Meta’s Epidemic of Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ Propaganda

Meta recently took “what appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world,” off its platforms, according to the company’s quarterly Adversarial Threat Report released this week.’

The social media accounts that made up the covert influence operation — collectively dubbed “Spamouflage” — were active all over the world, including in America, major U.S. allies, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora.

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Commentary: AI Is Coming for Art’s Soul

While AI-based technology has recently been used to summon deepfakes and create a disturbing outline for running a death camp, the ever-pervasive digital juggernaut has also been used to write books under the byline of well-known authors.

The Guardian recently reported five books appeared for sale on Amazon that were apparently written by author Jane Friedman. Only, they weren’t written by Friedman at all: They were written by AI. When Friedman submitted a claim to Amazon, Amazon said they would not remove the books because she had not trademarked her name.

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‘Total Lack of Critical Thinking’: Experts Question COVID Vax, Mask Mandates amid ‘Surge’

by Greg Piper   Governments and private entities are using a small rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations and new viral variants to juice interest in bivalent boosters that only 1 in 6 Americans have taken and to urge a return to routine masking, if not outright mandating new jabs and face coverings. What they aren’t…

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More Than 1,600 Scientists, Nobel Laureates, Declare ‘Climate Emergency’ a Myth

A coalition of 1,609 scientists from around the world have signed a declaration stating “there is no climate emergency” and that they “strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy” being pushed across the globe. The declaration does not deny the harmful effect of greenhouse gasses, but instead challenges the hysteria brought about by the narrative of imminent doom.

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‘Legal’ Concerns Halt NIH $154 Million ‘False Information’ Program

The National Institutes of Health halted a $154 million research program intended to study “equitable health communication” and combat alleged medical misinformation.

The “pause” came “in the context of the current regulatory and legal landscape around communication platforms,” according to a website for the initiative.

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National Archives Acknowledges 5,400 Biden Pseudonym Emails, Faces Lawsuit for Their Release

The National Archives and Records Administration acknowledged possessing potentially up to 5,400 emails connected to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s pseudonym accounts that he used to forward government information and discuss business with his son, Hunter Biden, and others, and on Monday the Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit to compel the agency to turn over the emails.

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Republican Candidates Need Not Apply: Media Tracker’s New Study Shows Just How Politically Biased Google’s Search Results Are

Google has long been accused of suppressing conservative speech, but a new study shows the internet search engine giant is playing favorites with Democrats in the 2024 presidential race.

By typing in just one query, “Presidential campaign websites,” Google returned only Democratic Party candidates — some of whom are not even running in 2024, according to Media Research Center, the media watchdog and parent of conservative news site NewsBusters, which is “committed to exposing and combating liberal media bias.”

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National Family Group Condemns American Medical Association’s ‘Ethics’ Journal’s Support for Taxpayer-Funded Uterus Transplants in Biological Men

The American Family Association (AFA) issued an alert Wednesday urging Americans to sign its petition that demands the American Medical Association (AMA) “do no harm” by ending its support for taxpayer-funded “unnatural and irreversible gender-modifying procedures,” such as uterus transplants from dead women for biological men in order to improve their “mental health.”

The petition, which, at the time of publication had collected over 25,000 signers, cites a paper, published in June, in AMA’s Journal of Ethics, that AFA asserts is “driven with political and social activism.”

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Artificial Intelligence Poses a Significant Threat to Online Security with Ability to Capture Passwords and Keystrokes

More than two-thirds of Americans are worried about the negative effects of artificial intelligence (AI), while 61 percent believe it could “threaten civilization,” according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Whether or not AI will actually threaten the physical wellbeing of humans remains to be seen, but it’s already posing a number of other significant threats.

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Army Launches Second Phase of Brand Reboot Focused on ‘Relatability’

The Army released the second wave of promotional videos in its rebranding campaign Monday intended to boost its “relatability” to a diverse array of Americans amid persistent recruiting problems, according to Defense One.

The Army revived its 1980s slogan “Be All You Can Be” in March in hopes of attracting a new generation of future soldiers as recruiting fell 25 percent short of its goals in 2022 and is expected to mirror the shortfall in 2023. The “First Steps” series is meant to appeal to Gen Z’s desire for genuine engagement and emphasize knowledge, culture and trust, Ignatios Mavridis, the acting chief of Army Enterprise Marketing, told Defense One.

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Researchers Flay Medical Journals for COVID ‘Misinformation’ Claims

Three and a half years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, American medical journals are still calling out what they consider commonly shared misinformation on vaccines, masks, transmission and viral origins, sometimes promoted by health professionals.

Yet voluminous research and real-world experiences over that span suggest the journals themselves are promoting outdated, unsupported or exaggerated COVID claims, if not outright misinformation.

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The Center Square Parent Acquires Government Streaming Service

Franklin News Foundation, the nonprofit, nonpartisan news-media organization that publishes The Center Square newswire service, announced Friday it has acquired Advanced Digital Media, operators of BlueRoomStream.com.

ADM live streams unedited coverage of countless government proceedings across the state of Illinois, such as legislative hearings and other taxpayer-funded government activities, news conferences involving elected officials and other newsmakers, and more. Through Blue Room Stream, it makes the live streams available to subscribers including both in-state and national broadcast media partners.

