"Nonpolitical", a new synonym for reactionary and fascist bullshit propaganda, disinformation, and blatant lies mixed with bad jokes: "- We found 320 online shows — 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning — that were active in 2024 and covered news and politics and/or had related guests. These shows had at least 584.6 million total followers and subscribers. - We found substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms: Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning. - Across platforms — YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82% of the total following of the online shows we assessed. - Comparatively, left-leaning online shows had nearly 104 million followers and subscribers across the eight platforms — nearly five times less. - Nine out of the 10 online shows with the largest followings across platforms were right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million. The only left-leaning show among the top 10 was What Now? with Trevor Noah, which had 21.1 million total followers and subscribers across platforms. - Our analysis — which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent — found over a third self-identify as nonpolitical, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be right-leaning. Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly nonpolitical categories. - Out of 320 online shows, right-leaning programs categorized as comedy — 15 shows in all — had 117.5 million followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all programs we assessed. This category included The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, and Full Send Podcast."

Media Matters for America

The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces

As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Medi...

#Media #OnlineMedia #Podcasts #Videocasts #Ideology #Propaganda #SocialMedia #Disinformation

Google Translation: "The German Federal Government has detailed information that suggests with some probability that the Sars-CoV-2 virus was created by humans through the manipulation of an existing virus and that it originated in a Chinese biolaboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to information obtained by the NZZ, several specialized scientists at the German foreign intelligence service, the Federal Intelligence Service, have been meeting in recent weeks, initiated by the Federal Chancellery. The first meetings took place last year. Participants included well-known virologists. In several meetings, the researchers also investigated the origin of the virus."

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Der deutschen Regierung liegen Indizien vor, dass das Coronavirus aus dem Labor stammt

Eine vom Bundeskanzleramt initiierte Gruppe spezialisierter Forscher traf sich mehrfach beim Bundesnachrichtendienst. Nach ausgiebigen Untersuchung...

#COVID19 #China #Wuhan #PublicHealth

"Words can’t express how disgusted I am with Trump supporters who defend their president stomping out speech rights for Israel after spending years wailing about the loss of free speech in America. It’s beyond mere political differences. I don’t respect them as people. Of all the pathetic, groveling, bootlicking positions anyone could possibly espouse, it’s hard to imagine one more egregious than twisting yourself into cognitive knots trying to find ways to excuse a president crushing free speech in your country to advance the interests of a foreign state after spending years yelling “America First” and whining about freedom of speech, just because that President happens to be a Republican. If you are doing this, you’re just admitting that you don’t stand for anything, and you’re just drifting along with the herd and supporting whatever the man in charge tells you to support. You’re unthinking human livestock. A mindless, useless, pointless NPC. You have wasted all of your time on this planet, because you did not use that time to mature into a sovereign adult with basic intellectual agency and integrity."

People Who Defend Trump’s Assault On Free Speech Are Mindless Sheep – Caitlin Johnstone

#USA #Trump #Censorship #StudentActivism #Israel #Palestine #Genocide #FreeSpeech #HumanRights

"The Trump administration may soon demand the social media accounts of people applying for green cards, US citizenship, and asylum or refugee status. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — the federal agency that oversees legal migration, proposed the new policy in the Federal Register this week — calling this information “necessary for a rigorous vetting and screening” of all people applying for “immigration-related benefits.” In its Federal Register notice, USCIS said the proposed social media surveillance policy is needed to comply with President Trump’s “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” executive order, issued on his first day in office. That order requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other government agencies to “identify all resources that may be used to ensure that all aliens seeking admission to the United States, or who are already in the United States, are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”"

The Verge

The Trump administration wants to review all prospective citizens’ social media accounts

An immigrant rights group called the move ‘authoritarian.’

