#Identify Fake Websites

[avese23]

Gremlin hours and the creature inside wants to gaslight white people on the internet

[cathscreations]

Identifying Scams

[coremilk]

COMBAT TRANSMISOGYNY

What's your reasoning for finding it to be a problem that tansfems use TME to mean non-transfem people because it "implies" that nobody but transfems can be affected by transmisogyny but not finding it a problem for "transandrophobia" to imply the existence of general androphobia as a structural oppression in analogy to the construction of other intersectional terms? Why must only transfems be held to a standard of literalism? Why is it impermissible for transfems to reject the terms that other trans people use to describe their oppression but not for non-transfems to reject the terms transfems use? Why must transfems eternally be subjected to this kind of sadistic sophistry that reduces the space for analysis that we are allowed to occupy to less than nothing? Why is every attempt at communicating our own experiences and understanding thereof seen as an invitation for smarmy rhetorical reversals?

I feel genuine despair about how non-transfems talk about and to us on this website. I endlessly have to listen to people engaging in idealist amateur psychoanalysis that absurdly focuses on the mental state of my oppressors telling me "but transphobes perceive you as a failed man" as if transmisogyny was a mental defect that some people carry instead of a structural force that manifests (among other things) in a variety of mutually contradictory ideological claims.

Why must I ceaselessly suffer the incorrect and """indirectly""" misgendering claim that I, a transfem, am treated like a (failed, gender non-conforming, etc.) man (a purposefully selective view that strictly implies that either transfems cannot be identified as a distinct group and the specifics of being transfem have no bearing on how we are treated, or that trans women genuinely are men - as the only people who are actually treated precisely like transfems are transfems)? The ends to which this is done are totally transparent: so that men can claim the oppression suffered by trans women as data points of their own oppression with a gesture like "because you were perceived as a man, the way you were treated is actually indicative of how men are treated" (which neither logically follows nor is it actually true). When a trans woman is "treated as a man" that's transmisogyny. I completeley reject a framework that centers the psychological state of my oppressor. The ideological claim that trans women are men is no different from the ideological claim that trans women are raping the bodies of women by reducing the female form to an artefact or that they are colonizing womanhood or are grooming children into transitioning: It is a fundamentally incorrect idea on the basis of which no correct analysis can be formed, you cannot grant these things even for the sake of argument. When trans women are mistreated for being "seen as men" that's transmisogyny in the exact same way that these other claims are transmisogyny. To claim that it is transandrophobia (which is constantly claimed by users of that term, usually as an illustration of the idea that "all trans people are affected by transandrophobia") is an illegitimate appropriation of transfem experiences and it's absurd. It's like saying that when disabled people are perceived as faking their disabilities they actually suffer a sentiment directed at non-disabled people rather than ableism because they're "seen as non-disabled". If trans women are "seen as men" then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not how men are treated. If trans women are "seen as predators" then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not how predators are treated. If trans women are "seen as objects" then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not how objectes are treated.

According to most transphobes we are not trans because there's no such thing as trans people. Should we take that to mean that trans people suffer from cisphobia? That the way trans people are treated is really indicative of how cis people are treated and not trans people? No! We cannot rely on transphobes to provide us a coherent framework for understanding their transphobia. They don't have to "see" us as trans to recognize us as trans. In the same way they don't have to "see" us as women to recognize us as trans women. It is their transmisogyny that leads the way from recognizing us as trans women to conceptualizing us as cis men.

I barely even want to explain myself anymore. I'll just get called a baeddel by people who are fully aware that it's an intersexist and transmisogynistic slur. I'll be subjected to hypocritical double standards where if my analysis has any remote implications about non-transfems I'll be told in so many words to stay in my lane, as the experiences of others are unknowable to me, but non-transfems can give direct explicit wide-reaching transmisogynistic accounts of our experiences (e.g. that we suffer from androphobia of some sort) and I ought to accept this as some kind of perverse eu-misgendering "inclusion". I'll be infantilized by complete misogynists who pretend that my grounds for rejecting their ideas (e.g. "trans women are treated as men by transphobes") aren't genuine ideological disagreements and I am instead just too weak-willed to face reality (which they think their own antifeminist analysis amounts to). I'll be hounded for sources and proof when I discuss my own lived experiences and I am told incorrect categorical statements about what I do and don't experience and why. I'll have transfeminism dismissed as an irrelevant niche ideology by people who follow a significantly more niche ideology themselves. And most despair inducing of all is having the opinions of transfems who disagree with me presented to me as if they override my analysis simply be existing - as if everything (e.g. misgendering by reference to a rhetorical observer or calling trans women "baeddels") had to be agreed to by all transfems everywhere to be transmisogynistic for non-transfems to even consider stopping.

It is grueling to constantly hear people espouse universal mores about how trans people ought to treat one another only for those exact same people to make no attempt whatsoever to actually apply those mores to how they treat transfems. I want you to feel how hollow appeals like this sound to me, especially when they command me to abandon my objectively correct materialist analysis of my own experiences and adopt views that are actively transmisogynistic (and not just a little). It's painful when people think materialism means "when stuff is made out of physical matter" as opposed to society being shaped by material (economic) factors and then justify equating people who were AMAB with cis men with appeals to this kind of vulgar "materialism". "Trans women are murdered so much because they are seen as men and people are more ok with killing men" I am forced to read with my own eyes with barely a thought given to the extreme structural (economic) marginalization of trans women of color that pushes them not just into sex work but also any number of other positions of extreme precarity (abusive relationships, addiction, homelessness, incarceration etc.)

To bring it back to TME/TMA: These terms are not their own definitions. TMA doesn't mean everyone who is ever affected by transmisogyny in any way and TME doesn't mean it's impossible to be affected by transmisogyny. The demand for literalism here is a mean spirited rhetorical game and there is no winning. If I hit you with the classic intersexist argument that since the "inter" part of intersex just literally means "between", it either ought to apply to perisex trans people whose sex characteristics are altered through hormones and surgery or be abolished in favor of a more precise term as the components of the term itself don't describe its precise meaning fully by themselves - you'd know that that's an absurd demand to make of terminology and you'd know that I was being not just a dumbass but also intersexist. Terms don't need to encapsulate the entirety of their meaning. They are allowed to have definitions and usages that go beyond what is implied by the literal meanings of the words they are constructed from. This is true for english terms just as much as it is true for latin and greek terms. But getting transfeminists to change their terminology is not the point of this exercise, the point of this exercise is to always put trans women on the back foot, to never give them an inch, to deny them completely any and all avenues for framing the discourse around themselves and their own experiences. Either you allow trans women the use of language in its normal capacity or you are a transmisogynist.

If you are TME, the way transmisogyny affects you is as a TME person. You can shoot through bulletproof vests, you can see invisible ink, you can eat inedible substances, you can say unspeakable things and water can be liquid below its freezing point. Your relationship to transmisogyny is a different one than that of a TMA person and that difference is what TME/TMA describes. The literalist angle is obscurantist on purpose. It is instrumentalizing the epistemic marginalization of TMA people against them to deny the epistemic marginalization exists to begin with. You deny us the right to exercise authority over what our own terminology means and use your own willfully transmisogynistic interpretation to imply that we hold reactionary views that we do not hold in order to further our epistemic marginalization. You can wrongfully accuse transfeminists of actually wanting to uphold binarist, essentialist and reductive categories and there's not much we can do about it because we don't get a seat at the table where our own oppression is discussed unless we say exactly what you want to hear from us.