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Police Chief Stands by Extensive Raid of Kansas Newspaper and Home Where 98-Year Old Owner Died

The Marion Police Department says its raid of a Kansas newspaper’s office and the home of the paper’s owners was justified without a subpoena because the law allows raids when a reporter is a suspect in an offense.

Marion’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies on Friday raided the Marion County Record’s office as well as the home of Joan Meyer and her son, Eric Meyer, on Friday. Joan Meyer, who was 98 but in “otherwise good health for her age,” according to the Record, died Saturday after being stressed from the raid.

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Appeals Court Says FDA Denunciations of Ivermectin Look Like ‘Command,’ not Advice

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  is claiming in federal court that it never told doctors not to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Federal judges aren’t buying it, and state medical boards that rely heavily on FDA guidance continue to investigate doctors for such prescriptions.

Echoing a federal district judge nine months ago, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pressed a Justice Department lawyer to reconcile the FDA’s repeated public denunciations of ivermectin as an off-label COVID treatment with its insistence that the agency is not liable for resulting investigations of doctors who prescribe or promote it.

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American College of Pediatricians Rejects Reaffirmation of Children’s Transgender Medical Treatments by American Academy of Pediatrics

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) stated Thursday in a press release it opposes the decision by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to reaffirm transgender medical interventions for children and teens, but supports AAP’s claim it will be reviewing the latest evidence pertaining to the highly controversial treatments.

Last week, AAP reaffirmed its support for providing children and teens with transgender hormones and surgeries – called “gender-affirming care” by the transgender medical industry – while it simultaneously announced it would review medical research on the life-altering treatments.

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Planned Parenthood Demands Social Media Censorship Despite Past ‘Outrage’ over the Issue

Although it has decried censorship in the past, Planned Parenthood has recently advocated for social media suppression of “misinformation,” including on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood experienced “outrage” over abortion and “sexual health” content censorship less than a decade ago and signed onto a letter calling information access a “human right” in 2022. More recently, however, it has taken action to push social media to censor what it considers to be misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.

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Commentary: For Washington Post’s Feared ‘Pinocchio’ Fact Checker, Forthrightness Dies in ‘Updates’ to Biden-Burisma Story

For the second time in three years, the Washington Post has quietly “updated” one of the most consequential fact checks in the history of American politics – its October 2020 article undercutting reports that Hunter Biden arranged a dinner meeting between one of his foreign business clients and his father, who was then vice president of the United States.

The original article by the Washington Post’s chief fact checker, Glenn Kessler, was published the same day as the New York Post’s pre-election scoop revealing that Joe Biden had attended a 2015 dinner with a top executive of a Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, which was paying his son $83,000 per month. Kessler’s fact-check involved interviews with a host of Biden aides who vehemently disputed the vice president’s attendance at the dinner and advanced the theory that the source of the information – a laptop Hunter had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop – was untrustworthy and possibly a Russian plant. 

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Judge Orders Catherine Herridge to Reveal Sources for Stories on FBI, Chinese American Scientist

A federal judge ordered CBS News senior correspondent Catherine Herridge to reveal her sources for a series of stories about the FBI’s investigation of a Chinese American scientist back when she worked for Fox News.

The order last week from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington D.C. comes after scientist Yanping Chen filed a lawsuit against the FBI, claiming that the agency violated the privacy act by improperly leaking information about her.

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DeSantis on NBC News: ‘Of Course’ Trump Lost The 2020 Election

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis admitted that “of course” former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden in an interview with NBC News that aired Monday.

The outlet’s Dasha Burns probed the Florida governor during the interview on whether he believes Trump’s argument that the 2020 election was stolen from him. While DeSantis conceded that he “doesn’t think it was the perfect election,” citing mail-in balloting, ballot harvesting and censorship from Big Tech companies, he said that “Joe Biden’s the president.”

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Google Unveils New Tools to Give Users Control over Personal Data

Google revealed new tools and safeguards to assist users in managing personal data, privacy and online safety, in an announcement on Thursday.

The updated tools will enable users to remove personal information from Google search results such as “personal phone number, home address or email,” according to a blog post by the tech giant on Thursday. Google will also give users the choice to receive alerts about new search results that include their personal contact data, simplifying the removal process.

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American Academy of Pediatrics Reaffirms Support for Trans Activists’ ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reaffirmed its support Thursday for providing children with transgender hormones and surgeries – so-called “gender-affirming care” – at the same time it announced a review of medical research on the life-altering treatments.

The medical organization reaffirmed its 2018 position on the provision of the hormone drugs and surgeries to young people who say they are uncomfortable with their biological sex.

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White House Purges 442 Reporters Using New Press Credential Rules

Over the past three months, the number of reporters with access to the White House dropped by 31%. There are now 442 fewer reporters with a coveted “hard pass”—the result of new rules announced in May that took effect Tuesday.

The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas was among the reporters slated to lose his White House press credentials, although he was given a 10-day extension “to submit the required materials.” The White House now requires reporters to obtain press credentials from Congress or the Supreme Court to fulfill its new requirement; Lucas is currently awaiting a decision on his applications to the other branches.