#USA #Trump #USCIS #SocialMedia #Surveillance #Privacy #PoliceState

"-Financial records in the leak show that, in four years, two groups of call centers based in Israel, Europe, and the country of Georgia raked in about $275 million from would-be investors. - These operations have all the hallmarks of a massive scam: The call center agents use false identities, forged paperwork, and deceptive advertising; “investors” were systematically prevented from withdrawing their money; and almost all of the investment “products” on offer were unlicensed and had official warnings from authorities. - Over 20,000 hours of leaked phone calls between scammers and their victims across dozens of countries give unprecedented insight into the brutality, efficiency, and global reach of the investment scam industry. - Many victims are left penniless; some express suicidal thoughts. But the scammers — who adopt false identities and use software that can be manipulated to create illusory profits — keep coming back for more. - The leaked files show the call centers are professionally run, with HR departments, corporate parties, and offices in slick office buildings. Marketing firms, payment service providers, and software companies enable their operations. - The call centers have twisted corporate strategies, running leaderboards for top scammers and issuing performance-related bonuses — including a Rolex watch awarded after a particularly lucrative swindle."

OCCRP

Scam Empire: Inside A Merciless International Investment Scam

An unprecedented leak exposes the inner workings of a global investment-scam industry, where ruthless call center agents make millions while destro...

#Scams #Scammers #Fraud #CallCenters

"The Trump administration has informed NOAA that two pivotal centers for weather forecasting will soon have their leases canceled, sources told Axios. Why it matters: One of the buildings is the nerve center for generating national weather forecasts. It was designed to integrate multiple forecasting centers in one building to improve operating efficiency. It houses telecommunications equipment to send weather data and forecasts across the U.S. and abroad. Driving the news: The NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction is on the lease cancellation list, according to a NOAA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution." https://www.axios.com/2025/03/03/doge-noaa-weather-building-leases-trump #USA #Trump #DOGE #Musk #NOAA #WeatherForecasting #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming

Encryption backdoors are like leaving the door open for a totalitarian society... I don't see why people are unable to understand this... "If they're going to cave into Zuck's demand to facilitate spying on Instagram users, do we really think they'll resist Kier Starmer's demands to remove Signal – and any other app that stands up to the Snooper's Charter – from the App Store? It goes without saying that the "bad guys" the UK government claims it wants to target will be able to communicate in secret no matter what Apple does here. They can just use an Android phone and sideload a secure messaging app, or register an iPhone in Ireland or any other country and bring it to the UK. The only people who will be harmed by the combination of the British government's reckless disregard for security, and Apple's designs that trade the security of its users for the security of its shareholders are millions of law-abiding Britons, whose most sensitive data will be up for grabs by anyone who hacks their accounts."

Pluralistic: Apple’s encryption capitulation (25 Feb 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

#CyberSecurity #UK #Apple #Encryption #Backdoors #Privacy #Totalitarianism #iCloud

"It is clear that the US can no longer be regarded as a reliable ally for the Europeans. But the Trump administration’s political ambitions for Europe mean that, for now, America is also an adversary — threatening democracy in Europe and even European territory, in the case of Greenland. So what to do? Europeans need to start preparing fast for the day when the US security guarantee to Europe is definitively removed. That must involve building up autonomous defence industries. It should also mean a European mutual defence pact, outside Nato, that extends beyond the EU — to include Britain, Norway and others. Trump will use any leverage he has to force America’s European allies into compliance on issues from trade and security to their domestic politics. That means that Europe must now start the painful process of “de-risking” its relationship with the US, looking for areas of dangerous dependence on America and stripping them out of the system. Entrusting critical infrastructure to Musk would create a huge new vulnerability. The Trump administration will also put enormous pressure on Europeans to buy more American weaponry. Under current circumstances that would be folly."

Client Challenge

#USA #Musk #NATO #EU Europe #Russia #Putin

MEGAGAMANÇO / MEGATHEFT: "As the world’s richest man pitches himself as the savior of the American taxpayer, the companies he runs are raking in more federal dollars. This past Sunday, Tesla finalized a deal to sell 430 megawatts of batteries to Genera, the private company that now operates Puerto Rico’s power plants, for $767 million. The contract, first brokered in October before the election, will be “fully financed with federal funds,” according to a press release. On Monday, SpaceX netted another $7.5 million supplemental contract with NASA, bringing the total value of that particular deal with Musk’s private rocket firm to $38 million. That’s on top of the more than $4 billion NASA is already paying SpaceX."

