Meta Deletes Over 7.7K Accounts Linked to PRC Influence Campaign
Facebook's parent company Meta announced Tuesday that it had removed 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook groups, and 15 Instagram accounts linked to a Chinese influence campaign targeting the US, Taiwan, the UK, and other countries.
The operation, which initially focused on discrediting the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong before shifting to COVID-related material, was first discovered in 2019. The company has since repeatedly spotted and removed recurring spam accounts.
According to Meta, the accounts tried to spread pro-China messages, including "positive commentary about...its province Xinjiang and criticisms of the United States, Western foreign policies, and critics of the Chinese government including journalists and researchers."
Pro-establishment narrative
This is a big win for America in the fight against foreign authoritarian propaganda campaigns. Countries like China and Russia are increasingly using Western-based social media platforms to insert upbeat messages about their own governments while sowing doubt about the democratic institutions of the West. This will be an indefinite fight against Beijing and Moscow, which means platforms like Meta must continuously improve their propaganda detection and removal mechanisms.
Establishment-critical narrative
The US government has used certain atrocities committed by Beijing to blur the lines between being against war with China and in favor of its social policies. Just as McCarthyites did to anti-nuclear war activists during the Cold War, today, the media and government are working in tandem to paint anyone who wishes to avoid a world war as China apologist. The propaganda is just as strong in the West, and arguably even worse since its goal is to prop up a rampant military-industrial complex. So any panic over "influence campaigns" must be taken with a grain of salt.
Nerd narrative
There is a 20% chance there will be a US-China war before 2035, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
UK First Nation to Rollout 7-Minute Cancer Jab
On Tuesday, the National Health Service (NHS) announced that the UK will be the first country in the world to offer a jab that treats cancer in seven minutes.
The NHS will reportedly treat 3.6K patients — who suffer from lung, breast, liver, and bladder cancers, among others. The time-saving injection will be administered annually.
The announcement comes after the NHS faced public criticism over a soaring number of patient referrals and the staggering delays in the onset of treatment.
Pro-establishment narrative
Atezolizumab's rollout will free up valuable time for NHS cancer teams as well as reduce cancer patients' waiting times for appointments and delays in receiving treatment. This is another example of the UK government's commitment to investing in cancer research, prevention, and treatment.
Establishment-critical narrative
Doctors and specialists across the UK are sounding the alarm as critical, life-saving treatment for thousands of patients is delayed due to staffing shortages and COVID backlogs. Before rolling out Atezolizumab, the NHS and the UK governments must develop and implement a strategy addressing its healthcare system shortcomings that cost people their lives.
Nerd narrative
There's a 50% chance that there will be a breakthrough in the treatment of hard-to-treat cancers by February 2032, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Gabon: Military Stages Coup Following Election
After President Ali Bongo Ondimba was declared the victor of Saturday's contested national election in Gabon, military officers appeared on national television on Wednesday to announce they were seizing power. News of the coup prompted widespread celebrations and reports of gunfire in the capital Libreville.
The officers said they represented all of the Central African nation's security and defense forces, adding that the election results were canceled, all borders were closed until further notice, and state institutions dissolved. The military leaders said President Bongo was put under house arrest.
If the implementation of the takeover is successful, the coup could end nearly 60 years of rule by the Bongo family. Ali Bongo took over in 2009 from his father Omar, who was in charge starting in 1967.
Pro-establishment narrative
France strongly condemns this attempted coup in Gabon and is monitoring the situation closely. The coup leaders should respect the will of the people and honor the outcome of Saturday's national election. Ali Bongo Ondimba should be reinstated as president of Gabon and democracy must prevail.
Establishment-critical narrative
France's past support for corrupt and authoritarian leaders in its former colonies has led to a situation in which Paris is literally being chased out of French-speaking African countries in an epidemic of military coups. France's once undisputed geopolitical power in the region is being challenged by China and Russia. Volatile situations like this one are the result of unscrupulous French actions and Paris's waning regional sway.
US Detainee Whelan Seen in Russian Prison Video
Paul Whelan, a US citizen and former Marine convicted of espionage in Russia, was seen for the first time in three years Monday when he appeared on the Russian state-funded news channel RT in a video recorded in May.
In the footage, Whelan – who denies the espionage allegations and declined to be interviewed – is seen with other inmates in various areas of the prison in a penal colony in the Mordovia region.