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Director of Internet Free Speech Nonprofit Sounds Alarm on ‘Middleware’ Censorship by NewsGuard

The founder of a nonprofit that advocates for freedom of speech on the internet is sounding the alarm on government weaponization of “middleware” companies, which he said are essentially shell organizations for government censorship.

“The reason that they call it competitive middleware is because they’re trying to create a competitive industry around middleware compliance to avoid any antitrust situations that could arise,” Mike Benz, the executive director of Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), told The Tennessee Star Tuesday.

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He Knew: Hunter Biden’s Former Business Partner Devon Archer Shows Proof in Letter by Joe Biden on VP Letterhead

New York Post Vice President Joe Biden told his son Hunter’s former business associate Devon Archer in early 2011 that he was “happy” the two were partners — in a postscript to a note thanking Archer for attending a lunch with visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. “I apologize for not getting a chance…

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He Knew: Hunter Biden’s Former Business Partner Devon Archer Shows Proof in Letter by Joe Biden on VP Letterhead

New York Post Vice President Joe Biden told his son Hunter’s former business associate Devon Archer in early 2011 that he was “happy” the two were partners — in a postscript to a note thanking Archer for attending a lunch with visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. “I apologize for not getting a chance…

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Detransitioner Chloe Cole Tells Congress ‘My Childhood Was Ruined’ by ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

Chloe Cole

Detransitioner Chloe Cole appeared before a House subcommittee Thursday, testifying that transgender hormone drugs and surgeries “ruined” her childhood and left her with “lifelong irreversible harm.”

Cole, 19, who now serves as a senior fellow and patient advocate for Do No Harm, an organization that seeks to “protect patients, physicians, and healthcare itself from the practice of medicine based on discriminatory, divisive ideologies,” testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance at the hearing titled “The Dangers and Due Process Violations of ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’”

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Biden White House Ordered Facebook to Censor Vaccine Memes and Tucker Carlson Posts

On Thursday, newly-released files show that the Biden Administration actively pressured the social media giant Facebook to censor meme posts that made fun of the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as posts by then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

As reported by the New York Post, the files released by the House Judiciary Committee show that Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to Joe Biden, sent an email in April of 2021 to Facebook’s president for global affairs Nick Clegg. Clegg then sent an email to colleagues saying that Slavitt “was outraged — not too strong a word to describe his reaction — that [Facebook] did not remove this post.”

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Healthcare Watchdog Group Praises Doctors Who Warn ‘No Medical Evidence’ Childhood Gender Transition Prevents Suicide

An organization of physicians and others concerned about the politicization of healthcare is praising the “doctors around the world” who are “speaking up” about the “significant” risks associated with childhood medical gender transition and the lack of evidence supporting the claim that transgender hormone drugs reduce suicide risk.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm wrote Monday in an email to subscribers of the recent “game-changing” letter to the editors, published in the Wall Street Journal by 21 clinicians and researchers from South Africa, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and the United States, that challenges the Endocrine Society’s latest statements on what radical transgender activists call “gender-affirming care.”

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After Facing Censorship in Congress, RFK Jr. Plans Roundtable Discussion on Censorship

After Democrats threatened to censor him during last week’s House committee hearing on censorship, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to hold a “Roundtable on Censorship” next month.

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Commentary: Fox News’ ‘Conservative Stance’ Belies Hidden Liberal Agenda

The longshoreman turned homespun philosopher Eric Hoffer is semi-forgotten today. But his book The True Believer (1951) is full of pertinent aperçus. One that has recurred to me often of late is the observation that “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

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Zuckerberg’s Twitter Clone Continues to Crash in Popularity: Report

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival Threads has plummeted in popularity for a second consecutive week, according to market intelligence company Sensor Tower, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The so-called “Twitter Killer” has experienced a substantial fall in engagement, down to 13 million daily active users, which is a 70% drop from July 7, according to Sensor Tower estimates, the WSJ reported. Meanwhile, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter steadily maintains around 200 million active daily users, who spend an average of 30 minutes on the platform.

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As White House Limits Access to Press Briefings, Daily Signal Reporter Loses Credentials

Two weeks from now, The Daily Signal’s chief news correspondent, Fred Lucas, will lose his White House press credentials. It’s the latest—and perhaps most brazen—attempt by President Joe Biden to limit media access to what he regularly calls “the People’s House.”

The White House Press Office will implement new rules July 31, when all “hard passes” expire. Lucas, holder of a hard pass since 2009, no longer will be able to easily attend White House press briefings or access the sprawling Pennsylvania Avenue campus—as he has done for the past 14 years.

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Commentary: The Way AI Fits into Broadly Rising Anti-Humanism

The future of humanity is becoming ever less human. The astounding capabilities of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence have triggered fears about the coming age of machines leaving little place for human creativity or employment. Even the architects of this brave new world are sounding the alarm. Sam Altman, chairman and CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, recently warned that artificial intelligence poses an “existential risk” to humanity and warned Congress that artificial intelligence “can go quite wrong.”  

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