“Elon Musk Is a Walking Conflict of Interest” – Mother Jones

#USA #Musk #NASA #Tesla #Kleptocracy

This Musk guy is so, but so idiotic that he doesn't even know that most of the source of US soft power throughout the world was the funding by the CIA and other federal agencies of cultural activities like jazz shows and art festivals in Europe and Africa. He is a complete and total PHILISTINE. To hell with this guy! I don't want no intellectual retards imposing their will on the world. "The capture shows that the site contains a list of vague, alleged government-funded tasks and their costs, without sources or context, like “$1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers," “$1.5 million for ‘art for inclusion of people with disabilities,’” and "$3.4 million for Malaysian drug-fueled gay sex app.” DEI.gov redirects to waste.gov and is currently inaccessible without a password; Elon Musk told reporters on Tuesday that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is “trying to be as transparent as possible.” ⁨The researcher is Henrik Schönemann⁩, a historian who started the Safeguarding Research & Culture archivalist project, posted screenshots on Mastodon showing the contents. Schönemann⁩ also shared the specific site scrapes that he was able to capture, which showed the contents of the site. He told 404 Media he set up a change detection app using PikaPods, and is monitoring changes across hundreds of government websites. When the dei.gov and waste.gov sites were registered 10 days ago, he started tracking them, too. Before the site administrators added a Wordpress template to the pages, the list was online at those URLs. This list was only online for a maximum of 30 minutes, starting around 4:50 p.m. EST; by 5:23 p.m. on February 11, it was gone from public view, according to the snapshots Schönemann’s app⁩ captured."

404 Media

Researcher Captures Contents of ‘DEI.gov’ Before It Was Hidden Behind a Password

The list includes budget claims like "$3.4 million for Malaysian drug-fueled gay sex app" and "Disbursed $15,000 to 'queer' Muslim writers in India."

#USA #CyberSecurity #Musk #DOGE #DataProtection

"A government run by people is cautious and slow by design; a machine-automated version will be fast and ruthless, reducing the need for either human labor or human decision-making. Musk’s program has already halted operations altogether at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was responsible for more than forty billion dollars in foreign aid in 2023, and at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that may have drawn Musk’s special notice for its track record of suing tech companies for deploying loosely regulated technology. Trump and Musk both love to blame the country’s problems on the so-called deep state, the federal employees who maintain the government’s day-to-day operations. As many of those people now find themselves locked out of their offices, with their work phones deactivated, a new, inherently undemocratic deep state is moving in to fill the void: a system imposed by machines and the tiny élite who designed them. With DOGE, Musk is not only sidelining Congress and threatening to defy the courts, helping to bring the country to the point of constitutional crisis; he is also smuggling into our federal bureaucracy the seeds of a new authoritarian regime—techno-fascism by chatbot."

The New Yorker

Elon Musk’s A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency

Musk seeks not only to dismantle the federal government but to install his own technological vision of the future at its heart—techno-fascism by ...

#USA #AI #GenerativeAI #Musk #DOGE

"In this course, you will: 📖 Study AI Agents in theory, design, and practice. 🧑‍💻 Learn to use established AI Agent libraries such as smolagents, LangChain, and LlamaIndex. 💾 Share your agents on the Hugging Face Hub and explore agents created by the community. 🏆 Participate in challenges where you will evaluate your agents against other students’. 🎓 Earn a certificate of completion by completing assignments. And more! At the end of this course you’ll understand how Agents work and how to build your own Agents using the latest libraries and tools."

Welcome to the 🤗 AI Agents Course - Hugging Face Agents Course

We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.