Whelan, who holds US, Irish, British, and Canadian citizenship, was arrested in Moscow in 2018 for allegedly participating in an intelligence operation. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on espionage charges.
Pro-Russia narrative
While Western media acts concerned about US spies in Russian custody, it should focus more on the US hunting Russians in other countries and jailing them by the dozens on trumped-up charges. Washington lives by its own rules, ignoring the interests of other countries, but Moscow will never accept these double standards and will continue to push for the release of its citizens in US custody.
Anti-Russia narrative
While RT is nothing but a Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece, the video at least proves Whelan is healthy and unbroken. At the same time, it underscores yet again how Russia is locking up innocent people to use as political bargaining chips, even while the US isn’t holding any high-level Russian spies. While the US is doing its best to bring its citizens home, it relies on the help of its allies in Moscow's cynical game.
Planes Damaged in Ukrainian Strike on Russian Airfield
Continuing its near-daily attacks into Russian territory, Ukraine launched a wave of drones into six regions of Russia in the early hours of Wednesday.
Russia's defense ministry said that drones were brought down over the regions of Oryol, Bryansk, Ryazan, Kaluga, and Moscow — however, drones penetrated air defenses and struck the city of Pskov in the northwest of the country, near the border of Latvia and Estonia.
Emergency services said that Pskov's military airport was struck in the attack, sparking a blaze that damaged four Il-76 transport planes. "As a result of a drone attack, four Il-76 planes were damaged. A fire broke out. Two aircraft are engulfed in flames," an emergency service official said. There were no reports of civilian casualties.
Pro-Ukraine narrative
Ukraine will continue to attack inside Russian territory, and the scale of the attacks will increase until Russia is expelled from Ukrainian soil.
Pro-Russia narrative
Ukraine's attacks inside Russian territory are a demonstration of the futility of its counteroffensive. It shows that they have no other options left.
Nerd narrative
There's a 40% chance that there will be a large-scale armed conflict in Russia before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Australia Sets Date for Indigenous 'Voice' Referendum
On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the Voice to Parliament referendum, which seeks to create an all-Indigenous advisory body within the federal government, will take place on Oct. 14.
More than 17M registered voters will be asked to cast a vote on whether they approve of amending the Constitution to recognize the First Nations Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
The Voice was proposed by the 2017 Uluru Statement — a historic document drafted by over 250 First Nations leaders — as part of a demand for reforms affecting Indigenous Australians, with whom Australia has never signed a treaty.
Left narrative
This referendum is perhaps the first serious chance Australia has to chart a new, equitable course for the country — one that includes the voices of the indigenous peoples of Australia. While not a perfect solution, the enshrinement of an indigenous advisory committee would help rectify Australia's shameful history of disenfranchisement and racism against the first people to set foot on the continent's soil. Australia should ignore the old guard and establish a new and fair relationship with indigenous Australians.
Right narrative
The Voice to Parliament is a dangerous proposal that, if passed, will permanently divide the Australian nation on the basis of race. Australians need only look at neighboring countries to understand the risks of approving such an advisory body, as New Zealand's Waitangi Tribunal has been swiftly hijacked by so-called "social justice activists." There are other ways the government can go about improving rights for indigenous populations before undermining unity in the nation.
Nerd narrative
There's a 6% chance that the Australian "Indigenous Voice to Parliament" Referendum will pass if it is held before 2026, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Hurricane Idalia Slams Into Florida's Big Bend
On Wednesday morning, Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida's Big Bend as a Category 3 cyclone after briefly reaching a Category 4 in the overnight hours. Later in the day, the storm settled into a Category 1 as it reached southeastern Georgia.
According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the storm saw winds of up to 125 mph — the strongest hurricane the Gulf Coast has seen in over 125 years.
The NHC warned of a significant storm surge and issued two extreme wind warnings, as some areas broke record inundation, with up to 9 feet of flooding.
Narrative A
The warming of our planet is creating a hot-tub-like environment in the waters off the coast of Florida. These abnormal conditions have become the norm, and the consequence is the rapid intensification of storms that cause catastrophic damage and loss of life when making landfall. This new normal changes the landscape of coastal living and leaves millions of people facing the threat of back-to-back catastrophic destruction.
Narrative B
While climate change is an urgent issue, journalists and activists have an obligation to separate the facts from fiction and describe environmental problems honestly and accurately. The catastrophic framing of climate change does far more harm than good, not only by impacting the mental health of our youth, but by alienating and polarizing large portions of the population and distracting from other important issues. Climate alarmism must be taken with a grain of salt.
