#candidates hiring Platforms

[digifag]

sacha…

[vishaldinero]

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Let's Talk AI and Recruitment: Unveiling the Future!

[whatsuphr]

Find your dream job in Pune with Whatsuphr job portal - easy job search, personalized support, and career success awaits!

[thatbadadvice]

Help! I'm a Perfect Genius, but This Potential Employer Asked Me a Boring Interview Question!

Ask A Manager, 13 Feb 2024:

I was rejected from a role for not answering an interview question. I had all the skills they asked for, and the recruiter and hiring manager loved me. I had a final round of interviews — a peer on the hiring team, a peer from another team that I would work closely with, the director of both teams (so my would-be grandboss, which I thought was weird), and then finally a technical test with the hiring manager I had already spoken to. (I don’t know if it matters but I’m male and everyone I interviewed with was female.) The interviews went great, except the grandboss. I asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager. She told me she had a technical background (although she had been in management 10 years so it’s not like her experience was even relevant), but that she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. I still thought it was weird to interview with my boss’s boss. She asked pretty standard (and boring) questions, which I aced. But then she asked me to tell her about the biggest mistake I’ve made in my career and how I handled it. I told her I’m a professional and I don’t make mistakes, and she argued with me! She said everyone makes mistakes, but what matters is how you handle them and prevent the same mistake from happening in the future. I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview. A couple days later, the recruiter emailed me to say they had decided to go with someone else. I asked for feedback on why I wasn’t chosen and she said there were other candidates who were stronger. I wrote back and asked if the grandboss had been the reason I didn’t get the job, and she just told me again that the hiring panel made the decision to hire someone else. I looked the grandboss up on LinkedIn after the rejection and she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. She was also connected to a number of well-known C-level people in our city and industry. I’m thinking of mailing her on LinkedIn to explain why her question was wrong and asking if she’ll consider me for future positions at her company but my wife says it’s a bad idea. What do you think about me mailing her to try to explain?

Sir,

You have been wronged in the most grievous of ways by a coven of retaliatory, self-aggrandizing women who have failed in the extreme to recognize your brilliance, your talent, and above all, your general superiority.

Of course you should mail this mediocre "grandboss" on LinkedIn to inform her of the deep offense she caused you by interviewing you in the first place, let alone doing so using a boring question — indeed, you have a moral and professional obligation to do so in order to preserve your honor and the honor of scores of men like you who have never done a single solitary thing wrong in their lives, ever.

But I beg you to consider doing more. A single, private message to one incompetent bitch may not convey to the necessary parties the depth and breadth of the situation. Many, many people have important lessons to learn from your experience, and I encourage you to share it widely. Consider making a public LinkedIn post, and ensure that it is shareable across platforms. Depending on your financial resources, a billboard with your name, professional headshot, and contact information could go a long way toward ensuring that everyone in your industry who needs to know just how you handled the way these women treated you, does know about it. I hope that in your continuing job search, you are able to connect with potential employers who have a much better grasp of all you bring to the table.

[pumpkinpaix]

Regarding #EndOTWRacism’s summaries of 2023 OTW Board election candidate positions

Before I begin, let me say now that while I am a volunteer with the OTW, my views are personal and should not be taken as any kind of official statement from the org, its leadership, or other volunteers, especially not the candidates in question. My focus here is on the Asian candidates for obvious reasons, but this post is not meant as endorsement or disavowal of any of the candidates, whose bios and platforms can all be read here.

Do not take this as an excuse harass the mods running EOTWR. I cannot make myself clearer.

--

I am making this post to express my extreme disappointment with End OTW Racism’s post purporting to summarize the platforms of the candidates for the upcoming Board elections. It is no longer rebloggable, but can be read here.

The way that the candidates with Asian names were spoken of is deeply insulting when compared with how candidates with English-language names were discussed. Asian candidates had their platforms misrepresented, their expertise downplayed, and their lived experiences reduced down to “bringing an international presence” to the board, which was then further caveated with, “diversity alone is not going to solve the issue of racist harassment currently allowed in the OTW’s policies and enforcement practice”. While it is true that diversity alone is not a solution, it’s pretty offensive to essentially have “remember! Just because they aren’t white doesn’t mean you should vote for them!” tacked on to one of the Asian candidates’ platforms. 

End OTW Racism seems more concerned with whether or not candidates used the buzzwords they wanted to hear rather than with how racism is discussed holistically within the statements. While I can appreciate that EOTWR has a specific agenda, to say things like, “[s]he does not mention racism, racist harassment, or hiring a DEI consultant in her platform, so outside the outreach and support she mentions, there is not enough for us to conclude that these would be priorities for her” regarding Zixin Z.’s position, directly following the statement, “[s]he also mentions the need for outreach towards non-English-speaking fans and has a desire to provide support to volunteers from minority groups” is fucking laughable, especially after the initial mistake of stating that Zixin Z. only wanted to do more outreach to Chinese-speaking fans. Again, I understand that people make mistakes and that this mistake has since been corrected, but I hope it prompts some reflection on the sort of biases that would lead to such a mistake in the first place. It may have been completely innocuous, but in charged discussions about racism, please understand that it gives an impression that is difficult to shake. I do thank you for not trying to hide that this happened. 