I want to appeal to you to consider our positions, our terminology from an angle of self-advocacy in light of how invested others are in transmisogynistically misexplaining our own experiences to us, over us and against us. "Everyone can be affected by transmisogyny" is true in the same way that "everyone can be affected by intersexism" and "everyone can be affected by racism" and "everyone can be affected by ableism" are true. It ceases to be true when it's used to deny that there is a meaningful qualitative difference in how intersex people and perisex people relate to intersexism, how racialized people and those who aren't relate to racism, how disabled people and non-disabled people relate to ableism.

TME/TMA aren't essentialist, they don't reinforce a binary and they're not reductive if you understand them the way they are supposed to be understood instead of applying a hostile bad faith reading wherein transfeminists are a bunch of selfish greedy tyrants who want to hog all the transmisogyny for themselves in order to lord the immense standpoint epistemological social capital they derive from having their oppression over-specified and over-acknowledged over everyone else.

I'll remind you of this most famous example of intersecting discrimination: A targeted layoff of black women at general motors, which could neither be attributed to them being women alone nor them being black alone because black men and non-black women weren't laid off. Acknowledging the specificity of the oppression is the explicit point of intersectionality (because that specificity can and will otherwise be used to deny that it is oppression at all, that it is targeted at all) - it's not an "essentialist" misunderstanding of intersectionality. This neither implies that everyone who is ever laid off suffers from misogynoir nor does it imply that only black women can be laid off. It doesn't imply that black men and non-black women aren't discriminated against in other contexts either.

To say that there is a specific intersection that happens to people who are transgender women is not essentialist, we don't attribute any essential characteristics to anybody. Tautologies aren't essentialism, rejecting tautologies is a denial of logic itself. All it is saying is that some things happen to transfems specifically because they are transfems. To deny that specificity is straightfowardly anti-intersectional. To say "all trans people experience transmisogyny" as a rebuttal to discussions of the specificity of transmisogyny is reinforcing precisely those malformed patterns of argumentation that intersectionality is meant to address to begin with. If you redefine transmisogyny as something that can affect all trans people in comparable ways then what you defined is transphobia and the intersection is rendered conceptually invisible again. It ends up being a more roundabout, rhetorically involved way to deny the existence of transmisogyny altogether.

Reductive, transmisogynistic ideas of transmisogyny like that we only suffer transmisogyny when we are recognized as transfems (regardless of whether those doing the recognizing consider trans women to be women or not) or mistaken for men ignore the fact that even those of us who are "seen as" cis women all day every day have to completely structure their lives around transmisogyny. The fact that I'm a trans woman renders interactions with people who have no idea and even passive states that would have nothing to do with transmisogyny otherwise into transmisogyny because of the way they interact with the objective fact of reality that I am a trans woman. Transmisogyny is not a mental defect of transphoboes and it cannot be reduced to individual interactions or attitudes.

If a trans woman tells you something is transmisogynistic but you think it's not because you fundamentally disagree about the basic axioms of your analysis you have to recognize that. "If you agreed with my analysis you wouldn't consider my analysis transmisogynistic" is a totally inane statement that holds true for even the most obviously transmisogynistic analysis. Even terfs don't consider themselves transmisogynistic. Even terfs have some trans women who agree with them. You have to either make a good faith attempt to sort out that disconnect or move on in the knowledge that your views are fundamentally at odds with each other and it is logically consistent for a transfeminist to consider the things she considers transmisogynistic transmisogynistic and she's not just accusing you of transmisogyny in an attempt to unfairly smear you.

When you are transmisogynistic the reason you don't see it is that the ideology you check yourself against to determine if you are being transmisogynistic is the same ideology that led you to your transmisogynistic views to begin with. When you say "I'm not a transmisogynist" your reasoning is logically consistent but it's as self referential as saying "I'm not a transmisogynist because there's no such thing as 'transmisogyny' and there's no such thing as 'transwomen', just delusional men"

You might think that because you occasionally take umbrage with a few of the most egregious examples of transmisogyny coming from non-transfems, you have sufficiently fortified yourself against transmisogynist biases and occupy a somewhat neutral position from which you judge our views according to a higher-order ideological framework than the one transfeminists use to judge your views, but it is in fact just an opposing ideological framework. You deny the existence of transmisogyny not by saying "transmisogyny doesn't exist" but by supplanting it with your own homonym, a definition of transmisogyny that is alien to ours. You argue "A thing called transmisogyny exists, but not the thing you mean by it. And because it would be essentialist/binarist/reductive to say the things you say about transmisogyny if you meant by it what I define as transmisogyny, your analysis is essentialist, biniarist and reductive." You are engaged in two entangled efforts to deny us our language and framework for analysis: You redefine the term transmisogyny and then use that redefinition to argue that the derived terms TMA and TME have reactionary implications when you take them literally.

[naamahdarling]

I'm probably going to piss some people off with this, but.

The use of AI and machine learning for harmful purposes is absolutely unacceptable.

But that isn't an innate part of what it does.

Apps or sites using AI to generate playlists or reading lists or a list of recipes based on a prompt you enter: absolutely fantastic, super helpful, so many new things to enjoy, takes jobs from no-one.

Apps or sites that use a biased algorithm (which is AI) which is not controllable by users or able to be turned off by them, to push some content and suppress others to maximize engagement and create compulsive behavior in users: unethical, bad, capitalism issue, human issue.

People employing genAI to create images for personal, non-profit use and amusement who would not have paid someone for the same service: neutral, (potential copyright and ethics issue if used for profit, which would be a human issue).

People incorporating genAI as part of their artistic process, where the medium of genAI is itself is a deliberate part of the artist's technique: valid, interesting.

Companies employing genAI to do the work of a graphic designer, and websites using genAI to replace the cost of stock photos: bad, shitty, no, capitalist and ethical human issue.

People attacking small artists who use it with death threats and unbelievable vitriol: bad, don't do that.

AI used for spell check and grammar assistance: really great.

AI employed by eBay sellers to cut down on the time it takes to make listings: good, very helpful, but might be a bad idea as it does make mistakes and that can cost them money, which would be a technical issue.

AI used to generate fake product photos: deceptive, lazy, bad, human ethical issue.

AI used to identify plagiarism: neutral; could be really helpful but the parameters are defined by unrealistic standards and not interrogated by those who employ it. Human ethical issue.

AI used to analyze data and draw up complex models allowing detection of things like cancer cells: good; humans doing this work take much longer, this gives results much faster and allows faster intervention, saving lives.

AI used to audit medical or criminal records and gatekeep coverage or profile people: straight-up evil. Societal issue, human ethical issue.

AI used to organize and classify your photos so you don't have to spend all that time doing it: helpful, good.

AI used to profile people or surveil people: bad and wrong. Societal issue, human issue, ethical issue.

I'm not going to cover the astonishingly bad misinformation that has been thrown out there about genAI, or break down thought distortions, or go into the dark side of copyright law, or dive into exactly how it uses the data it is fed to produce a result, or explain how it does have many valid uses in the arts if you have any imagination and curiosity, and I'm not holding anyone's hand and trying to walk them out of all the ableism and regurgitated capitalist arguments and the glorification of labor and suffering.

I just want to point out: you use machine learning (AI) all the time, you benefit from it all the time. You could probably identify many more examples that you use every day. Knee-jerk panicked hate reflects ignorance, not sound principles.

You don't have beef with AI, you have beef with human beings, how they train it, and how they use it. You have beef with capitalism and thoughtlessness. And so do I. I will ruthlessly mock or decry misuse or bad use of it. But there is literally nothing inherently bad in the technology.

I am aware of and hate its misuse just as much as you do. Possibly more, considering that I am aware of some pretty heinous ways it's being used that a lot of people are not. (APPRISS, which is with zero competition for the title the most evil use of machine learning I have ever seen, and which is probably being used on you right now.)

