’s only been in the last few weeks—spurred by the release of new Epstein documents and the public defection of GOP lawamkers—that the complex web of misinformation has spun out of Trump’s control. It all began with QAnon….

Read More Read More

The rise of the white-nationalist streamer, Nick Fuentes, should worry us even more than it already does

The rise of the white-nationalist streamer, Nick Fuentes, should worry us even more than it already does

Jay Caspian Kang writes: Part of what separates Fuentes from his fellow-streamers is that he is capable of keeping his thoughts in a coherent, if odious, order. He once offered a trollish, occasionally captivating, and always grossly bigoted hour-long act; that has evolved into something more like a daily address, one that presents a code of behavior and a set of distinct ideas. As recently as a year ago, I’m not sure I could have told you what Fuentes thought…

Read More Read More

‘I’m not a foreign agent,’ says Laura Loomer. But is she just a hired gun?

‘I’m not a foreign agent,’ says Laura Loomer. But is she just a hired gun?

Antonia Hitchens writes: One night at Ned’s Club, a members-only lounge with views of the White House, Nigel Farage, the British politician who heads the populist Reform Party, was hosting a bash for the right-wing television channel GB News, which was opening a bureau in D.C. Several members of Trump’s Cabinet were there; Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, gave a toast. Loomer was at home in Florida, but longtime lobbyists and consultants were discussing her activities on two…

Read More Read More

How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord

How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord

Wired reports: At 11:30 pm on Tuesday, September 9, Rakshya Bam stepped down from an army jeep outside military headquarters in a pitch-dark, locked-down Kathmandu. The 26-year-old hadn’t slept in more than a day. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, the whites threaded with thin lines of fatigue. A wave of youth-led protests had rocked Nepal, born on Discord servers, TikTok feeds, and encrypted messaging apps. In just a few days, Bam had seen friends gunned down, watched parliament buildings…

Read More Read More

How Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change

How Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change

By Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections November 7, 2025 Joe Rogan has one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and a combined 50 million followers on YouTube, Spotify, and Instagram. And like nearly all of today’s most popular online shows, Rogan’s spreads climate misinformation. In an October episode of his podcast, Rogan interviewed two octogenarian fringe climate contrarians, Richard Lindzen and William Happer, who together have been spreading climate misinformation since at least 2012. For over…

Read More Read More

How Meta has become pillar of the global fraud economy by delivering 15 billion scam ads a day

How Meta has become pillar of the global fraud economy by delivering 15 billion scam ads a day

Reuters reports: Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show. A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes,…

Read More Read More

The psychology of trolling may start with a specific type of envy

The psychology of trolling may start with a specific type of envy

PsyPost reports: A new study reveals a psychological pathway that connects narcissistic personality traits with the tendency to engage in social media trolling. The research suggests this link is partially explained by a person’s feelings of malicious envy and their exposure to antisocial media content. The findings were published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology. To understand the study, it helps to first understand the concepts involved. Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance,…

Read More Read More

ICE has powerful Clearview AI facial recognition app that Illinois cops are barred from using

ICE has powerful Clearview AI facial recognition app that Illinois cops are barred from using

Chicago Sun-Times reports: The Trump administration has wiped a facial recognition policy from its website while further embracing the controversial technology and securing a $9 million contract with a company barred from selling to Illinois law enforcement agencies. The ban was the result of a lawsuit filed in Cook County that alleged Clearview AI’s massive database of photographs pulled from across the internet violated a landmark state law protecting people’s personal information. But a settlement of the case didn’t apply…

Read More Read More

Problematic social media use linked to loneliness and death anxiety

Problematic social media use linked to loneliness and death anxiety

PsyPost reports: A study of adult social media users in Italy suggested that loneliness and death anxiety might mediate the relationship between attachment anxiety and problematic social media use. The paper was published in Death Studies. Attachment anxiety is a form of insecure attachment characterized by fear of rejection and excessive need for closeness in relationships. People with attachment anxiety constantly worry that their partner does not love them enough or will eventually leave them. This persistent fear can lead…

Read More Read More

Retired law enforcement officer jailed five weeks for reposting a Facebook meme is freed in Tennessee

Retired law enforcement officer jailed five weeks for reposting a Facebook meme is freed in Tennessee

The Intercept reports: More than a month after he was arrested for sharing a meme on Facebook, 61-year-old Larry Bushart Jr. walked out of the Perry County jail in Linden, Tennessee, on Wednesday, where his wife was waiting to take him home. He wore a weary smile and the same white T-shirt he had on the night he was jailed. A reporter from a local news station, which had previously splashed his mugshot on its website, approached for an interview….

Read More Read More

Chatbots are pushing sanctioned Russian propaganda about Ukraine

Chatbots are pushing sanctioned Russian propaganda about Ukraine

Wired reports: OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, DeepSeek, and xAI’s Grok are pushing Russian state propaganda from sanctioned entities—including citations from Russian state media, sites tied to Russian intelligence or pro-Kremlin narratives—when asked about the war against Ukraine, according to a new report. Researchers from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) claim that Russian propaganda has targeted and exploited data voids—where searches for real-time data provide few results from legitimate sources—to promote false and misleading information. Almost one-fifth of responses to…

Read More Read More

Stunning success of No Kings protests gives Trump a bout of AI diarrhea

Stunning success of No Kings protests gives Trump a bout of AI diarrhea

Julianne McShane writes: Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were, as my colleagues chronicled, about as wholesome as you could imagine. There were inflatable animals. There were American flags galore. Even the New York Police Department admitted that the 100,000 protesters were peaceful and that cops made no arrests; police in Washington, DC and Austin, Texas said the same. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from thoroughly melting down over its success. Case in point: On his Truth Social platform on Saturday…

Read More Read More

Wokeness is alive and well — on the right

Wokeness is alive and well — on the right

  Language policing. Cancel culture. Victimhood contests and cultural grievances. Despite attacking the left for partaking in such practices, there’s an emerging set of individuals on the right who have became exactly what they’ve criticized. Meet the woke right.