Why is Anh P.’s lack of discussion on TOS/PAC a point against her, while Zixin Z.’s years of experience on PAC, her role as a mod on Weibo, and her background in nonprofits don’t even warrant a mention? For that matter, why did none of the Asian candidates’ skills or experience warrant mention? Qiao C. and Zixin Z. have both been volunteers with the organization for several years now, and Anh P. has years of moderation and volunteer experience elsewhere prior to her work with the OTW.

It is so fucking frustrating that despite each one of these candidates specifically talking about the need for diverse voices, they had their platforms essentially passed over because they didn’t use the right words, and it is particularly fucking aggravating to see that EOTWR will use Chinese issues as props when trying to press OTW leadership on the racism that occurs within the org, but then completely fail to connect the dots on why these candidates are running because the wrong language was used. Zixin Z. is one of the Weibo mods, for fuck’s sake. 

The entire post feels like an exercise in virtue signalling, from every time it was brought up that a candidate did not provide pronouns in their platform statements, despite every one of them having pronouns provided in their bios (why mention this detail at all? You could have simply used the pronouns), to what felt like willful obliviousness to the anti-racism stances in the Asian candidates’ platforms. It feels like the concern starts and ends with racism in Anglophone terms, on Anglophone terms.

I can respect the driving ideas behind EOTWR, even if I disagree with the way that EOTWR pursues their goals. I do believe that we want the same things in the end, and therefore chose not to interact with the many posts I have seen about the protest. However, I saw the summary post and could not let it pass without speaking.

For a protest group supposedly dedicated to ending racism in the OTW, this felt incredibly hypocritical, conscious bias or not. In my most charitable frame of mind, I can see this as misjudging and overcorrecting to ensure that there was no favoritism shown to the obvious non-white candidates lest EOTWR be accused of tokenizing– again, it is true, that diversity in and of itself is not a solution to racism. 

In my least charitable and most bitter frame of mind, I feel inclined to wonder if EOTWR, much like the OTW itself, is uncomfortable with the lack of influence they could exude over an international candidate. It would be much, much easier to push their agenda forward with more culturally familiar candidates, particularly white ones. Guilt and public scrutiny are powerful weapons and easy to wield against those with perceived privilege in our current atmosphere, often to the detriment of the actual discussion at hand in my experience. I know that’s cynical. It’s hard not to be. (For clarity's sake: I do not know the other candidates' races. This is a hypothetical.)

This isn’t a demand for an apology. I think we fetishize the capital-A Apology to the point where I find them sort of meaningless unless they are given freely. I don’t need EOTWR to agree with me, and I don’t really want to keep talking about it. Rather, I would prefer that EOTWR take action to do better as they continue in their campaign. What that action is is their decision. If they truly mean to stand against racism in the OTW, then I’d like them to demonstrate it.

--

DO NOT HARASS EOTWR MODS. I AM FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.

[mosaickiwi]

14DWY As a Drama AU

Hey remember when I said I’d post this in February oopsies!! (don’t ask me about demon!ren i will cry)

Open at your own risk this thing is LONG. Tried to give everyone at least a little something! upon putting this in my drafts i realized olivia exists i'll add her at some point uhhh. Also you can tell how much I love Elanor... hehe

14 Days With You is an 18+ Yandere Visual Novel. MINORS DNI

The cult classic romantic thriller, 14 Days With You, is now a drama! Coming to all your favorite streaming platforms this summer. A whirlwind romance gone right and wrong that you DON’T want to miss.

Cast List

[REDACTED]

🖤 Quiet kid that used the after school theater program to delay returning home. Never wanted to perform, but loved doing costumes, make up, and correcting others (in his mind) on how to portray their roles. 

🖤 Spent a little extra time perfecting the costumes of a certain someone who didn't even know they existed. He always traded house chores with his sister so she'd sit in the audience to solely film Tree #2's performance.

🖤 Was an apprentice special effects makeup artist after graduation at first, particularly for horror films, but it didn't exactly pay the bills when they left home.

🖤 Easily rose to the top in their acting career due to his dedication for crafting characters to perfection. 

🖤 Dolly Parton/Lady Gaga-esque in their separation of work and life—completely unrecognizable in their regular civilian attire. Paparazzi have never gotten a picture of them in all their years trying.

🖤 Has zero issues getting into character, but does "method acting" on occasion to make sure people leave them alone on set. And also to fuck with directors and producers they don't like. Notoriously difficult to work with because of it + their overall attitude towards others, still gets hired somehow.

🖤 Got offered the role as the main love interest in 14DWY without an audition, thanks to a previous manipulative pink haired character he played in a film that ended up never being released. (2017 Ren because it's funny)

 Angel (you!)

💜 Participated in the same after school theater program as [REDACTED] and Leon for a few semesters before you got bored of it. Curiosity for acting resurfaced later in life.

💜 Newbie actor at the recently formed talent agency of your friend. Only starred as non-speaking roles or background characters in small productions until the drama. You moved back to Corland Bay after uni for the better industry prospects.