You need to stop and actually think about why people do bad things with it instead of falling for the red herring and going after the technology (as well as the weakest human target you can find) every time you see those two letters together.

You cannot protect yourself and other people against its misuse if you cannot separate that misuse against its neutral or helpful uses, or if you cannot even identify what AI and machine learning are.

[mamiobesssionfics]

WWE Superstar Rhea Ripley Sparks Romance Rumors After Post-Victory Kiss

In a scene that could be mistaken for a Hollywood love story, WWE sensation Rhea Ripley has set the internet abuzz after being spotted sharing an intimate kiss with a mystery woman in a secluded alleyway following a major wrestling event.

The romantic moment, captured by an eagle-eyed onlooker, has since gone viral, sparking across-the-board speculation and admiration from fans.

The romantic moment unfolded shortly after Ripley’s recent triumph in the ring.

While fans and reporters eagerly crowded outside the venue, Ripley and her partner quietly slipped away from the spotlight. Seeking a moment of privacy in the post-match chaos, the pair found comfort in a quiet corner of the city.

That is until the camera flashes found them.

Identified as Y/N, an event coordinator with no ties to the celebrity world, Ripley’s partner has quickly become a topic of fascination.

According to those close to the couple, the two met through mutual friends several months ago and have been inseparable ever since. Despite their growing bond, they managed to keep their relationship out of the public eye until now.

A source close to Ripley revealed, “Rhea has been happier than ever since they got together.”

As news spread across social media, fans were quick to express their support for Ripley’s newfound happiness.

One fan tweeted, “Seeing Rhea so happy makes my heart full! She deserves this!”

"I wish it was me!" another added.

Others expressed curiosity about Y/N, eager to learn more about the person who had captured the heart of their favourite wrestler.

When approached for comment by a local publication, Ripley responded with characteristic honesty.

“We weren’t trying to make headlines, we were just being ourselves,” she said, chuckling at the unexpected media attention. “She’s been my anchor through everything, and honestly, I don’t care what anyone says. I’m happy, and that’s all that matters.”

Y/N, meanwhile, have opted to stay out of the media frenzy, politely declining interview requests and choosing to maintain a low profile.

Those who know her describe her as grounded and unfazed by the sudden burst of attention.

“She’s not interested in the spotlight,” a close friend shared. “She’s just happy with Rhea.”

For now, Ripley remains focused on her career while treasuring the quieter moments with Y/N away from the public eye. Whether in the ring or in her personal life, Rhea Ripley continues to command attention and admiration, proving once again that she’s a force to be reckoned with, both professionally and personally.

As fans eagerly watch for any new developments, one thing is certain: Ripley’s story, both inside and outside the ring, is far from over.

A/N: I thought it would be fun to try and write something with fake news. I tried my best to make this look like an actual article from one of those trashy news websites. I hope I was able to do so.

[chippewa]

Indigeneity, Agenda 47 (Project 2025), and Social Security

Update: I think our best hope is that these plans aren't really implemented. Maybe people will become aware and there will be pushback from other elected officials to stop it. Trump's administration didn't go through with its entire 2016 plan. Maybe we'll dodge a bullet this time too.

This affects all Americans.

If you're in the US, you should be aware that the Trump administration plan includes reducing and/or shutting down Social Security which includes SSDI ("disability") / SSI ("welfare"), Medicare / Medicaid, along with EBT / SNAP ("food stamps").

This could also disband Tribes and take our remaining homelands. This could be the Termination Era coming back.

A lot of people voted for him having no idea that they may have voted to end their own healthcare, financial and food assistance in the coming year.

A lot of vulnerable people are at risk in the next year.

Insulin rationing is already happening to Americans (there's a common lie that "insulin was capped at $35!" when that only applies to seniors on a specific Medicare plan, which may be going away) even with the bare minimum social safety net that is Social Security / Medicare / Medicaid.

People are already going hungry even with SNAP / EBT food cards.

If you know anyone who relies on Social Security, or is "on disability" SSDI, or lives in poverty "on welfare" SSI, or needs Medicare or Medicaid for their healthcare and prescriptions, be very aware that you might see scary things happen in 2025, as part of "Agenda 47" (Project 2025).

The campaign had a fake website with nameless AI-generated "Native people" declaring support for the Project:

Zoom in on the hand and the strange sign meme text:

None of these people have names. They don't exist.

This is a project that may include disbanding our remaining Tribes, taking our remaining land and selling it to the highest international bidder.

They could do the same to all "federal land", like National Parks which Trump began doing in 2016 with Bears Ears National Monument a place that used to be protected, with ancient Native petroglyph rock art that now has ATV trails and RV parking, and is open for uranium mining:

From the fake site with AI generated "Native people" telling you we support this plan:

The "community-based self-reflection on how we identify as Native people of the United States" is a return of the Termination Era, where all Tribes are disbanded and we "become Americans" or cease to exist as Native people. Our nations are older than the US. The Trump administration has no right to force yet another assimilation policy on us.

This is a land grab, a theft of public resources, and will rob from the poorest people in the US including your neighbors.

This will affect everyone, Native or not.

I don't have any solution. This is just a warning.

[coochiequeens]

It's also morphed from what was the rate of suicide attempts to just suicide. It’s not ‘41% of transgender-identifying people attempt suicide’, it’s ‘will commit suicide’. The reality of ‘41%’ is neither, it is ‘41% of people who took the National Transgender Discrimination Survey in 2008 answered in the affirmative to a yes/no question about attempting suicide’ which succinctly describes a number that is effectively meaningless statistical noise from a 14-year old study, something that is much less interesting."

By Sue Donym Dec 22, 2024

A few years ago, in the early Neolithic, when I wasn’t banned from Medium, I wrote a post called ‘The Transgender Movement and Bad Stats: A Debunking Compilation’. I had collected a vast amount of statistics and written about them in some very lengthy articles, and thought it was a good idea to collect them together into a single post.

That article is now five years out of date. Medium also banned me for being a hater, so that article is currently only available online as an archived website. I also have some delicious new statistics to compile. An updated reference guide is in order, although some sections will remain relatively the same.

If sections of this article seem familiar to you, that’s probably because they are. I will openly confess to the fact that some of this article is taken from other articles and compiled into what you are currently reading. That’s more or less the point - to write something where the numbers are presented in a digestible format. I make no apologies for this - there are only so many ways to write ‘A says XY is B%’.

You don’t have to read all of this. The sections list below contains the names of each topic - you should be able to search each heading and read it.

I’m not overly fond of writing introductions, so without further ado, let’s dive in.

Sections:

Suicide Statistics - Is 41% A Real Figure?

Prison Statistics - Are trans women more likely to be sex offenders?

Murder Stats - The Fake Epidemic

Homelessness and The Problem with Aggregation

A Quick Funding Update

Conclusion

Suicide Statistics - Is 41% a real figure?

Participate in this debate long enough, and you’ll see the repeated claims that trans people attempt or commit suicide at extremely high rates. That number you’ll often see is ‘41%’. But where does it come from?

That 41% suicide statistic comes from a report done in 2014, based on data from 2008 in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), from the Williams Institute, part of UCLA School of Law. Here is a link to the William’s Institute report. Of course, they debunk their own statistic on the third page of the report. How convenient for me.