#AI #AIAgents #LLMs #Smolagents #LangChain

"The problem, I believe, is that the tech media has become poisoned by a mixture of ignorance and cynical optimism where the narratives are driven not by any particular interest or domain expertise, but by whatever they believe the market (or the powerful people they admire) would like it to be. I know for a fact that the senior editorial staff handling technology at multiple major mainstream publications do not really care about, understand or have any real interest in tech other than a vague attachment to the idea that it’s “important, somehow.” As a result, mainstream tech coverage is focused on market effects (like artificial intelligence, or whatever other “thing” everybody wants to read about) rather than directing coverage from the perspective of “what things are happening to people in real life as a result of technology.” I also think that the tech media has been infiltrated and controlled by people that want to be famous or associated with famous people. They want them to win. They want a benevolent dictator. They want their products to do well so that they can get the interview with the big-name founder or CEO on stage at a conference. They want access to them for interviews, and they want to make sure they get the first look at their next product release. While one might argue that “people want to hear about AI,” what people want to hear about is largely driven by the narratives the media agrees upon."

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At

What We're Fighting For

Soundtrack: Bad Religion — The Resist Stance A great deal of what I write feels like narrating the end of the world — watching as the growth-a...

#BigTech #RotEconomy #Enshittification #Technology #TechJournalism #Media #News

"Earth is crossing the threshold of 1.5°C of global warming, according to two major global studies which together suggest the planet’s climate has likely entered a frightening new phase. Under the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, humanity is seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep planetary heating to no more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average. In 2024, temperatures on Earth surpassed that limit. This was not enough to declare the Paris threshold had been crossed, because the temperature goals under the agreement are measured over several decades, rather than short excursions over the 1.5°C mark. But the two papers just released use a different measure. Both examined historical climate data to determine whether very hot years in the recent past were a sign that a future, long-term warming threshold would be breached. The answer, alarmingly, was yes. The researchers say the record-hot 2024 indicates Earth is passing the 1.5°C limit, beyond which scientists predict catastrophic harm to the natural systems that support life on Earth."

The Conversation

Earth is already shooting through the 1.5°C global warming limit, two major studies show

Earth is crossing the 1.5°C limit outlined in the Paris Agreement, beyond which scientists predict catastrophic harm to systems supporting life on...

#ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #ParisAgreement

"In the nascent field of AI hacking, indirect prompt injection has become a basic building block for inducing chatbots to exfiltrate sensitive data or perform other malicious actions. Developers of platforms such as Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT are generally good at plugging these security holes, but hackers keep finding new ways to poke through them again and again. On Monday, researcher Johann Rehberger demonstrated a new way to override prompt injection defenses Google developers have built into Gemini—specifically, defenses that restrict the invocation of Google Workspace or other sensitive tools when processing untrusted data, such as incoming emails or shared documents. The result of Rehberger’s attack is the permanent planting of long-term memories that will be present in all future sessions, opening the potential for the chatbot to act on false information or instructions in perpetuity."

Ars Technica

New hack uses prompt injection to corrupt Gemini’s long-term memory

There's yet another way to inject malicious prompts into chatbots.

#AI #GenerativeAI #CyberSecurity #PromptEngineering #Gemini #Google #PromptInjection

"Hackers leaked thousands of files from Lexipol, a Texas-based company that develops policy manuals, training bulletins, and consulting services for first responders. The manuals, which are crafted by Lexipol’s team of public sector attorneys, practitioners, and subject-matter experts, are customized to align with the specific needs and local legal requirements of agencies across the country. But the firm also faces criticism for its blanket approach to police policies and pushback on reforms. The data, a sample of which was given to the Daily Dot by a group referring to itself as “the puppygirl hacker polycule,” includes approximately 8,543 files related to training, procedural, and policy manuals, as well as customer records that contain names, usernames, agency names, hashed passwords, physical addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers. Among the manuals seen by the Daily Dot, agencies include police departments, fire departments, sheriff’s offices, and narcotics units."

EXCLUSIVE: Hackers leak cop manuals for departments nationwide after breaching major provider

Lexipol data leak: A 'puppygirl hacker polycule' shared thousands of files from a firm providing policy manuals to law enforcement.