💜 You initially auditioned for a very small role in the drama as an employee in a seaside shop at first, but somehow you wound up as the lead? (un)lucky you.

💜 Feel free to fill in the blank for any whys and hows you think of to fit your OC/self/sona as you so please <3

Elanor

💖 Normally an actress and casting director, first time as an executive producer for the drama. Dreams of bringing her own romantic screenplays to life. Hasn't quite proven herself the way she wants in the industry to feel confident enough in them. 

💖 Catalyst for the drama being made. A "friend" mistakenly recommended the 14DWY book to her. She absolutely loathes all the psychological horror of it but sees the potential it has.

💖 Also the reason [REDACTED] was immediately cast, and you as well once she saw your chemistry with him while reading for a minor role. He hadn't shown a fraction of as much interest when reading lines with other potential candidates, so she decided to take the risk of an untested talent as the headliner.

💖 Refuses to use her family's name to get her stuff made. She wants her works to speak for themselves. Very picky about who she works with due to her family having hands in most of Corland's entertainment industry so she hardly gets a genuine interaction beyond ass-kissing.

💖 Always partial to working with Conan's small studio since he was the only director to give her any sort of criticism in spite of her family, as gentle and polite as it was. She still cried a little in the dressing room though.

💖 Genuine confusion when Conan wants her to act as both a producer and assist with direction. She only intended to bring it to his interest. But how could she say no to someone whose judgment and opinion she respects so much?

Conan

💖 Runs and owns a small scale studio in the Bay that seems to pick and choose its productions at random. It is in fact Alice sneaking into her dad's home office and putting scented stickers on the ones she likes. (She only reads the titles)

💖 Extremely proud of Elanor for getting so far on her own, and would take on one of her dozens of scripts no questions asked if she'd only work up the courage to show him one. So imagine his surprise when she comes to him with a romantic horror instead of one of the fairy tale romances he sees her scribbling notes on during breaks.

💖 While he’s the one with the final say, he does try to let Elanor have as much free reign as possible on the project in the hopes to boost her confidence.

Kiara

💖 A super-star actress and model that got her start in Corland’s local industry, but quickly hit it big. 

💖 When she isn’t drowning in work, she’ll swing through town to check in on her sister.

💖 Desperately wants to star in one of Elanor’s productions, but respects her sister’s desire for independence. Though she does like to tease about certain casting decisions on the drama when made aware of them.

the rest of the cast are unfortunately very silly i couldn't resist

Moth

💖 Started a talent agency out of spite for the terrible castings in their favorite media. Got further invested upon realizing they could read the scripts before the movies or show adaptations were even announced.

💖 The one who pushed you to audition for a minor role in the production once the rumor about who was cast as the main love interest reaches them. They've heard all the horror stories about [REDACTED] so wanted the inside scoop. Horrified and fascinated to find out you get the lead role. It’s like watching a train wreck.

Leon

💖 Joined the theater program initially because of you, but got really into it. Moved away to attend a performing arts school until his mother got sick.

💖 Took every wacky infomercial or street performance gig he could find to pay the hospital bills until Teo found out and swooped in.

💖 Eternally grateful for the burden of financial ruin being relieved, so he always accepts the jobs Teo gets for him. He definitely won’t complain since he’s not dressed in an animal costume and shouting nonsensical slogans for cleaning products.

Teo

💖 Met Leon through a shared production and quickly bonded. Attended a different performing arts school and met Jae as a child.

💖 Almost the exact opposite of his game character purely for the funnies. Shy, introverted, can’t flirt to save his life. Still a nepo baby but he can hold his own in acting. Doesn’t like his character much, but is extremely jealous of the confidence he oozes.

💖 Leon and Jae are his only friends in the industry so he uses his sway to get them parts if they haven't already gotten a call back. Gets REALLY nervous on set for certain roles so he needs their support.

Jae

💖 Attended the same school as Teo when they were kids, and is constantly pitching intentionally bad ideas and joking on set to reassure his friend.

💖 A little bit of a thrill seeker, so does all his own small stunts if he thinks he’s capable. Stands there and gawks watching the more extreme stunts, loudest to clap when they go well.

💖 Kept bringing Maple to the shoots cause how could he even think about leaving her at home? She would occasionally break her leash and wander into a scene for head scratches and kisses. The film crew always booed when a PA came to take her off set.

Violet

💖 Completely terrible at caring for plants. Inspired by her role, she starts vlogging about her plant mom journey before shooting even begins. All her advice is completely wrong and terrible. Her personal assistant keeps her in the dark by tending to the plants themselves to fix her mistakes.

💖 Finds out she has a talent for flower arrangement, though. Does thank you vases for the cast and crew on all her future productions that last a lifetime because her PA made sure all the flowers were fake.

Exposition

(silly on set shenanigans)

🎬 Scenes get retaken quite a bit, since you’re still extremely new to it all. Most of the cast and crew expect anger out of [REDACTED] after the 4th call for a re-shoot on the first day’s library scene, but he’s surprisingly cracking jokes about his dye job and reassuring you that you’re doing great. The infamously ill-tempered actor is smiling somehow… even being patient? Not glaring down his co-star for minor slip ups? They cannot recognize this person.