“While the NTDS provides a wealth of information about the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming people, the survey instrument and methodology posed some limitations for this study. First, the NTDS questionnaire included only a single item about suicidal behavior that asked, “Have you ever attempted suicide?” with dichotomized responses of Yes/No. Researchers have found that using this question alone in surveys can inflate the percentage of affirmative responses, since some respondents may use it to communicate self-harm behavior that is not a “suicide attempt,” such as seriously considering suicide, planning for suicide, or engaging in self-harm behavior without the intent to die (Bongiovi-Garcia et al., 2009). The National Comorbity Survey, a nationally representative survey, found that probing for intent to die through in-person interviews reduced the prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts from 4.6 percent to 2.7 percent of the adult sample (Kessler et al., 1999; Nock & Kessler, 2006). Without such probes, we were unable to determine the extent to which the 41 percent of NTDS participants who reported ever attempting suicide may overestimate the actual prevalence of attempts in the sample. In addition, the analysis was limited due to a lack of follow-up questions asked of respondents who reported having attempted suicide about such things as age and transgender/gender non-conforming status at the time of the attempt.”

If that was too long for you to read - the question was asked as a ‘yes/no’ question. This has a well-known effect of overinflating the number of people who answer in the affirmative to the question ‘Have you ever attempted suicide?’. The NTDS asked the question in this manner and thus massively overinflated the estimated suicide rate in their sample. The ‘41'%’ number is statistical noise. Not only that, but the authors conclude that there’s no explanations available

“ Second, the survey did not directly explore mental health status and history, which have been identified as important risk factors for both attempted and completed suicide in the general population […] The lack of systematic mental health information in the NTDS data significantly limited our ability to identify the pathways to suicidal behavior among the respondents”

They don’t know why the rate is so high — so you can’t say 41% of transgender people attempt suicide because of ‘lack of acceptance’ or ‘bathroom bills or ‘Donald Trump’. Because the study didn’t ask those questions. That would be the case even if the study didn’t have even more major methodological problems anyway:

Third, since the NTDS utilized convenience sampling, it is unclear how representative the respondents are of the overall U.S. transgender/gender non-conforming adult population. Further, the survey’s focus on discrimination may have resulted in wider participation by persons who had suffered negative life experiences due to antitransgender bias.1 As the relationship between minority stress and mental health would suggest (Meyer, 2003), this may have contributed to a higher prevalence of negative outcomes, including lifetime suicide attempts, in the sample.

A convenience sample means the results are basically a cross between being indicative of a potential issue and waste of time. Essentially, the survey shows the rate of suicide attempts by those who took the survey, which means the results are only applicable to the survey-takers, rather than any broader group of people. This is a problem with all the National Center for Transgender Equality surveys even today - and they’re still treated as an authority on this subject. Total madness.

It’s like if I did a survey of all my friends on whether or not we prefer deep-dish. If I have one Irish person in my sample, and that person just loves deep-dish, I cannot then use the results of my survey to tell Newsweek that 100% of all Irish people love deep-dish. Only my friend does. Similarly, the original authors of the NTDS can say that their survey-takers had a 41% rate of attempted suicide, but they can’t apply the result to the broader demographic of whatever is considered' ‘transgender’ these days.

But unlike me, who did not run off to Newsweek to inform them that 100% of all Irish people love deep-dish, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), did in fact, tell anyone who would listen that ‘41% of trans people attempt suicide’. Activists, non-profits, politicians and mendacious pediatricians followed suit in telling anyone who would listen about ‘41%’, and it became completely divorced from its original context. ‘41%’ quickly took on a life of it’s own, and became an urban myth, a meme, no different from other statistical noise given life, like claims that ‘50% of lesbians beat their partners’, ‘Humans only use 10% of the brain’, ‘50% of cops are wife beaters’, the opium letter in the New England Journal of Medicine that ‘proved’ opiates ‘weren’t addictive’, and the concept of ‘excited delirium’.

All of those had morphed into adages, things widely accepted as true because ‘it was in a study’, or from being uncritically repeated in popular science outlets. They’re things that often have a grain of truth to them or affirm traditional beliefs, so they’re judged as ‘true enough.’ But they’re all falsehoods, just as much as ‘41%’ is, and all those falsehoods share a similar pattern, going from a random statistic in a poorly conducted survey or even just a case study and from there, gradually morphing into widely-accepted knowledge, even though no one really knows where it came from, nor has bothered to investigate it, because it matches with an agenda or traditionally held beliefs. Eventually, someone with a sense of inquiry to them looks into the statistic and finds that it’s false, but by that point it’s often done untold damage and will take decades to purge from the popular consciousness.

The suicide attempt statistic that started life as meaningless noise from a poorly conducted 2008 study with huge methodological flaws has now graduated from random apocrypha to religious dogma. That statistic, which objectively looks horrendous deprived of its original context, was used to justify a whole range of absurd propositions.

Give me absurd propositions X, Y, and Z, or it’s hateful and I’ll kill myself, trans people have a 41% suicide rate because of discrimination!’

Above is a fairly representative example of what the use of ‘41%’ turned into - completely misinformed people screaming histrionically about committing suicide because someone told a man to use the men’s room. Not only is that emotional abuse, it can only last for so long before people get sick of the absurdity. The suicide baiting rhetoric was always going to backfire, and it has done so in spectacular fashion.

Now 41% is used as a slang word for transgender suicide. The adage got repeated so often it turned into a meme, and then that meme became a threat, the demographically tailored 2024 version of ‘kys’1.

It's also morphed from what was the rate of suicide attempts to just suicide. It’s not ‘41% of transgender-identifying people attempt suicide’, it’s ‘will commit suicide’. The reality of ‘41%’ is neither, it is ‘41% of people who took the National Transgender Discrimination Survey in 2008 answered in the affirmative to a yes/no question about attempting suicide’ which succinctly describes a number that is effectively meaningless statistical noise from a 14-year old study, something that is much less interesting.

Now that it’s essentially well, a nasty threat - yes, telling someone to kill themselves for whatever reason is generally unpleasant behavior, sorry - the power of the statistic is reversed. It’s now used like this:

‘why would I let you into women’s prisons when you are going to kill yourself anyway, degenerate?’ 41% already you fucking troon pedophile, no one cares about the opinions of people who will be dead soon

Personally, I don’t know what to make of the evolution of ‘41%’. It’s gone from being a widely held false belief used to justify all sorts of terrible things to a demand that the trans-identifying person you disagree with should go kill themselves. It’s somehow even less constructive than it was before, which is certainly an achievement, albeit a dubious one.

Yes, transgenderism is a dangerous, illiberal cult full of misogyny, racism, and homophobia, but I don’t think it’s right to sacrifice my values when criticizing them - I can do that effectively without telling people to go and kill themselves. Would you tell someone in a similar situation - like a Scientologist, who is also part of a destructive and nasty cult to go and kill themselves?

See rest of article

[saturnianoracle]

How to learn real astrology: what it is and is not

As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.

It is VITAL that if you want to understand astrology properly, you come in with an open mind and forget everything you think you know. Especially, remove yoruself from the belief that astrology is some occultic mystical spiritual practice, and/or that it is solely some psychological tool.

I used to be quite the hater of astrology. None of it 'resonated', and it seemed like wishy washy hippie shit. In lockdown, astrology stuff kept coming onto my feed, and some of it made sense, but most still did not. I then initially wanted to debunk astrology. But when I properly stated looking into it, the deeper I went the more accurate it started to become. Equally, parts still remained highly inaccurate. But this was due to a mismatch of how 'influencers' out there synthesised and understood the traditional foundations of astrology and modern information. Thus, I committed myself to truly understanding astrology, and my life has significantly improved for it and I've only just started.

As an introductory post to what astrology really is, I have formatted it into the following sections: i. the problem with pop culture astrology, ii, the history of astrology, iii. how astrology works, and iv. where meaning in astrology comes from.