Google Tests Watermarks to Identify AI Images
Google's DeepMind is testing out its new artificial intelligence (AI) technology, dubbed SynthID, which it says will be able to label images that have been generated by AI. The labels, however, will be invisible to the human eye to not ruin the picture.
The watermark is embedded in the pixels of the image, but DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says it won't change the "quality" or "experience" of the image. He added that it can also defend against attempts to erase the watermark like cropping or resizing.
SynthID, whose three levels of confidence are "detected," "not detected," and "possibly detected," is currently only available to a select group of Vertex AI customers who use Google's text-to-image diffusion model Imagen, which is similar to Midjourney and Dall-E.
Narrative A
Google understands that pictures truly are worth a thousand words, which is why it's working to build a firewall between false images made by bad actors and the end users they're manipulating. The tech giant also understands the importance of not altering the style and beauty of creators' images, which makes this microscopic watermark the perfect solution to the world's technological problems.
Narrative B
While watermarks will help combat AI misuse, questions still remain surrounding their efficacy and the public's interpretation of what they actually are. Most people still regard watermarks as a company's logo in the bottom right corner of a picture, so Google and the other AI companies must communicate better what purpose these new watermarks will serve and how they will work. Furthermore, even sophisticated watermarks are still vulnerable to alterations — something that must be tackled before the world can trust Big Tech to moderate this issue.
Nerd narrative
There's an 83% chance that there will be an event precipitated by AI that causes at least 100 deaths and/or at least $1B in economic damage by 2032, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Tennesee Special Legislative Session Ends Without New Gun Laws
Tennessee’s special legislative session ended Tuesday without any significant changes to the state’s gun laws despite the efforts of advocates months after the worst school shooting in the state’s history.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee had called the special session on public safety to reform the state’s gun laws in response to the March killing of three students and three adults at Nashville’s Covenant School.
Lee’s goal of passing a “red flag” law and other public safety measures was rejected by Republicans, who hold a supermajority in the state’s general assembly and view such laws as threats to citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
Democratic narrative
Even a school shooting that resulted in the deaths of innocent children couldn’t get Republicans, who are heavily supported by gun lobbyists, to pass the type of common-sense gun laws that can make communities safer. Even worse, Republicans in Tennessee continue to do what they can to stifle opposition speech. Tennessee needs better representation to stand up to lethal gun violence.
Republican narrative
Always in a hurry to exploit a tragedy to advance their assault on the Second Amendment, Democrats were again advocating for laws — namely a so-called “red flag” law — that would have done nothing to stop the Covenant shooter. Most gun restrictions are useless in the face of criminals and mentally unstable people who will stop at nothing to commit an egregious act. The Tennessee legislature did what it could to make the state safer within the Constitution.
Nerd narrative
There's a 50% chance that there will be at least 1.40 small firearms per capita in the USA by 2029, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Proud Boys Sentencing Delayed
The two former Proud Boys leaders who were scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol riots had their sentence hearings delayed, according to a US Marshals Service spokesperson.
Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and one of his subordinates, Ethan Nordean, were the first of five former members of the conservative group to face sentencing, with the three others set for Thursday and Friday. However, the hearings were postponed after Judge Timothy Kelly was out sick.
Though initially reported as an "emergency," a court spokesperson confirmed that there is "no emergency," and court filings show that Tarrio’s sentencing has been rescheduled for Sept. 5. Meanwhile, Nordean will be sentenced on Sept. 1.
Left narrative
The Proud Boys are a radical right-wing militant organization that has shown it will resort to violence to impose its agenda. Its leaders are domestic terrorists who conspired to overthrow American democracy and subvert the results of a free and fair election. While they will now serve time for their crimes, the nation must be vigilant to ensure that organizations like the Proud Boys don't spread their dangerous agenda.
Right narrative
The Dept. of Justice has been weaponized against its political opponents, and the Proud Boys leaders are just a handful of the hundreds of people being targeted for political dissent. The media is in lockstep with the government as it pushes a warped narrative about the events on Jan. 6, 2021, as crooked courts redefine terms like terrorism and sedition to take down Trump and his supporters.
Nerd narrative
There's a 50% chance that Donald Trump will be jailed or incarcerated before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.