🎬 Violet and [REDACTED] naturally butt heads on set. She respects their acting, not the actor. Zero hesitation to snap back if he’s getting snarky with a PA. You’re the one people have to beg to separate them, and you’re completely baffled that [REDACTED] doesn’t treat others as nicely as he treats you.

🎬 Even though Elanor is a nervous wreck about the first real thing to ultimately make or break her career, she’s scarily efficient on set—as long as no one distracts her. She does get sidetracked once in a while, only because she loves chatting and answering any questions the cast or crew might have. She even brings one of her own cats to set during a slower day to see if they can get along with Maple. Leaves Conan in charge when the horror scenes are being shot. They’re both put off by how vivid they feel, but Conan at least can grin and bear it. 

🎬 You and Leon manage to catch up on set while [REDACTED] is otherwise occupied shooting said horror scenes. You tease him about a few infomercials you saw when looking up his actor reel, and Leon teases you back about your unlucky streak of being a tree or a rock in every play the theater program put on when y’all were younger. Laughs even harder once he finds out your most prominent roles until then were “unnamed zombie #5 at the bottom of the pile” and “sleeping train passenger.”

🎬 Try as he might, [REDACTED] doesn’t convince Elanor to change up a few crucial parts of the script for his benefit. His offhand threats of leaving the production fall on deaf ears, as she is all too happy to do re-shoots to make Teo the lead. His innocent hints to you about the shoddy script fly over your head for some reason! You love how it's turning out, what does he mean?

🎬 Super shy Teo prefaces and warns his co-stars before acting in every scene of his character being excessively flirty. Most of the actors have worked with him at some point or another beforehand, so they let him go through his routine without issue. Some crew members love the whiplash of him switching between overly courteous and smarmy, others vastly prefer the flirty character and mourn the loss as production comes to a close.

The Build Up

📺 The higher ups pressure Violet to start a short-lived streaming career to boost interest, since she’s hopeless with plants. She amasses a cult following for her MMO reviews, blind raids on new patches, and her wild ride of a Minecraft playthrough. In the end she winds up preferring to play games off stream, but once in a blue moon she’ll do a first time raid stream so her more dedicated fans can join and watch her alliance get wiped. Creative trolling is highly encouraged.

📺 Teo, Jae, and Leon appear on a late night TV show for promotion. It was meant to be for Teo and [REDACTED] at first. (Where’s the leading lover? [REDACTED] refused all promo appearances or sit downs without you being involved in them.) The host plays a clip that Teo’s particularly embarrassed about, and he hides his face in shame when the crowd hoots and hollers praise about his portrayal.

📺 [REDACTED] comes across as doting and overprotective of you once you’re pushed into the spotlight of celebrity, and shows increasingly concerning behaviors as the premiere looms closer. Depending on your response, they’ll back off to a point or dial it up. Interviewers and consumers mistake it as the eccentric actor’s “method acting” so the red flags just slide right past.

📺 Elanor and Conan guest star in a podcast for off-the-cuff romance enthusiasts. Their strangely cagey and joking comments like “there were so many retakes we couldn’t keep track of what was meant to be the actors messing around or part of the final cuts,” and “we’ve actually sent all the reviewers 1 of 14 versions with completely different endings,” leave listeners all the more curious to see the film.

The Climax

🎉 Reception is huge, in good ways for most. The majority of the cast see a surge in popularity if they didn’t already from the hype. 

🎉 Teo bemoans his endless offerings for sarcastic pretty boy jobs, Leon makes enough to get picky about his roles (and pay Teo back), Jae somehow cons a studio into an action film starring Maple—and subsequently adopts every single one of her stunt doubles. 

🎉 Moth throws the agency away to start adapting anime and manga themselves. Elanor finally feels validated enough to bring one of her romantic screenplays to the big screen, starring her sister Kiara and a very enthusiastic Violet as the leading couple. 

🎉 Conan’s studio is overloaded with scripts, and Alice runs out of scented stickers that much quicker. They are severely backlogged send help.

🎉 One determined conspiracy theorist sets out to prove those missing 13 versions of the ending are real, based on minor cuts and inconsistencies purposefully left in the public release.

The End, Roll Credits

choose your own ending

Bad End 💔 - A Falling Star

💔 If you respond negatively to [REDACTED]’s demeanor during shoots and promo: he plays the waiting game, uses his connections and blackmail to make sure all your roles without his name attached don’t garner nearly as much attention as the ones where you’re co-stars.

💔 Your negotiating power quickly plummets as you fall out of demand and end up begging just for the non-speaking roles you once loathed.

💔 The careers of anyone you got close to on set fall apart much faster than yours, before they’re outright blacklisted in the industry.

💔 You begrudgingly call up your last option. He can’t do much for your friends, but their offer to help you make a comeback is always open.

Neutral End 💌 - Just One More Try

💌 If you respond indifferently to [REDACTED]’s demeanor: the drama leads to you getting more offers, though a handful are for playing opposite of [REDACTED], as the on-screen chemistry was too much for studios to ignore for cash grabs.