The problem with pop culture astrology

This is the type of astrology we see in newspaper horoscopes, online articles, tiktok viral posts, instagram horoscopes, etc.

This is borne out of the allure astrology holds for desperate individuals seeking an easy and quick answer to their life problems, and using it as a form of confirmation bias for hating their ex (for example). But this misuse of astrology will undoubtedly hit for most people, due to the barnum effect, but is ultimately inaccurate and those who think it true have now misleadingly correlated the pop culture reasons for why X happened to what astrology is.

The new moon in your 7th house is not a sign that your crush will leave his partner for you. Being a gemini sun does not mean you are a two faced, loyal-less individual. Having your sun sign the same as their venus sign does not mean you two are compatible. And so on and so forth.

Here are some key things to understand about astrology:

✎ Stop using co-star, and those websites which give you your astrology information like this:

-> This does not tell you anything remotely significant aside from standard archetypal and superifical meanings of having a sun in Sagittarius or whatever (which you might not even 'relate' to, because of a multitude of other factors this does not show). Your chart instead, should, at the very least look like this:

-> Even better, make a chart and add in decans, asteroids, and considers more aspects. Viewing your birth chart like this is essential for gaining a better understanding. Aspects are what brings everything in your chart together to give it more significant and individualised meaning, the houses and the angles are also explicitly identifiable this way. Also, always make sure your chart is in whole sign houses, I will make a post on this later on why, but you will have to go to settings for this as popculture astrology has made placidus the default (as well as other inaccurate takes).

✎ Sun sign is astrology is fake, no matter how much you think it resonates with you it is the wrong footing to base your understanding of astrology off of. Astrology is extremely complex, one thing might resonate for one person and not for another, because of house placements, condition of the planet, aspects to the planet, etc. Consequently, all basic and simplified delineations of a chart are unhelpful and will put you on the wrong footing for future proper readings you might wish to do. This is how astrology can be so inaccurate.

✎ Astrology is not about resonating. Although, this is a part of how we can test astrology, it is linked far too much with resonating with personality. Your birth chart is not a map of who you are specifically, we evolve all the time (as the universe, so the soul), it is a map of your entire life. It is a map of the sky and its energies the minute you were born. Some things you think you do not resonate with is because those energies have not yet played out in your life.

✎ Astrology is not a psychological tool, although it can give us insight into psychology when used and understood properly. Again, it is the blueprint of our life.

✎ Astrology is not spiritual. It is not a belief system, either. Although, one can use astrology to advance their spiritual practices.

✎ Free will exists. I will likely go into this in another post but the energies of our bith chart, solar return chart, profection year, progressed charts, transits etc, are merely indications of how things are likely to unfold. The energies are malleable within their themes' ambit, and it is up to us to decide how we choose to interpret what is/will happen and what to do with that information. A transit might indicate difficulty in a law suit, ok, how can I mitigate that then? What other charts, energies, and transits can I use? If I did not know of this then I would not know how to alter my behaviour to yield a better results, even if it might not mean a completely opposite result.

✎ Your natal chart will not show you everything. There are relocated charts, progressed charts, solar return charts, profection years, etc. All this goes into a holistic assessment. Your natal chart, however, will always remain the anchor of it all.

A brief history

Astrology is not some woo-woo, spiritual, new age, belief system. Astrology's history and use goes back to the Babylonians. It used to be intertwined with astronomy; Galielo and Kepler, for example, were simultaneously astrologers and practised it widely (even as court astrologers). People in positions of power have always consulted astrologers to time events, in the modern era many Royal families, celebrities, and politicans still consult astrologers. Carl Jung, JP Morgan, Nancy Reagan, and Roosevelt are examples of this. Of course, it might be argued that just because famous people have used/use astrology does not give it any more credit to which I say: ok please read my post below pls and ty xo.

Astrology's history has been relatively tumultuous, however. I have condensed this timeline from an article I found below:

- Astrology was a widely accepted practice but, in Europe, after the fall of the Roman empire and much of Europe, it fell into decline along with other disicplines. - The middle ages saw a renaissance of intellectualism with a particular focus on science and thus the astronomy part of it. This was largely due to the Church who viewed astrology as divination and going against free will. - However, in other parts of the world astrology was still a crucial element of daily life, and those in power would use astrologers to time events. - Astrology did re-enter the curriculum, though, in the 14th century, with a focus on being used for medical astrology in part due to the recently available Hippocratic Corpus. These texts were crucial to advancing our understanding of medicine, but Hippocrates emphasised that "a physician without knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician". Astrologer still had a healthy dose of criticism back then, though. - Astrology was a major field of study in universities in Europe, well ingrained in daily life. - It died out in the 17th century, mostly due to the increasing emphasis on science being increasingly and misleadingly viewed as separate from astrology, the church, and astrologers falling into disrepute due to political involvement. - Its resurgence in the 19th century saw an oversimplified, and largely 'spiritualised' version of astrologer. This is because this period also saw an increased interest in the occult and mystic. - Since becoming conflated, astrology has become even further diluted, but this is not to say that every new discovery has been wrong; modern interpretation is crucial to informing the bigger picture of astrology and how we can utilise it. But it is vital to be critical and separate it from pop culture nonsense, aimed at lost and desperate people looking for quick answers and confirmation bias, and have some media literacy.

So, how does astrology work?

: ̗̀➛ Astrology has NOTHING to do with the physical constellations. Astrology is based on the signs on the ecliptic (the path of the sun amongst the constellations, which is the plane of the earth's orbit).

: ̗̀➛ The equator has 15 constellations, and the ecliptic has 13. So why do we have 12 zodiac signs? This is because babylonians divided the ecliptic into 12 equal segments of 30 degrees each thousands of years ago. The ecliptic was divided into SIGNS. 12 constellations were just used to identify where in the sky each sign would be, at the time for ease of astronomical mapping/calculation - it is merely symbolic. This is why Opphiuchus is not the 13th Zodiac SIGN, although it is a constellation (and has always been known).

: ̗̀➛ Another reason why they are not based off the physical constellations is because the actual size of the constellations vary massively in size. Below is a representation of this:

: ̗̀➛ As you can see, Virgo, for instance is huge, and on a literal view overlaps into the next segment because the constellations do not all equally fit a 30 degree division. Yet, we do not give scorpio like 5 days for its season, because the physical constellation does not dictate anything meaningful.

This gives us the tropical zodiac, which is to do with the earth's seasons:

: ̗̀➛ The solstices are therefore reference points for Capricorn and Cancer (tropic of capricorn and tropic of cancer), not the constellations themselves. Accordingly, the spring equinox is marked by Aries (with the sun entering the segment of Aries at 0 degrees until 29), and the autumn equinox by Libra.

: ̗̀➛ The precession of the equinoxes, are therefore irrelevant to astrology (and this is why vedic/sidereal is, in my opinion inaccurate). The slow change of the direction of the earth's axial tilt, over around 26000 years, cause a precession of the equinoxes. This means, the segment of the sky that used to be identified by the Aries constellation from the earth's position at the time, is now looking at Pisces. But as we know, astrology has nothing to do with the physical location of the constellations. Vedic astrologers use sidereal positioning, aka taking into account the precession of the equinoxes, yet they still divide the ecliptic in the same way. This causes problems, leading to many branches in vedic because few agree on where aries actually even starts. But, I will write an extension of this segment in a future post on tropical vs vedic/sidereal astrology.

Where does astrological meaning come from?

As explained above, constellations do not give us meaning, the planets in the signs do (of which the signs' names just derive from where the constellations were at the time, i.e. are merely symbolic).

