It is 30 years since the Tiananmen Square massacr and the Chinese government’s censorship campaign has been so successful, it is now almost impossible for Chinese people to mark the occasion online 1/6 news.vice.com/en_us/article/…#Tiananmen30
Activists have been forced to use increasing obscure images, memes and coded references to avoid China’s censorship machine — all tracked by Dr. Kingwa Fu @JMSCHKU 2/6 news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
But without any reference points these efforts are lost on young people. "You need some inspiration from the past to motivate you to pursue a higher goal, but young people don't have the references,” @hrw’s China expert @Yaqiu said. 3/6 news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
The Tiananmen Square massacre was the genesis for the Great Firewall, as Beijing saw how the internet could be a tool to organise protests and disseminate information, @jgriffiths said 4/6 news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
According to @CHRDnet, 27 people have been detained, questioned or disappeared since the beginning of May in relation to the crackdown on #Tiananmen30 — but as @FrancesEveCHRD says, this is "likely just a drop in the bucket" 5/6 news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
“The result is a collective amnesia,” @peterwsinger says. “An entire generation not just engineered to be ignorant of key moments in the past, but with nowhere to go to search out more information, if they ever do become aware of it.” 6/6 news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
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In the space 24 hours, a false story about Volodymr Zelensky's wife buying a $5M Bugatti Tourbillon spread at warp speed across the internet from from an unknown AI-powered French website to the top search result of Google
US domestic extremists, including neo-Nazis, have been using AI for years, but new research shows that in 2024, their adoption of the technology has accelerated dramatically—and experts are deeply concerned.
Extremists, initially skeptical about "the evils" of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, have changed their minds.
“In the last few years we’ve gone from seeing occasional AI content to AI being a significant portion of hateful propaganda content online" @MEMRIReports
2/6
A new trend this years is the adoption of gen AI video tools like OpenAI's Sora, with researchers seeing a marked increased in AI video featuring hate content in recent months — including a video of actress Emma Watson reading Mein Kampf aloud while wearing a Nazi uniform
3/6
As Trump and the GOP continue to push voter fraud conspiracies ahead of the US elections, experts are seeing a resurgence in far-right paramilitary activism.
Now, a January 6th prisoner is trying to launch a 50-state armed militia from his jail cell.
Jake Lang, caught on video swinging a bat at police during the Capitol riot, has been in jail for 3yrs.
“It's important to recognize that Lang is, first and foremost, a grifter who knows that his ‘political prisoner’ schtick is his only shot at relevance,” @Jon_Lewis27 says
2/7
From his jail cell in Brooklyn, Lang told me he's been working on his new militia, called the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia (or NAPALM for short), for a year.
For the last month I've been attending online webinars from election denial groups who are ramping up their efforts to try and disrupt the 2024 presidential election.
True the Vote and founder Catherine Engelbrecht have been trying to disenfranchise voters for more than a decade, but as the November elections rolls around they are now looking to recruit thousands of local activists to challenge voter rolls and disrupt election locations
2/7
In a series of webinars, Engelbrecht has been giving supporters a how-to guide to local organization as well as an introduction to the group's new IV3 tool, which automates voter registration challenges.
The homepages of all Russian media are dominated by stories about the interview. State-run news agency RIA Novosti's newsfeed had at least a dozen stories published since last night — focusing on how Putin had succeeded in "educating" the west about Russia/Ukraine history
2/6
Memes about Carlson flooded pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, including ones calling for a national day of celebration for Tucker and images of him wearing a ushanka hat.
Going to be monitoring the #takeourborderback convoy here today, watching numerous livestreamers who are in Viriginia broascasting from the convoy as it gets ready to depart for Texas
And this morning, one of the livestreamers posted a picture claiming that four cars which had their types slashed in the parking lot of the hotel where convoyers were staying