#USA #Hacking #Lexipol #DataLeaks #PoliceState

"Notably, Judge Bibas ruled in Thomson Reuters’ favor on the question of fair use. The fair use doctrine is a key component of how AI companies are seeking to defend themselves against claims that they used copyrighted materials illegally. The idea underpinning fair use is that sometimes it’s legally permissible to use copyrighted works without permission—for example, to create parody works, or in noncommercial research or news production. When determining whether fair use applies, courts use a four-factor test, looking at the reason behind the work, the nature of the work (whether it’s poetry, nonfiction, private letters, et cetera), the amount of copyrighted work used, and how the use impacts the market value of the original. Thomson Reuters prevailed on two of the four factors, but Bibas described the fourth as the most important, and ruled that Ross “meant to compete with Westlaw by developing a market substitute.”"

WIRED

Thomson Reuters Wins First Major AI Copyright Case in the US

The Thomson Reuters decision has big implications for the battle between generative AI companies and rights holders.

#AI #GenerativeAI #ThomsonReuters #FairUse #Copyright #IP

"O órgão brasileiro de defesa da concorrência, o Cade, se prepara para julgar sanções à Apple e ao Google por práticas anticoncorrenciais nas suas lojas de aplicativos, no que deve se transformar no primeiro confronto com empresas americanas empoderadas sob o governo de Donald Trump. Na semana que vem, o Cade fará uma audiência pública para ouvir as big techs sobre a regulação de práticas comerciais Há seis processos em análise no Cade envolvendo as big techs. O primeiro da fila, que tem previsão para entrar na pauta de julgamentos ainda neste semestre, segundo apurou a reportagem, é um recurso da Apple contra a proibição imposta pelo órgão à cobrança de desenvolvedores de aplicativos que estão na Apple Store. A investigação constatou que a empresa cobra 30% dos desenvolvedores de apps a título de taxa de solução de pagamentos, o que a Apple nega." #Brasil #RedesSociais #BigTech #Cade

Estadão

Cade fecha cerco a big techs no que deve ser o 1º embate do Brasil com empresas dos EUA na era Trump

Na semana que vem, órgão de defesa da concorrência fará audiência pública para ouvir plataformas; Câmara Brasileira de Economia Digital, que...

"This is what his critics do not understand. They mistakenly think that he thinks that his tariffs will reduce America’s trade deficit on their own. He knows they will not. Their utility comes from their capacity to shock foreign central bankers into reducing domestic interest rates. Consequently, the euro, the yen and the renminbi will soften relative to the dollar. This will cancel out the price hikes of goods imported into the US, and leave the prices American consumers pay unaffected. The tariffed countries will be in effect paying for Trump’s tariffs. But tariffs are only the first phase of his masterplan. With high tariffs as the new default, and with foreign money accumulating in the Treasury, Trump can bide his time as friends and foes in Europe and Asia clamour to talk. That’s when the second phase of Trump’s plan kicks in: the grand negotiation. Unlike his predecessors, from Carter to Biden, Trump disdains multilateral meetings and crowded negotiations. He is a one-on-one man."

UnHerd

Donald Trump's economic masterplan

#USA #Trump #Tariffs #TradeWar #PoliticalEconomy #Protectionism

"Another person who was allegedly targeted on WhatsApp with spyware made by Israeli company Paragon has come forward. Beppe Caccia, one of the co-founders of Mediterranea Saving Humans, an Italian non-government organization that helps immigrants, told TechCrunch that he had been targeted by the spyware campaign. Caccia disclosed he was targeted after another one of his organization’s co-founders, Luca Casarini, said publicly last week that he had also received a notification from WhatsApp alerting him to the suspected spyware attack. On Monday, during a press conference organized by Sandro Ruotolo, an Italian member of the European Parliament, Casarini said that he filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office in Palermo, Italy, regarding the alleged hack. Casarini said his goal was to find out who targeted him and his organization. “We don’t have anything to hide. Those who spy have a lot to hide,” said Casarini. (...) In the same press release, the Italian government said that Meta told it there were other targets in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden."

TechCrunch

Another person targeted by Paragon spyware comes forward | TechCrunch

Four people have so far come forward as victims of the Paragon spyware campaign targeting WhatsApp users, including one journalist and three activi...

#CyberSecurity #Spyware #Paragon #WhatsApp #SocialMedia