Astrology operates in a heliocentric context, in that its setting is derived from the solstices (as the sun is what gives us life) and the ecliptic etc, but is geocentric in function in that the meaning comes from how the celestial bodies going through the signs affect us on earth; it is all about OUR relation to the planets, not constellations.

Returning to the quote above (as above so below...), what happens up up there reflects its energies down on us below. For thousands of millenia, astrologers have developed an accurate pattern recognition framework which aligns with the maths and astronomy. This was done using the ephemeris, which tracked the trajectory of celestial bodies against the context of worldly (mundane), or natal events. Eventually, this knowledge could be used for predictions, (to understand transits, or for electional and horary astrology), by utilising the knowledge of how the trajectories of the planets and their interactions with eachother in what sign and house affected what.

Why does it affect us? Well, all the things that happen above us radiate energies. But when I talk about energies, I do not mean it in some spiritual sense, it is quite literal. Everything has frequencies. As mentioned above, astrologers, since the Bablyonian times, have studied these patterns and created an objective framework to align with it. Physical energies or not there is direct causation. The moon for instance, affects the tides on the planet because of its gravitational pull. We are 70% water, there is little reason to deny that the moon cannot affect us either (it does). Perhaps you might understand your broken leg as because of being hit by a car. But astrology can assess the chart of the event, and transits to your own chart to provide further explanation of why you got hit by a car in the first place, and why it caused a broken leg etc. Subsequently, the energies of what happens above relate to the themes found in planets, signs, houses, aspects, asteroids etc - but these energies are not set in stone as explained above.

Ultimately, it is disappointingly small-minded to think that there is nothing 'greater' than the physical reality we tether ourselves to. We are in fact part of something bigger; and again I do not mean this in some culty spiritual hippy sense. It is literally a fact, the world and cosmos at large is so vast, mysterious, and beautiful, how could anyone deny the interconnected web we are all collectively a part of. We might never fully understand the mechanisms of the universe, but what we can do is use the information we do have to make use of it and help inform us on how to live better lives. The fact there is something 'greater' inherent in our lives, connecting everything, which is objectively difficult to truly grasp, is not a reason to reject it. A lot of people who are averse to astrology (which used to be me) are those who pride themselves on rationality and objectivity, yet are restricting themselves to a very particular interpretation of what rationality and objectivity means.

With all this said, I hope it has helped someone understand and appreciate astrology better. There is such a fascinating rich and deep history to it, spanning various cultures and eras, making it difficult to at least not enjoy learning about even if one still chooses to not practise it. I would like to reiterate, however, that to truly embrace astrology and its millenia of knowledge, evidence, and practice behind it, one must divorce its concept from pop culture astrology.

[fuck-customers]

This situation truly felt like the closest I've ever gotten to reenacting the L vs. Light from Death Note battle lmaoo I kept my cool and plausible deniability, but I was dying laughing internally.

(I think I've won the battle, btw. I'll have to wait and see. There's more to this war, though)

So, for background (and I've complained about this on this blog several times...sorry) my moron boss refuses to put price tags/signs on the products in the store, especially at the register. Considering I work in a retail store...this is obviously a problem. So I've made several attempts to get products priced, in varying degrees of extremity.

1. I made handmade signs/tags out of receipt paper/scratch paper and put them on the products around the register. (Candy, toys etc.) Braindead manager took them down.

2. All but 4 of the shopping carts at work are broken, but customers are stupid and still try to drag them halfway through the store and then abandon them or somehow blame me personally for them being broken. So I put signs on the broken ones and blocked them off. Dumbshit managers keep unblocking them and then customers try and fail to use them and abandon them throughout the store, rinse and repeat daily.

3. I then got the idea to go over my manager's head, but without having it fall back on me. Write to corporate. I originally started snatching receipts to leave negative reviews on the store survey, but that seemed to be a dead end, as the SM and DM are the ones who are supposed to read the surveys, but appear not to, as not a single thing was fixed in over 6 months of "customers" complaining weekly. (Usually at least 1 every 2-4 days)

4. I found a clearance price gun and tagged everything with it, even if it wasn't clearance. One way or another, it had a price on it, right? Of course the braindead moron took them off.

5. I then found actual price tags that were technically for different products, but had the same prices as our current candy, so I tagged the items with that. (For example, we'd have a tag for chocolate that we no longer carry that was $3.99 and we have some current chips on the shelf that are $3.99, so I'd just put the old tag for the current candy, since all customers need is the dollar amount and blacked out the old product description) These lasted longer than the previous attempts, but were ultimately taken down, but this is (hopefully) the turning point.

6. Just to really make sure something would change, a month or so after reusing old price tags, I (simultaneously, while also putting up old tags) made several fake emails posing as disgruntled customers and emailed corporate complaining about the lack of prices and the broken carts (among other things) at my specific location. (I did not name any specific employees or throw anyone under the bus. I just complained about the appearance of the store and any mention of employees was simply left at "the cashier" "the manager" etc. with no personally identifying info) I did this on the feedback section of the company website as well.

This all came to a head today when the braindead's mini-me (the ASM) pulled me aside before I clocked in today to basically call me out. She said that she knew that I was the one who put the handmade tags and also put "broken" signs on the broken carts and blocked them off. I, of course pretended not to know about it, because I'm not THAT stupid. But I'm not in trouble, because she has no real proof. (It was very much "I know that she knows and she knows that I know she knows lol) Anyway, she says (and we'll see about this) that new carts have been ordered and are on their way and also that she had to go around and undo all the tags (oh boohoo, she had to do her job, poor her) and will be putting real, correct tags on the products.

We'll see. In the meantime, "customers" are still going to leave bad reviews and contact corporate until changes are actually made for real. There are still other issues that need to be fixed, but are not as important as the lack of price tags and carts. (Such as the lack of price checkers, the shit radio music, the lack of employees, the dysfunctional inventory system, the bare shelves, the disorganized store, etc.)

Posted by admin Rodney

[rebeccathenaturalist]

hey there! fellow naturalist (albeit less experienced!) here! in regards to the AI-generated ID guides, do you have any advice for helping the general public learn to recognize them? are there any giveaways other than incorrect information a layperson might not pick up on that we can tell people to watch out for?

Hi, @fischotterkunst! It's a messy topic, to be sure, but here's what I've been seeing of these AI-generated texts, at least on Amazon:

--If you sort your search for "foraging book" or "mushroom hunting" or whatever search string you use by "Newest Arrivals", you'll notice that there is a glut of books that have come out in the past few weeks. Yes, there are always new books, but this is at a higher than normal rate, which suggests AI is behind at least some of them. There ARE occasionally real authors' books that just happened to come out recently, so don't dismiss every single book that is a fresh release. Use the other criteria below.

--They will invariably be self-published or from some publisher with zero online presence. Not a problem by itself; my own chapbooks are self-published on Amazon KDP. But they come out every three months, not every three days, because I am researching, writing, and editing them all myself, rather than churning out content with AI.

--The titles and subtitles are often very long and stuffed with keywords. They are obviously optimized for search engines rather than being descriptive of the book and they have a rather clunky fashion.

--Look for obvious typos and other errors; for example, in the image above we have "WILD MUSHROOM COOKBOOK FOR BEGINNER: The complete guide on mushroom foraging and cooking with delicious recipes to enjoy your favorite". It should be "for beginners", and the subtitle just...ends prematurely. Favorite what? Favorite mushrooms? Favorite cartoon characters? Favorite color? Also, while there are lot of variations on name spellings, "Magaret" instead of "Margaret" stands out as a possible fake in combination with other clues. (All her other books also have this spelling, though.)

