#cyabra

[eretzyisrael]

Last week, a representative of an Israeli social threat intelligence firm Cyabra spoke at a Knesset session about how a coordinated influence campaign from Iraq was using bots in the first days of the war to impact public opinion.

I've discussed this a little, and I spent some more time looking at the bots attacking my account.

Social media allows attackers to quickly adjust their methods to see what is working and what isn't. I'm finding that they are getting more effective at their messaging.

The ones attacking me are specifically trying to turn the Israeli public against the war. They post almost exclusively in Hebrew. They are using a few vectors for their messaging that would resonate with Israelis: attacking Netanyahu's leadership, pretending to care about the hostages, and claiming that the IDF is hiding things from the public during the war and things are going badly.

When they create new bot accounts, they will use Jewish and Israeli iconography in their profiles - lots of Israeli flags, for example. 

They'll use typically Jewish and Israeli names - lots of "Levy" and "Cohen" and "Friedman"s. And there is a hierarchy - some older bot accounts that have been around for several months that aren't specifically Israeli sounding are feeding a second tier, which might have 30-150 fake followers of other bots, and then the bottom tier will only have one or two followers. Nearly all of the bottom tier accounts have been created within the past few weeks. 

Often, the accounts will start off by following and retweeting actual popular Zionist accounts (including mine) to make themselves look legitimate,. and sometimes this fools real people into following them, making it a little harder to identify them.

I don't know where they get their content, but it is getting much more sophisticated every day. Here is a video that was posted by hundreds of those bots where they use humor to try to demoralize Israelis into thinking the IDF is killing hostages and being killed by Hamas because of stupidity. This one seems to have been created by an Arab account but they added Hebrew messaging. 

As I mentioned last week, Iranian-linked sites are bragging that they are learning Hebrew and studying the Israeli psyche to fine tune these sorts of messages and make them appear to be truly from Israelis.

To these botmasters, Israeli dissension on how to conduct the war and anti-government protests are a godsend. It makes some of their messages look like they really could be from left-wing Israelis, and some of their material may indeed be from a fringe of Israelis. The sheer number of bots makes it appear that Israelis are far more divided.

The good news is that their attempt to use these bots to get a ceasefire or demoralize the Israeli public means that Hamas is losing, badly. But every social media user must understand how extensive and sophisticated these campaigns are to manipulate you. Tens of thousands of fake accounts, with millions of messages, is not a small scale campaign. 

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

Cyabra was not just “a tech firm specializing in countering disinformation online, but an Israeli company founded by military intelligence officers, half of whose employees have left to rejoin the IDF to fight in Gaza.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fake-news/meet-cyabra-the-intelligence-cutout-waging-israels-online-propaganda-war

#TheFreeThoughtProject #TFTP

[mariacallous]

The war in the Middle East is a laboratory for new means of spreading fake news. Propagandists across the world are watching and learning. This year will see democracy’s biggest test: more than two billion people across 50 countries are expected to go to the polls. And a fair proportion of them will be on the receiving end of disinformation techniques refined in Gaza.

The extent of the lying is breathtaking. The BBC’s Verify unit says it has seen nothing to compare to the ‘volume of dehumanising rhetoric posted during this war’.  Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative website Bellingcat says the level of disinformation in the Israeli-Gaza war is ‘unique to this conflict’.  The Israel and US based security company Cyabra, which monitors fake news on social media, adds that about 20 percent of accounts participating in the online conversation about the war in the days after 7 October were fake. On social media, X (the bin fire formerly known as Twitter) and TikTok were the favourite sites for disinformation, as you would expect.

The explosion of lying reflects a grim truth: for state and private actors, it has never been cheaper or easier to establish credible sock puppets, and then order bot armies to spread falsehoods.  I could look at horrible  claims that a Palestinian mother was just pretending to cradle her dead baby (see picture above), or that Israelis giving accounts of their sufferings at the hands of Hamas were just actors.

However, to show the extent of the new world of lies I want to return to the story I covered last week: the fake news that an advertising campaign by Zara was somehow mocking or exploiting the war-ravaged people of Gaza. Like the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, the story matters more than the usual online rubbish because it was a lie with measurable consequences.

Across the world, pro-Palestinian protestors targeted Zara stores. In the US, Canada, Spain, and Sweden, they vandalised them. A video on social media showed that disgusted customers had thrown piles of clothes in front of the Zara store in Times Square, New York. Or at least so the accompanying propaganda claimed.  The video turned out to be footage of an old protest against another brand.  