💌 Elanor has rid herself of the drama’s subsequent rights, despite positive reception, so a sequel sprouts up in the works at a different studio. One that doesn’t mind catering to the whims of their actors when it comes to script integrity.

💌 You arrive on the set to find that not just one, but all of your cast mates except for them were written to have much smaller parts in the sequel. In fact, you rarely find a scene in the revised script where [REDACTED] isn’t alongside you.

💌 Sadly the contract is air tight, just put up with it until it’s over… What’s this clause about further sequels?

Good End 💍 - Off Into the Sunset

💍 If you respond positively to [REDACTED]’s demeanor: you’ll sadly announce at the post premiere press conference that acting was a one-and-done adventure for you. Retired effective immediately, no farewell interviews.

💍 You’re spotted around town for a few weeks in a mask with a tall, darkly dressed companion at your side before you disappear from the public eye and Corland Bay all together.

💍 A few of your friends at least have an idea of where you are, and they meet up with you whenever you're in a nearby city. None of them can recognize the man glued to your side, though. Not that he'd say anything to clue them in.

💍 After months of near inactivity, [REDACTED] mysteriously deletes their socials without a word, sparking confusion and outrage among hardcore fans still desperately hoping for a sequel.

[odinsblog]

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is accusing billionaire Elon Musk of spreading "manipulated lies" after he reposted a video on X featuring an AI-generated voice imitating the vice president. Musk, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump, shared the video on his social media platform without noting that the video was originally released as an explicit parody, violating X's own policy that bars users from sharing “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm."

The fake video reiterates racist attacks against Harris, who previously served as a U.S. senator and attorney general of California.

“I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate,” the voice says, adding she is a "diversity hire" who doesn't know "the first thing about running the country." The fake-Harris voiceover is played alongside real clips of Harris used by her campaign in an earlier ad, authentic Harris campaign branding and the occasional statement from the actual candidate.

The mocking statements by the voiceover echoes statements from Republican politicians that Harris was only picked as Biden's running mate because she is a Black and Indian-American woman.

…

Two AI experts told the AP that the video represents the growing power deepfakes in shaping popular opinion and belief.

“The AI-generated voice is very good,” UC Berkeley digital forensics expert Hany Farid told the news service. “Even though most people won’t believe it is VP Harris’ voice, the video is that much more powerful when the words are in her voice.”

Rob Weissman, co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen, said that many people will be completely fooled by the video.

(continue reading)

[iww-gnv]

As firms increasingly rely on artificial intelligence-driven hiring platforms, many highly qualified candidates are finding themselves on the cutting room floor. Body-language analysis. Vocal assessments. Gamified tests. CV scanners. These are some of the tools companies use to screen candidates with artificial intelligence recruiting software. Job applicants face these machine prompts – and AI decides whether they are a good match or fall short. Businesses are increasingly relying on them. A late-2023 IBM survey of more than 8,500 global IT professionals showed 42% of companies were using AI screening "to improve recruiting and human resources". Another 40% of respondents were considering integrating the technology. Many leaders across the corporate world hoped AI recruiting tech would end biases in the hiring process. Yet in some cases, the opposite is happening. Some experts say these tools are inaccurately screening some of the most qualified job applicants – and concerns are growing the software may be excising the best candidates. "We haven't seen a whole lot of evidence that there's no bias here… or that the tool picks out the most qualified candidates," says Hilke Schellmann, US-based author of the Algorithm: How AI Can Hijack Your Career and Steal Your Future, and an assistant professor of journalism at New York University. She believes the biggest risk such software poses to jobs is not machines taking workers' positions, as is often feared – but rather preventing them from getting a role at all.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dave Whamond

* * * *

A false claim circulating on social media that Kamala Harris was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011 is the work of a covert Russian disinformation operation, according to new research by Microsoft.

Researchers found that the group created a video, paid an actor to appear as the alleged victim, and spread the claim through a fake website for a nonexistent San Francisco news outlet named KBSF-TV. The Russian group responsible, which Microsoft dubs Storm-1516, is described as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm.

Microsoft said the discovery was a sign of Russia ramping up its foreign influence efforts ahead of the 5 November presidential election. A spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

“Russian influence operations initially struggled to pivot operations aimed at the Democratic campaign following president Biden’s departure from the US 2024 presidential race,” a blog published on Tuesday by Microsoft said.

“In late August, however, elements of prolific Russian actor Storm-1516 began producing content implicating vice-president Harris and governor Walz in outlandish fake conspiracy theories,” Microsoft said, referring to Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz.

Storm-1516 is known for producing misleading videos featuring on-screen or voice actors who impersonate whistleblowers or journalists that share false, scandalous information, experts say.

A website for KBSF-TV was created shortly before publishing its first related article about the alleged driving incident, according to online registration records. The false claim – that the Democratic presidential candidate left a 13-year-old girl paralysed in a hit-and-run – circulated on social media platforms, including X, formerly known as Twitter using the hashtag #HitAndRunKamala.

In total, it is estimated the video has been viewed more than 2.7m times.

“Many entities within the pro-Russian ecosystem advanced the video and its claims,” said Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.

Earlier this month the US justice department filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the election.