--This is a BIG one: Who's the author? Check their bio. In the above image you'll see that "Jason Cones", the author of "The Wild Edible Plants Forager's Handbook: A Beginner's Guide to Safe Foraging, Including How to Identify Edible Plants, Learn About Their Medicinal Properties, and Prepare Them for Cooking", has a very generic picture and bio that has pretty obviously been generated by AI. If you search for him online, the only page for an author named Jason Cones is the Amazon author page--no website, no social media, no interviews, nada. Even a brand new author will at least have something other than their Amazon page, and they'll mention experience, credentials, other biographical info.

--Look at the author's other books. Magaret seems to focus on cookbooks of very specific sorts, but again they've all come out in a very short time. They also tend to often be on really super-specific niche subjects--this, again, is not a red flag in and of itself, but it's a common pattern with AI "authors". Jason Cones, on the other hand, has written over two dozen books not just about foraging but anger management techniques, acupressure, and weed gummies, and all of his titles have come out since last December.

--If all the books have the same cover but slight differences in title, it's also a big red flag. There are reputable publishers of regional foraging guides like Timber Press, but their books are written by multiple authors and have come out over a long stretch of years (plus they're a well-known publisher with a solid track record, online presence, etc.) Also notice the typos in the title and subtitle; everyone says "Mushroom Foraging", not "Mushrooms Foraging", and "Keep Track Your Mushroom Sightings" is missing "of".

--Compare the descriptions of multiples of these new books and you start seeing patterns. If you look at the images above, you'll notice that both Lorna K. Thompson's "Foraging Recipe Cookbook" and Kevin Page's "The Ultimate Foraging Guide for Seniors" have a very similar formulaic description. They start with a brief story about a person in a town or village who discovers some foraging secrets and then transforms his life, and then a list of things you're supposedly going to find in this seemingly miraculous book. This basically reads like "Hey, ChatGPT, tell me a story of a person who improved their life with foraging in two hundred words or less!" Also, the ends got cut off of my screen shot, but they both end with "GET YOUR COPY TODAY!"

I have not purchased any of these books to verify how awful the content is, but what little content I can see in the previews is uniformly formulaic and, again, reads like someone asked an AI to write content on a topic with some specific keywords thrown in. Needless to say, I do NOT recommend any of these books.

Also, I feel really bad for any actual authors who released their books in the past few months. They're likely getting drowned out by this AI junk, though hopefully they're getting enough attention for their work through their publishers, social media, etc. to get some sales. Support your real-life authors, and boycott AI!

Finally, PLEASE reblog this! It's really, really important that people know what to look for, and the more posts we have floating around with this info, the less likely it is someone's going to get poisoned by following what these books have to say.

[mariacallous]

“Video has come out from Bucks County, Pennsylvania showing a ballot counter destroying ballots for Donald Trump and keeping Kamala Harris's ballots for counting,” an account called “Dan from Ohio” wrote in the comment section of the far-right website Gateway Pundit. “Why hasn't this man been arrested?”

But Dan is not from Ohio, and the video he mentioned is fake. He is in fact one of hundreds of inauthentic accounts posting in the unmoderated spaces of right-wing news site comment sections as part of a Russian disinformation campaign. These accounts were discovered by researchers at media watchdog NewsGuard, who shared their findings with WIRED.

“NewsGuard identified 194 users that all target the same articles, push the same pro-Russian talking points and disinformation narratives, while masquerading as disgruntled Western citizens,” the report states. The researchers found these fake accounts posting comments in four pro-Trump US publications: the Gateway Pundit, the New York Post, Breitbart, and Fox News. They were also posting similar comments in the Daily Mail, a UK tabloid, and French website Le Figaro.

“FOX News Digital’s comment sections are monitored continuously in real time by the outside company OpenWeb which services multiple media organizations,” a spokesperson for the company tells WIRED. “Comments made by fake personas and professional trolls are removed as soon as issues are brought to our attention by both OpenWeb and the additional internal oversight mechanisms we have in place.”

Breitbart replied to WIRED's request for comment in Russian: "Пожалуйста, скажите Newsguard, чтобы они пошли на хуй." In English, this means "please tell Newsguard to go fuck themselves."

The Gateway Pundit and the New York Post did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

“The actors behind this campaign appear to be exploiting a particularly vulnerable part of the media landscape,” McKenzie Sadeghi, the AI and foreign influence editor at NewsGuard, tells WIRED. “Comment sections designed to foster reader engagement lack robust security measures, allowing bad actors to post freely, change identities, and create the illusion of genuine grassroots campaigns rather than orchestrated propaganda.”

The disinformation narratives being pushed by these accounts are linked to Storm-1516, according to Newsguard. Storm-1516 is a Russian disinformation campaign with a history of posting fake videos to push Kremlin talking points to the West that was also connected to the release of deepfake video falsely claiming to show a whistlelbower making allegations of sexual assault against vice presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. (WIRED first reported that the Walz video was part of a campaign by Storm-1516. A day later, the US government confirmed WIRED’s reporting.)

Links to the video were posted by multiple accounts with names like “Disobedient Truth” and “Private Patriot” in the comment section of outlets like Breitbart and the Gateway Pundit.

“More bad news for the Dems: Breaking: Tim Walz's former student, Matthew Metro, drops a shocking allegation- claims Walz s*xually assaulted him in 1997 while Walz was his teacher at Mankato West High School,” the comments read.

The links posted in the comments came hours before the video was shared on social media platforms like X, where it racked up millions of views.

After the Bucks County video went viral, researchers quickly traced it back to Storm 1516. US intelligence agencies then confirmed Russia was behind the fake video.

Russian influence operations have, in the past, made use of comment sections to boost their narratives, including during their campaign to disrupt the 2016 elections. This is the first time this tactic has been reported as part of Russia’s efforts to disrupt the 2024 presidential election.

“Replying in threads is a tactic that can have an impact with very little investment,” Darren Linvill, codirector at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, tells WIRED. “By inserting disinformation into an unrelated conversation it might be seen, even if the account being used has no followers and was just created yesterday. It also doesn't matter if the account you are using is caught and shut down because you haven't lost an investment, you can just create another account five minutes later.”

The fake comments, Newsguard found, are also then used in reports from Russian state-backed media outlets to bolster claims about how Western audiences are responding to a particular incident.

After the Trump assassination attempt in July, Tsargrad TV published an article titled “Biden's Trace in Trump's Assassination Attempt. Americans Agree with the Kremlin's Version: ���Russians Are Right.’” The article outlined how Americans believe that the Biden administration played a part in the shooting, citing “comments to articles in Western media” as evidence.

NewsGuard’s researchers identified 104 articles in Russian state media that cited comments from Western news outlets as evidence to back up their claims between January and August of this year.

“This tactic allows bad actors to reduce the risk of detection and embed propaganda in a subtle, seemingly organic way, blending it into the casual commentary of supposed everyday Western readers,” Sadeghi said. “The repetition of the same claim across multiple formats and contexts can create a sense of familiarity that may lend the narratives an appearance of credibility.”

The network of accounts has also been used to seed other narratives, including one earlier this month where dozens of comments in the New York Post and Breitbart claimed, without evidence, that Ukrainian president Volodmyr Zelensky had used Western military aid to purchase a car that once belonged to Adolf Hitler.