As I said at the time, the demonstrations showed the madness of crowds in action. They decided to hate a clothing chain that had done nothing to justify their rage. Zara’s agency shot the ad campaign long before Hamas attacked Israel. No one in the photo shoot resembled a soldier or a casualty of war. The pictures showed a model in a sculptor’s studio posing with a mannequin, which was clearly not meant to refer to the corpses of slain Palestinians

And yet even after Zara apologised for an imaginary offence and withdrew the ads, demonstrators continued to target the company. Only a few days ago, they closed the Zara  store at the Trafford Centre in Manchester.  

But I only told half the story. The truth was that much of the rage was confected.

Cyabra uses machine learning scanners to study social media sites and identify fake accounts. They process scores of clues: whether the account is posting 24/7, whether it is posting in multiple languages. The company scanned X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, and noticed that Zara was initially criticized for being oblivious to the war and its victims. But the conversations quickly adopted a conspiratorial tone, and you could guess that someone was raising the stakes by looking at the trending hashtags

What began with the hashtag ‘#BoycottZara’ turned to the false ‘#Zara_is_a_zionist_brand,’ and  the frankly mad ‘#ZaraSupportsGenocide.’

Faced with what it thought was genuine anger, Zara pulled the campaign. The BBC, the Guardian, Business Insider  and scores of other news sites reported the climbdown and treated the allegations that Zara was exploiting Palestinian suffering seriously.

When they did, they missed the role of well-resourced and malicious actors. Cyabra said that 39% of the profiles that interacted with Zara were, in fact, fake.  The bots were also far more active than real protestors, it found.

Bots ‘were prominently pushing the hashtags “#Zara_is_a_Zionist_brand” and “#ZaraSupportsGenocide,” the security firm said. ‘They were actively engaged in conversations about the Israel-Hamas war, making sure to regularly tag Zara and interact with the brand while advocating a boycott.’ They were giving protests against Israel more weight, by turning then into demonstrations against the evils of global capitalism.

Journalists covering the story had no way of knowing this. They and Zara did not have the tech to analyse tens of thousands of social media accounts, and nor did their readers and viewers. Suppose they did. Suppose the media reported that, while there were undoubtedly real people who disapproved of Zara’ photoshoot, almost four out of ten of the accounts attacking the firm were fake, and looked as if they were part of a coordinated influence operations campaign possibly run by Iran or Russia.

Exposure would make all the difference, as would the exposure of any other campaign boosted by malicious actors. If readers suspect a trick, they will be on guard.

It is about to get significantly harder for readers and journalists to realise that they are being tricked. For Gaza is also showing that the quality of the lying is increasing as fast as the quantity of lies.

We are in the very early days of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution which presages an anarchic future for open democracies. Put simply, the fake news AI creates is more believable. AI can tailor the messages from social media accounts so they appeal to a precise target audience.  Until now, targeting has been a difficulty from propagandists. If they wanted to spread conspiracy theories to, say white working-class men, they needed a different tone and vocabulary than if they were targeting wealthy retirees. A Russian propagandist may well not know how to do that.  

Campaigns to persuade US Republicans to abandon Ukraine need to be in authentic American English not British or international English.  ChatGPT can now translate propaganda into the required dialect in seconds and ensure that it doesn’t sound as if the message was composed in a Petersburg basement.

What applies to words, applies to images. In the past, bad actors creating automated profiles at bot farms had to use generic stock images for profile pictures, or steal a real person’s photo and risk being caught. Today AI image generators give them what they need.

Rafi Mendelsohn, marketing vice president Cyabra, described an exponential process to me. Tactics used to twist elections are applied to war zones, refined, expanded, and then sent back to be used to influence the next political campaign.

What should we do? Can we ban TikTok, because the Chinese Communist Party exploits it? Should Western governments build their own troll farms?  Should the security services monitor social media and issue fake news warnings? It’s not that western democracies do not know how to answer these questions, we barely know how to ask them.

When the security services are warning that by 2025 generative AI could be ‘used to assemble knowledge on physical attacks by non-state violent actors, including for chemical, biological and radiological weapons,’ we are in a new world.  It strikes me as a world that Western democracies with their liberal protections for freedom of speech find strange and baffling, but one in which the West’s dictatorial enemies feel entirely at home.