US officials say Russia’s goal is to exacerbate US political divisions and weaken public support for American military aid to Ukraine. Harris says if elected she will continue supporting Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s invasion.

[castielsuneatenpussy]

really cool trying to vote in local elections and having every single candidate literally 100% of candidates for any position specifying in their platform "i LOVE cops and i want to funnel as much of our city/county/state budget as possible into hiring 150000000 cops to patrol the streets day and night in armored vehicles. vote for me and i promise to boost the number of extrajudicial executions of YOUR friends and neighbors by police by 500% or more. i will pass a law that says you have to suck any cop's dick/clit on demand"

[itsallpoliticsstupid]

The convenient timing of Taylor Swift's endorsement

I'm expecting to be lambasted for this one. But I can take it.

I have a hell of a lot of respect for @mishacollins. Anybody who stands by their convictions even when they are being criticized for them by their fanbase is basically a unicorn in my opinion. He's clearly very passionate about Politics, has his own views and won't bow to others if he's being shouted at, and I really respect him for that.

Which is what the original purpose of this blog was going to be. In essence, I was going to say how it's so important to have celebrities like him talking about their political views to change the narrative in this election, no matter how unpopular they are. And it's frustrating more celebrities can't use their platform like him to do good in this election.

But this morning I read his Facebook post gushing about Taylor Swift's endorsement and my initial thought was 'oh Misha. Why?' And it changed the direction of this blog.

Now whilst I appreciate it is a really important thing that Taylor Swift has thrown her endorsement behind Kamala Harris, can we just talk about the timing of her statement?

Taylor Swift is a woman with unimaginable wealth, and because of this she is able to hire a team of people around her that will be able to keep her appraised of anything in the media that is going to harm her image.

So I find it a little suspect that she claims to have only just found out about the AI images circulating of her endorsing Trump a couple of weeks ago. Yes, she has been on tour, and there have obviously been some horrific incidents associated with her name (the attack in the UK and the foiled terrorist attack), however I can't believe she only just found out.

Even if she mentioned in her statement she didn't want to speak out because of these incidents, that would have felt less disingenuous then saying 'I just found out.'

The second thing, is there has been some negative press surrounding her and the photos with Brittany Mahomes. Personally, I don't care who she's friends with. That's her business. But obviously it isn't a good look being friends with somebody who does seem to be in the Trump camp, especially when you are considered to be a firm friend of the LGBTQIA+ community and ultimately fans see you as a 'feminist icon.'

So to come out with her endorsement just a couple of days after people have been picking up on that, it's just incredibly convenient and feels like a way to get her fans, who were starting to question her back on side.

The third is, she could have endorsed Kamala right at the start. But let's be honest, she wasn't the most popular candidate when she first took over the campaign. It almost feels like she waited to see how popular she would be after the debate before going ahead and posting her endorsement.

One thing I will give her though, as a childfree cat lady, I did find her sign off quite good.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, and vote Kamala Harris in November.

[fiercynn]

you know what’s fucking wild? when @end-otw-racism’s first action started in may, they were incredibly clear that they had narrow and specific demands for the otw, and that their demands were commitments the otw had already made. if you need a refresher, here are their demands:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

and despite the fact that these were taken specifically from the otw’s own commitments, a lot of people immediately decided that this was an overreach on the campaign’s part. they fabricated supposed secret agendas that the campaign must have; they invoked slippery slope fallacies to say that this would lead to mass content removal for anything on ao3 that even skimmed the line of racism; they claimed to know who was leading the campaign and tried to discredit the campaign based on that, because they claimed that those people had larger agendas.

despite all of that, otw themselves came out reaffirming their commitment to these priorities. which is great, but that was not the end of the work, because those commitments were made by the existing board, which is about to turn over in the upcoming board elections. it's essential to hold the incoming board accountable to the previous board's commitments.

but when @end-otw-racism’s second action around otw board elections has continued to keep those specific, clear demands in their focus, they’re getting hounded for it from the other side: by people claiming that this analysis they did of the otw board candidates – in which eotwr made it clear that they were looking at whether the candidates talked about any of the eotwr demands or not – was racist for not counting the work asian candidates raised around reaching out to non-western and non-english speaking fans as fulfilling eotwr’s demands.

(which, let’s be clear, they don’t! issues around access for non-western and non-anglophone fans, around the way chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers have been mistreated by otw, around translation, are all worthy issues to be pushing on. eotwr has even uplifted some of them. but they are separate from eotwr's core demands.)

so first eotwr is overreaching and trying to bring down every fanwork that could be even slightly misconstrued as racist, even though they’ve always been clear about their narrow and specific goals…and now they’re racist for not addressing every form of racism, even though they’ve always been clear about their narrow and specific goals?

it is completely valid for eotwr to look at the board candidates’ platforms and say “they did not mention these things that we are looking for”, because the things that eotwr is looking for are commitments otw has already made. it is not eotwr picking out certain “keywords” that they’d like to see – they are looking at whether potential incoming board members are prioritizing those specific commitments and will uphold them. and otw has had those commitments for three years! this is not new stuff!