That claim has been spread by the network of inauthentic websites controlled by former Florida cop John Dougan, who now lives in Moscow and runs a network of pro-Kremlin websites. Dougan’s network of websites have previously shared disinformation narratives from Storm-1516.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arno Rosenfeld at The Forward:

The Heritage Foundation plans to “identify and target” volunteer editors on Wikipedia who it says are “abusing their position” by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic, according to documents obtained by the Forward. Employees of Heritage, the conservative think tank that produced the Project 2025 policy blueprint for the second Trump administration, said they plan to use facial recognition software and a database of hacked usernames and passwords in order to identify contributors to the online encyclopedia, who mostly work under pseudonyms. It’s not clear exactly what kind of antisemitism the Wikipedia effort, which has not been previously reported, is intended to address. But in recent months some Jewish groups have complained about a series of changes on the website relating to Israel, the war in Gaza and its repercussions. In June, a panel of Wikipedia editors declared the Anti-Defamation League a “generally unreliable” source of information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, limiting when the organization can be cited in Wikipedia articles. And there was an outcry this fall among some Jewish scholars and pro-Israel activists over edits to Wikipedia’s entry for Zionism to add references to “colonization.” [...] The Heritage Foundation sent the pitch deck outlining the Wikipedia initiative to Jewish foundations and other prospective supporters of Project Esther, its roadmap for fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The slideshow says the group’s  “targeting methodologies” would include creating fake Wikipedia user accounts to try to trick editors into identifying themselves by sharing personal information or clicking on malicious tracking links that can identify people who click on them. It is unclear whether this has begun.

[...] Allegations of bias Wikipedia has long faced claims from conservatives that it has a liberal bias. Chaya Raichik, the Orthodox former real estate broker behind “Libs of TikTok,” has assailed Wikimedia’s spending on diversity programming, for example. And a June study from the right-leaning Manhattan Institute found a “mild to moderate tendency” for Wikipedia to more negatively describe some conservative public figures. Several prominent Jewish groups have also expressed concern that Wikipedia is tilted against Israel. A World Jewish Congress has released a report in March said the site’s articles about the Israel-Hamas war were biased in “terminology, framing and lack of context, one-sided sources and critical omissions,” while Aish.com, an Orthodox news website, said in November that it had been “hijacked by digital jihadists.” In May, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal ran a cover story titled “Wokepedia?” that described “seven tactics Wikipedia editors used to spread anti-Israel bias.” The article said that the term “anti-imperialism” had been added to the Hamas page as one of the Palestinian terror group’s ideologies, and the term “antisemitism” removed. Neither term is currently on the Hamas page; editors frequently discuss and change the content of controversial articles.

Radical right-wing organization The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther is planning to identify and target Wikipedia editors as part of its project to combat antisemitism and anti-Zionism. In reality, such a campaign would serve to intimidate Wikipedia for its alleged pro-Palestinian bias.

[creature-wizard]

Reminder that Russia is still trying to undermine the US presidential election!

Russia is using fake videos and phony social media accounts to target Vice President Kamala Harris as the U.S. presidential election draws closer, according to a new report from Microsoft.

...The Microsoft report identified a number of recent Russia-linked campaigns that have shifted focus to Harris. That included a baseless claim accusing Harris of being involved in a hit-and-run in 2011 that was spread via a website claiming to be a local San Francisco TV station. The article was accompanied by a video in which a woman, whom Microsoft identified as an actor, claimed to be the victim of the crash. There is no evidence any such incident occurred, and the purported TV station does not exist.

[royalteachitchat]

Wow! 👏👏👏 JDEadonWriter on X, put this amazing post out today. Check this out!

Are Meghan Markle's kids FAKE? 🤔

Megnant

1 Size: Bump drastically altering in size, even in a single day 😯

2 Slip: Bump slipped down to her knees in Birkenhead, UK 😯

3 Wobble: Bump wobbled side-to-side as she crossed the street. 😯

4 Clutching: Supporting her bump with her hands overly often. 🤔

5 Popping: audibly popped in a video, and wafted her clothes😯

6 Shape: Bump unnaturally shaped on Netflix🤔

7 Straps: Moonbump straps outlines visible under clothing in several photos. And something snapped, impacting the clothing fabric (video of H&M in London)😯

8 Biology: An absence of swelling of ankles, and other subtle biological (non)signs.🤔

9 Holding: Carrying a (doll?) infant on her bump, instead of on her hip.🤔

10 Squats: Squatting, effortlessly, with her knees together in videos and photos. In heels.😯

Births

11 Announcements: Royal official birth announcements are indirect. One states they are delighted "by the news of the" (not by the actual) birth.🤔

12 Coverup? A medic who certified a birth closed down her practice shortly afterwards.😯

13 Certificates: Questions linger over the birth certificates signatures, etc.🤔

14 Leak: An official Royal twitter account tweet indicated that Meghan’s kids are fake, before being taken down. An innocent prank?😁

15 Recovery: Epidural (ouch!) birth in a bath description anomalies and arriving home too soon afterwards to be quite plausible.🤔

16 Born Of Body?: Meghan allegedly told a friend she was infertile, when at college, and there was a reported alleged hysterectomy before the births.

17 Silence: Meghan is silent on her claimed births, despite always flashing her bump; having a "Capacity for over sharing"; boasting about being a “Mom”, and always talking about herself (apparently) on her feminist podcast. 🤔

Rented Infants

18 Archie Model: The real parents of the infant predominantly shown in Archie photos are identified. 💥

19 Lilibet Model: Parents of the infant shown in Lilibet photos are identified.💥

20 Loan: Mother of “Lilibet” commented on Insta that she does not "loan" her daughter to Meghan any longer.😯

21 Shape-Shifting: Different infants used in photos of both Archie and Lilibet.😯

22 Photoshopping: A litany of incompetently-photoshopped “family” photos. (A huge topic in itself).🤔

Dolls

23 Reborn Doll: Seemingly cradling a doll (a product called Darren) in official photo of Archie 🪆

24 Party Doll: Meghan seemingly cradled a similar doll when gate-crashing a polo match party, begetting astonished looks.😯

25 Bumpy Ride: Meghan seemed to be lugging an inanimate doll on top of her bump through some woods in Canada. Whilst grinning at a hired pap.🪆

26 Twisted: In one photograph, Archie's head is twisted more than 90 degrees 🪆

27 Carrying: A high % of photographs show them carrying the “kids” 🪆

28 Backs-Turned: A high % of Photos are of kids facing away from the camera 🤔

Other Oddities

29 Website: A startling absence of updates of Royal website on Meghan’s offspring.🤔

30 Bishop: Los Angeles christening cleric was not the official Bishop the Harkles claimed he was.🤔

31 Implausible Platitudes: Claiming Archie’s first word was “Crocodile”, and that he demands a Leica camera for his birthday. As tots do...🤔

32 Merch: An uncharacteristic unwillingness to merchandise their kids, for $$$ or PR.🤔

33 Invisible: The Harkles are never seen with their kids. There are hints of "home schooling" (will they ever be allowed out?)😯

34 Family Holidays: Weirdly, the Harkles never take their kids on holiday, and, if they pretend they did, they incompetently photoshop them into pap snaps on Insta.🤔

35 Everything Else: All the stuff I overlooked in this hastily speed-typed list.🤔

🤔🤔🤔

Why does it matter? 🤔

Because rich Prince Harry wants we skint, long-suffering tax payers, to pay for his security expenses; he’s a traitor, and, well, it’s fraud, isn’t it? 💥

Feel free to leave evidence I missed out in the comments. 👍

#MeghanMarkleIsAGrifter

#MeghanMarkleExposed

#WhereAreTheKids

#sussexbabyscam

[menlove]

half this website really is like

gender is fake! tear down the gender binary! identify as anything you want!! it's a social construct!

........sexuality, on the other hand.... now THAT'S immutable, ancient, and sacred. these definitions are set in stone and real and everyone must follow them exactly or you are being xyz-phobic. what do you mean we're still just enforcing the gender binary. no no THIS time the gender essentialism is true and good and anything else is gross :/