Newsletter Roundup

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🧵This roundup is broken into key domains: media, cyber, democracy, finance, and health security (public health + national security). Then there are two additional sections.

MEDIA Twitter Trends: Researchers found that the increase in hateful content began almost immediately after Musk’s takeover as users began to test the boundaries of what would get past Twitter’s new moderation regime. wired.com/story/twitter-really-is-worse-than-ever/

"If we don't have research on the impact of these platforms on society then how can we make good policy?" twitter.com/CSMaP_NYU/status/1653053035399221248

FTC accuses Facebook of violating privacy agreements and proposes a ban on profiting off children's data. This would be the third time the agency has ordered the company to accept new privacy terms. cyberscoop.com/ftc-facebook-violating-privacy-agreement/

How not to interview a war criminal codastory.com/newsletters/maria-lvova-belova-war-crimes/

In unrelated news: According to insiders, Vice Media is getting ready to file for bankruptcy in the upcoming days. This would be a significant setback for the formerly successful media startup, once valued at $5.7 billion. wsj.com/articles/vice-media-prepares-to-file-for-bankruptcy-5c7533ee

In several emails, Elon threatened to reassign @NPR to "another company" unless the network started tweeting again. There has now been an update. twitter.com/BobbyAllyn/status/1653820431621668869

In Belarus, Roman Protasevich was sentenced to eight years in prison. detector.media/community/article/210829/2023-05-03-u-bilorusi-zasudyly-romana-protasevycha-do-vosmy-rokiv-kolonii/ CYBER

According to a senior FBI official, the threat posed by malicious Chinese cyber activities is “absolutely a growing problem” as the U.S. tracks Beijing’s designs on Taiwan and prepares for the 2024 presidential election. therecord.media/fbi-adapting-to-growing-threat-from-china

CEOs from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic are meeting with the white house to discuss AI. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, according to a White House official. reuters.com/technology/google-microsoft-openai-ceos-attend-white-house-ai-meeting-official-2023-05-02/

According to new research, Iranian state-backed hackers are increasingly using influence operations to amplify the impact of traditional cyberattacks and promote Tehran's political agenda. therecord.media/iran-hackers-influence-operations-cyberattacks-microsoft

A London-based group created fake personas in the U.S. and E.U., pretending to be companies and institutions, and posted initially as those entities before posting negative comments about Uyghur activists and critics of the Chinese state.

The group wrote mainly in English, Russian, Uyghur, and Chinese about geopolitics in Central Asia. Meta reported that around 15,500 accounts had been following one or more of the group's pages on Facebook. therecord.media/china-disinformation-meta-london-new-media-europe

The group even partnered with a nongovernmental organization in Uganda that featured the fake persona's logo at one of its events. The "front company," London New Europe Media, was incorporated in August 2021 and is directed by a 51-year-old Chinese national named Yong Liu.

MALIGN FINANCE The U.S. Treasury has reached a $508 million settlement with British American Tobacco (BAT) after an investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1441

OFAC found that from 2009 to 2016, BAT conspired to use North Korean banks and intermediaries to send over $250 million from a joint venture to the U.S.

BAT's Singaporean subsidiary used U.S. banks to process payments for tobacco exports to the North Korean Embassy in Singapore until 2017.

Authorities in the U.S. and Ukraine have worked together to shut down nine websites offering cryptocurrency exchange services to cybercriminals. securityweek.com/us-ukraine-shut-down-cryptocurrency-exchanges-used-by-cybercriminals/

The short explanation for the U.S. as the financial crimes capital is that the U.S. imposed rules on other countries, then refuses to impose the same rules on itself. codastory.com/newsletters/south-dakota-money-laundering/

This is an example of the hypocrisy of wealthier countries that impose anti-corruption policies while refusing to abide by them at home. HEALTH SECURITY

Trauma, abuse, and mental health problems can make people more vulnerable to violent extremism. Here’s how a movement founded partly by former white supremacists is helping extricate Americans from violent hate groups. mindsitenews.org/2023/05/02/breaking-away-from-hate/

64% of Americans oppose a law that would ban the use of a prescription pill or series of pills taken to end a pregnancy. 35% support such a ban. maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/abortion-rights-in-the-united-states/

At the same time, 62% of Americans report they lack confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court. two in three Americans (68%) think the justices should have term limits. 30% say they should continue to serve at their own discretion.

"The public abortion debate exists at the extreme ends of public opinion. Only about one in five Americans believe abortion should be allowed at any time during pregnancy and fewer than one in ten believe it should be completely banned," says the Director of the Marist Poll.

COVID whistleblower Fang Bin was released but placed under surveillance; his lawyer and wife are being harassed out of Beijing. mailchi.mp/safeguarddefenders/italys-top-court-decides-on-china-extradition-case-17334753?e=74ebdd6c5c

Man Sentenced for $1.1M COVID-19 Fraud Scheme A Louisiana man was sentenced to 10 years for money laundering PPP and EIDL money. justice.gov/opa/pr/man-sentenced-11m-covid-19-fraud-scheme

This fraud case is an example of how CBRN and similar crises (a natural infectious disease can be weaponized without modification) present opportunities to those with financial motives.

An overview of extremist and anti-vaccine narratives. isdglobal.org/explainers/anti-vaccine-conspiracies/?mc_cid=1cece81bb5&mc_eid=301305ee6e

NONSENSE WE DID NOT PRONOUNCE (Factchecks) The U.S. banned all Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports in March 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Posts claiming Putin “shut down” Russian oil to the U.S. are incorrect. politifact.com/factchecks/2023/may/03/facebook-posts/putin-didnt-shut-down-all-russian-oil-to-the-us-it/

Peter McCullough makes multiple false, misleading, and unsupported claims about COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy in a viral podcast. COVID-19 vaccines aren’t toxic.

“Detox” practices are unnecessary and ineffective. They do make a lot of money if you sell them, though. healthfeedback.org/claimreview/peter-mccullough-makes-multiple-false-misleading-claims-covid19-vaccine-safety-efficacy-podcast/

Does a proposed law in Washington state say that the government can take children away from parents who disagree with gender transition surgery? No, there is a change in how runaway child cases are reported. factcheck.org/2023/05/online-claims-misrepresent-washington-bill-aimed-at-runaway-transgender-youth/

IDEOLOGY The "European Fight Night" will occur on May 6th in Hungary. It will include 15 combat sports fights from 12 countries, live music, and far-right fashion merchandise. The organizers have kept event details a secret, possibly due to ban on similar events in Germany

Attendees cannot take photos or videos; anyone sharing the event's location will be removed. Observers are concerned about using combat sports by the international far right to train and prepare for attacks against their perceived enemies. bellingcat.com/news/2023/05/03/international-far-right-fight-night-comes-to-budapest/

Researchers investigated how audiences participate in the distribution of political propaganda by studying the behavior of "super commenters." The top 5% of the most active commenters generated half of all comments on Breitbart. osf.io/9xjtk/

Analysis of 2.8 million comments shows that super commenters commented early, amplified extremist and conspiratorial topics, and initiated conversations.

The study survey shows that reading top-ranked comment threads involving super commenters led like-minded readers to entrench conspiratorial beliefs and share related content on social media. The study connects elite signaling, selective amplification, and content diffusion.

ARMED CONFLICT There has been much speculation over what role the Russian private military company Wagner Group (Wagner PMC) has played in inciting or manipulating Sudan’s current chaos. polygraph.info/a/7060597.html