Honestly though we are at the absolute tip of the iceberg.
3/ Here he is demoing access to the #Gmail of a purported key political insider in #Kenya just days before the election.
This tech & tactics is kerosene on the flames of democracy.
4/ “I know in some countries they believe #Telegram is safe. I will show you how safe it is”
Yikes.
Unclear how he is gaining access to these #Gmail & Telegram accounts, but the talk of #SS7 is a good hint.
And yet another reminder: SMS is not a safe second factor.
5/ Great to see mercenary election manipulators exposed. Solid journalism.
Trust me, this is a window into a *much bigger industry* active in elections around the world.
So rare to see it caught.
6/ The fact that so much political activity happens on a handful of platforms makes the tooling for political manipulation really interoperable.
Also radically lowers barriers to entry.
Making mercenary election manipulation scaleable & easy to export.
7/ Of course, we don't know whether these guys have successfully changed the outcome of any election.
The guy here is also pretty clearly boasting & trying to sell.
But the mere fact of mercenary election manipulators running around is damaging, even when they don't win.
8/ Even if mercenary election manipulators don't successfully throw an election (e.g. successfully shift mass sentiment), bots, hacking & turbocharged dirty tricks can distort political culture.
Opposing parties have to adjust.
And the net result is harm to democracy.
9/ UPDATE: @haaretzcom reports the mercenary political manipulators targeted 🇺🇸US politicians.
NEW: Researchers find microplastics in human brains.
Moreover, shards of microplastics in autopsied brain tissue increased between samples collected in 2016 vs. 2024.
Frontal cortex tissue (executive function, learning & memory, judgement...) concentrations were 7-30x those previously found in livers & kidneys.
Incredibly alarming potential implications for #AlzheimersDisease, dementia, blood brain barrier health etc.
Caveats: early days in methodology for spotting & characterizing these particle loads & understanding their impacts on brain health.
And that's just focusing on the physical particles.
There's a whole second disturbing tier of questions around what potentially toxic compounds like plasticizers will leach from #microplastics, especially as the particle size gets smaller.
2/ There doesn't appear to be a place on earth that hasn't got a microplastics load.
Dust in the atmosphere? Yep. The ocean? Yep. Creatures in it? Yep. Ocean breezes by the seashore? Yep.
Now our brains.
It's like the radioisotopes from atmospheric nuclear testing. Only there's no test ban in sight, and more are pouring into the ecosystem with every moment.
But the impact on us and our world are shockingly ill- understood.