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Category: Social media

Israel is paying influencers $7,000 per social media post

Israel is paying influencers $7,000 per social media post

Responsible Statecraft reports: In a meeting dedicated to harnessing pro-Israel media energy on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to a cohort of Israel’s influencers. “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers. I think you should also talk to them if you have a chance, to that community, they are very important.” Being paid by Israel to post on social media is also very lucrative. According to previously unreported recent documents, these influencers are…

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Trump’s TikTok deal looks like crony capitalism

Trump’s TikTok deal looks like crony capitalism

John Cassidy writes: Donald Trump is a compulsive issuer of executive orders: since January, there have been more than two hundred of them. Some are glorified press releases; others are more significant. “Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security” falls decidedly into the second category. Signed last week, on the same day that the Department of Justice indicted James Comey, it is designed to facilitate the transfer of a social-media platform with a hundred and seventy million American users to a…

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The rise of the ‘edgelord’ shooter

The rise of the ‘edgelord’ shooter

Ryan Broderick writes: Most American men under 30 at this point have had a 4chan phase — or at least spent time on an equivalent toxic internet community. Even if the ICE shooter did decide to dedicate himself to antifascism at the last minute — like Robinson may have done — he’s still going to talk like a 4channer and filter those ideas through the prism of ironic edgy internet speak. As I’ve written before, this is the water young…

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The rapid MAGA media takeover

The rapid MAGA media takeover

David Karpf writes: American mass media has been transformed in these early months of President Donald Trump’s second administration. We’re about 35 weeks into a term that will last for 173 more, and in that time, we have seen a tech titan gut a once-great newspaper in an apparent act of capitulation to the commander in chief, government accounts gleefully spreading hateful memes on X (the far-right platform owned by a billionaire tech oligarch), a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump…

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How gaming platforms have become hidden incubators for extremism

How gaming platforms have become hidden incubators for extremism

Axios reports: While policymakers and headlines have traditionally zeroed in on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X, young people are increasingly gathering on gaming platforms — and having conversations that are typically anonymous and largely invisible to the outside world. Why it matters: Spaces like Discord, Roblox and Steam — built for gamers to connect — have evolved into the social discourse hubs where authentic interactions happen, as mainstream apps chase virality instead. Now, these gaming platforms are drawing new scrutiny…

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ICE just spent millions on surveillance technology that was banned by Facebook

ICE just spent millions on surveillance technology that was banned by Facebook

Forbes reports: In 2021, Meta banned a surveillance company called Cobwebs from gathering intelligence across all its platforms. Its security staff had discovered Cobwebs, founded by former members of Israel’s elite cyber intel agencies, was using hundreds of accounts to snoop on Facebook and WhatsApp users, many of them activists, opposition politicians and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico. Since then, ICE has spent over $5 million on the company’s tools, with one $2 million purchase made this week…

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FBI profiler explains why some Groypers have trans partners

FBI profiler explains why some Groypers have trans partners

A self-described FBI profiler (and I see no reason to doubt that that is indeed her profession) who provides commentary on TikTok as “FriendlyHoneyBadger” and YouTube as “Cult College,” sheds light on why some far-right Groypers (led by Nick Fuentes) choose or groom trans partners, countering the assumption that if Tyler Robinson (Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer) had a trans partner then he must be a leftist.    

Making sense of our dark new era of extremely online political violence

Making sense of our dark new era of extremely online political violence

Ryan Broderick & Adam Bumas write: In 2017, [Tyler] Robinson [Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer] appears to have dressed up in a costume of President Donald Trump, with the Trump’s face painted green. A possible reference to the Pepe the Frog edit of Trump that the president first shared in 2015. And in 2018, Robinson appears to have dressed up as a “squatting slav” Pepe meme. As easy as it is to point to these costumes as proof that Robinson was…

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Right-wing activists are targeting people for allegedly celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder

Right-wing activists are targeting people for allegedly celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder

Wired reports: Far-right influencers and violent extremists are posting identifying details about people they view as celebrating or glorifying the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The campaign has been swift and widespread and has already led to at least one person losing their job and others receiving death threats. The people posting the identifying information include Chaya Raichik, who runs the hugely influential, hate-filled LibsofTikTok account on X, Trump-whisperer Laura Loomer, and former Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio. A…

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Social media is still navigating its sectarian phase

Social media is still navigating its sectarian phase

Kyle Chayka writes: On September 1st, the author and statistician Nate Silver wrote a post on X diagnosing a new condition: “Blueskyism,” so named for the decentralized social network that has emerged as a competitor to what used to be Twitter. According to Silver, Blueskyism embodies a newfangled ideology comprising “all the characteristics that make progressivism unappealing to normal people”—the same qualities, Silver argues, that prevent Democrats from recouping electoral favor. As with any good social-media bit, Silver later doubled…

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Russia steps up disinformation operations as Trump abandons resistance

Russia steps up disinformation operations as Trump abandons resistance

The New York Times reports: Since returning to the White House in January, President Trump has dismantled the American government’s efforts to combat foreign disinformation. The problem is that Russia has not stopped spreading it. How much that matters can now be seen in Moldova, a small but strategic European nation that has since the end of the Cold War looked to Europe and the United States to extract itself from Moscow’s shadow. The Trump administration has slashed diplomatic and…

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Scientists are flocking to Bluesky

Scientists are flocking to Bluesky

Wired reports: Marine biologist and conservationist David Shiffman was an early power user and evangelist for science engagement on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Over the years, he trained more than 2,000 early career scientists on how to best use the platform for professional goals: networking with colleagues, sharing new scientific papers, and communicating with interested members of the public. But when Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, renaming it X, changes to both the platform’s algorithm…

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An account using the same name as Trump’s BLS pick posted red-pilled conspiracy theories

An account using the same name as Trump’s BLS pick posted red-pilled conspiracy theories

Wired reports: In the months leading up to the January 6 Capitol riot, a now deleted Twitter account bearing the full name of E. J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s pick to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), betrayed a seeming obsession with promoting election denial conspiracy theories while talking about violent threats to those who stood in Trump’s way. The account, which used “Dr. Erwin J. Antoni III” as its screen name for a time, was linked by the…

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Trump cuts off medical visas from Gaza as he bows to pressure from Laura Loomer

Trump cuts off medical visas from Gaza as he bows to pressure from Laura Loomer

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s administration stopped all visitor visas from Gaza — including those for humanitarian and medical aid — on Saturday after far-right provocateur and Trump friend Laura Loomer posted about several Palestinian children being allowed into the U.S. for medical care amid Israel’s relentless siege and blockade. The State Department said it will “conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,”…

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Zuckerberg ‘occupation’ trashes Palo Alto neighborhood

Zuckerberg ‘occupation’ trashes Palo Alto neighborhood

The New York Times reports: For decades, the Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto represented the dream of California living. Doctors, lawyers, business executives and Stanford University professors lived in charming homes under oak, redwood and magnolia trees. The houses, an eclectic mix including Craftsman homes and bungalows, were filled with families who became fast friends. The annual block parties heaved with people. Daily life was tranquil, and the soundtrack was one of children laughing as they rode their bicycles…

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