also, if you read that analysis again, eotwr is not even criticizing the candidates for not mentioning their demands! they are simply pointing out what we can glean about the candidates from their platforms and bios, because the platforms are the main information we have about the board candidates right now. eotwr has been incredibly clear that they want to talk to candidates and learn more about their priorities. they've also been clear in urging other people to come up with their own analyses of the board candidates, and they have in fact reblogged and uplifted other people’s perspectives on the candidates.

i cannot stress enough that we need more folks in this space to be pushing on anti-racism, and eotwr having a narrow scope is not a bad thing. there is endless work to be done, and others who disagree with eotwr’s tactics should start their own campaigns! eotwr literally only started like two months ago with a call to action. it’s very possible to emulate them and push for parallel priorities.

advocacy work also needs groups with different tactics and approaches. my day job is in climate change advocacy, and we do our most effect work when multiple organizations are representing different perspectives and pushing in different ways. i'd love to see that kind of advocacy ecosystem built up in fandom.

but right now, eotwr is the only campaign i know of trying to do large-scale anti-racism work around otw at all. and to actively push against the campaign because you think it’s racist to focus on specific goals and gently critique board candidates based only on those specific goals? is, i'm sorry, fucking ridiculous.

[whatsuphr]

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Vittoria Elliott at Wired:

Ahead of the US elections, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn. On July 26, Musk posted a video of vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which a deepfake of her voice appears to make her say that she is the “ultimate DEI hire” and a “deep-state puppet.” The post now bears a community note indicating that it is a parody. But many alleged that, shared without appropriate context, the video could have violated X’s policies on synthetic, or AI-altered, media. This was the culmination of Musk’s recent political rhetoric. Over the past month, Musk, after officially endorsing former president Donald Trump, has also boosted baseless conspiracies of a “coup” following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, and insinuated that the Trump assassination attempt might have been the result of an intentional failure on the part of the Secret Service. After endorsing Trump, Musk announced that he was starting a pro-Trump political action committee (PAC), and initially committed to donate $45 million a month, before backtracking.

Former Twitter trust and safety employees say that Musk’s increasingly partisan behavior around the US elections and other major events is a sign that he is doing exactly what he accused the company’s former leadership of doing: playing politics. “It’s staggering hypocrisy,” says one former Twitter employee. “Musk is smart enough to know social media is media, and it’s a way to control the narrative.”

Three former employees, who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, expressed concern that Musk presents a new kind of actor—someone who seeks to actively use a platform to reshape politics in both the US and abroad, and is willing to endure regulatory fines and declining advertising revenue to do so. “He is consolidating power and has systematically dismantled all markers of credibility at the company,” the former employee says. “However, I think it takes on additional significance when the person he is targeting is a presidential candidate.” Authorities appear to agree. Earlier this week, secretaries of state from Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico sent a letter to X demanding changes to Grok, the platform’s generative AI search tool, after it returned false information claiming Harris had missed the deadline to be on the presidential ballot in nine states.

Musk and X did not respond to a request for comment. Musk has been ramping up to this moment for years. When he purchased Twitter in 2022, he promised free-speech absolutism. After taking over, Musk immediately fired the majority of the company’s policy and trust and safety staff, who were responsible for keeping hateful and misinformative content off the platform. This included those responsible for guiding the platform through contentious elections. As the former employees noted, there is now no one at the company to deal with a flood of election-related misinformation, let alone what Musk himself might spread. “There’s almost no one left,” the former employee says. Disinformation and hate speech on X have ballooned on the site, and a recent Pew Research study found that X has taken on a partisan tilt. Since Musk’s takeover, it’s become more popular with Republican users and less popular with Democrats, who are less likely than Republicans to say their views are welcomed at the site.

Ever since Elon Musk gotten ahold of X (formerly Twitter), he has turned it into a playground for far-right extremism.

[mariacallous]

Ahead of the US elections, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn.

On July 26, Musk posted a video of vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which a deepfake of her voice appears to make her say that she is the “ultimate DEI hire” and a “deep-state puppet.” The post now bears a community note indicating that it is a parody. But many alleged that, shared without appropriate context, the video could have violated X’s policies on synthetic, or AI-altered, media.

This was the culmination of Musk’s recent political rhetoric. Over the past month, Musk, after officially endorsing former president Donald Trump, has also boosted baseless conspiracies of a “coup” following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, and insinuated that the Trump assassination attempt might have been the result of an intentional failure on the part of the Secret Service. After endorsing Trump, Musk announced that he was starting a pro-Trump political action committee (PAC), and initially committed to donate $45 million a month, before backtracking.

Former Twitter trust and safety employees say that Musk’s increasingly partisan behavior around the US elections and other major events is a sign that he is doing exactly what he accused the company’s former leadership of doing: playing politics.

“It’s staggering hypocrisy,” says one former Twitter employee. “Musk is smart enough to know social media is media, and it’s a way to control the narrative.”

Three former employees, who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, expressed concern that Musk presents a new kind of actor—someone who seeks to actively use a platform to reshape politics in both the US and abroad, and is willing to endure regulatory fines and declining advertising revenue to do so.

“He is consolidating power and has systematically dismantled all markers of credibility at the company,” the former employee says. “However, I think it takes on additional significance when the person he is targeting is a presidential candidate.”

Authorities appear to agree. Earlier this week, secretaries of state from Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico sent a letter to X demanding changes to Grok, the platform’s generative AI search tool, after it returned false information claiming Harris had missed the deadline to be on the presidential ballot in nine states.

Musk and X did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk has been ramping up to this moment for years. When he purchased Twitter in 2022, he promised free-speech absolutism. After taking over, Musk immediately fired the majority of the company’s policy and trust and safety staff, who were responsible for keeping hateful and misinformative content off the platform. This included those responsible for guiding the platform through contentious elections. As the former employees noted, there is now no one at the company to deal with a flood of election-related misinformation, let alone what Musk himself might spread.

“There’s almost no one left,” the former employee says.

Disinformation and hate speech on X have ballooned on the site, and a recent Pew Research study found that X has taken on a partisan tilt. Since Musk’s takeover, it’s become more popular with Republican users and less popular with Democrats, who are less likely than Republicans to say their views are welcomed at the site.

The actual composition of the site’s user base has changed, with people who had been kicked off the platform for violating Twitter’s community standards being let back on under Musk. Trump himself was famously unbanned, but a wide array of avowed white supremacists, conspiracists, and neo-Nazis also flooded back onto the platform, including far-right pundit Nick Fuentes, QAnon proponent Liz Crokin, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and election denier Mike Lindell.

The platform’s new blue check system, which allows anyone willing to purchase a subscription to get a marker that previously confirmed they were who they claimed to be next to their name, has also contributed to the growing misinformation problem. While the system used to be free and reserved for verified public figures, politicians, and journalists, anonymous accounts like @Sprinter99800 and @ShadowofEzra are now able to use the algorithmic boost offered by the subscription model to spread misinformation about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, respectively. Blue check accounts are, further, incentivized to spread outrageous claims because they can be paid based on how much engagement their posts get.

“He has a very obvious political agenda,” says one former member of Twitter’s policy team. Looking back at the last few years, they referred to Musk’s release of what he dubbed the “Twitter Files,” a cache of internal documents. The documents, according to Musk, revealed the political biases of the platform’s previous leaders—according to others, they showed mundane interactions with researchers and government employees—but also led to the doxing and harassment of former trust and safety employees and misinformation researchers.

Musk has also used the platform to put his thumb on the scale of politics outside the United States.

Last year, after Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro lost his bid for reelection, his supporters stormed the country’s legislature, in an echo of January 6, 2021. In April, Musk defied an order from Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court to remove the accounts of far-right actors who, the court said, violated the country’s laws by undermining confidence in the country’s electoral processes. X then released the court’s confidential orders to the Congressional Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which then made them public. Experts and government officials at the time said the move was a deliberate attempt by a foreign billionaire to undermine the country’s democratic institutions.

While Musk has repeatedly asserted that he took over Twitter to preserve its commitment to free speech, the company has complied with censorship from right-leaning governments. Last year, the company complied with an order from Turkey’s authoritarian government to censor content ahead of the country’s elections and blocked a BBC documentary about India’s right-wing Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi.

Instances like this, the first former employee tells WIRED, show that Musk is an entirely different actor than other tech CEOs, unbothered by the kinds of laws or norms that could be used to reign in another company. Musk doesn’t appear to be cowed by penalties like fines for spreading misinformation that are meant to keep billionaires and companies in check to protect the public interest.

“Regulation is not written for overtly malicious actors,” says the first former employee. “We don't have good regulation anywhere in the world that thinks about corporate entities like that … and it’s certainly not how we are used to treating a man who owns multiple companies.”

Because Musk’s own politics and priorities appear so clear, even decisions made seemingly without a political agenda can be interpreted as part of one. Last week, the X account for White Dudes for Harris was booted from the platform, causing many supporters of the vice president to wonder if this was Musk’s own political preferences playing out on X in real time. But a third former Twitter trust and safety employee who spoke with WIRED says it appears to be a pretty standard suspension that can happen when someone who has been banned from the platform in the past makes a new account. “Whoever set up the account most likely had an email address, IP address, or phone number that matched an account that had previously been banned on the platform. That would automatically be a penalty.”

The former employee says that the fact that people could not be sure if it was the result of Musk’s politics, or just a good old-fashioned moderation snafu is the real problem: “The fact that we have to ask those questions just shows the trust is gone. The misinformation has won.”

In an interview with the Atlantic, Musk said he would accept the results of the election should Harris win. But whether that will hold true in November is still cause for concern. Last week, after the Venezuelan elections wrapped in what experts said appeared to be a stolen victory for the country’s current president Nicolás Maduro, Musk railed against Maduro on X, even challenging him to a physical fight.

“What does it look like if this same sort of advocacy happens come November or December, in which he really believes that the election has been stolen or the vote counts aren't there?” the former employee says. It’s the same type of question that the former trust and safety teams were asking themselves about Trump during the 2020 presidential election. “It's very eerily kind of the same situation, except it’s the CEO and owner of the platform making those decisions, who also has the final say in content moderation decisions.”