[kopparmar]

The Shooting is Just the Beginning of a Wider Conspiracy Against Donald Trump

The campaign to dismantle Donald Trump is in full force. The recent shooting at the Pennsylvania rally, resulting in the death of an attendee, along with the extensive 'BlueAnon' disinformation campaign, are merely preludes to a larger, more orchestrated attack.

August 10, 2024

As highlighted in previous reports, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump is closely tied to the activities of anti-cult organizations. These groups have not only spearheaded a hate campaign, labeling Trump as the leader of a "cult" and stirring hostility towards him and his followers, but they have also manipulated the shooter through a technique known as "puzzle coding." This method is thoroughly explored in the documentary "The IMPACT," which demonstrates how similar strategies have been used to incite school shootings, deliberately fostering chaos and violence within society.

The "Bullet Trajectory" Image Circulates Widely Online

Immediately following the attempted assassination, an image began circulating online, purportedly showing the bullet's trajectory, which allegedly missed Trump’s head due to a sudden turn. However, this image is speculative and does not align with the actual timing of the shot. A detailed examination of the shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally on July 13, 2024, reveals that the shooter did not intend to assassinate Trump but rather aimed to kill his supporters. The attacker continued firing at the crowd behind Trump, even after Trump ducked out of sight. Evidence indicates that the shooter followed a premeditated plan to target rally attendees, with the bullet grazing Trump’s ear being an accidental outcome.

A Broader Strategy to Discredit Trump

The rally shooting was part of a larger strategy by anti-cult organizations to undermine Trump’s political career. The goal was not to kill Trump, as his death could have potentially strengthened the Republican Party in the upcoming elections by paving the way for a new, unopposed candidate. Instead, the objective was to keep Trump alive while eroding trust in him and humiliating him in the eyes of voters.

Had the shooter intended to kill Trump, the task would have been relatively straightforward, even from a distance of 150 yards. "At 200 yards, anyone trained on a rifle can shoot a golf ball repeatedly, and for a trained sniper, this is an easy headshot," said former Navy SEAL sniper Brandon Webb in his after-action report on the incident.

The Shooter's Inexperience

The bullets that flew past Trump and struck his supporters seated behind him suggest that the shooter’s aim was not to hit Trump directly but to create chaos by targeting his supporters. The shot that grazed Trump’s ear highlights the shooter’s inexperience, as the bullet was intended to pass close to Trump, with his sudden movements resulting in a near miss. The shooter likely aimed near Trump to create an opportunity for the former president to amplify the narrative that the attempt was against him, thereby linking it to a disinformation campaign suggesting that Trump staged the attack. Essentially, Trump was set up from the beginning.

A Coordinated Disinformation Campaign

Simultaneously with the shooting, a massive disinformation campaign was launched, spreading claims that the incident was a "staged" event orchestrated to boost Trump’s electoral chances. Within hours, the term "staged" became the fourth most searched keyword on Google, following "Trump" and "Secret Service." Hashtags like #fakeassassination and #stagedshooting trended on social media, accompanied by images of a smiling Trump and his security team.

The Israeli technology firm Cyabra discovered that an image of a smiling Trump, generated using artificial intelligence, spread quickly on social media following the attack. The company also found that social bots were actively promoting false claims on platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, with 45 percent of accounts using the hashtags #fakeassassination and #stagedshooting being inauthentic.

Public Opinion Shifted Dramatically

The well-organized disinformation campaign significantly impacted public opinion. Over a third of Democratic voters now believe that the attack, including the deaths and injuries of Trump supporters, was staged by Trump and his team.

The narrative also gained traction on social media, with claims that the blood on Trump’s ear was from a theatrical gel pack, akin to those used in wrestling, and that the shooting was a "false flag" operation, with the shooter being a registered Republican, and thus "one of Trump’s own."

Surprisingly, the FBI leadership began to entertain these conspiracy theories. On July 24, 2024, during a House Judiciary Committee meeting, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed uncertainty about the cause of Trump’s ear injury.

FBI Director’s Statement Raises Questions

Wray’s statement perplexed Trump and Republican Party members. On July 30, Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, confirming that Trump was indeed hit by a bullet.

“There is absolutely no doubt in the FBI’s mind whether former President Trump was hit with a bullet and wounded in the ear. No doubt, there never has been,” Abbate stated when questioned by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

Senator Kennedy further inquired if Abbate was certain of this, to which Abbate affirmed. Kennedy also asked Abbate to confirm that it was not a “space laser,” “murder hornet,” or “Sasquatch,” but a bullet that struck Trump.

FBI’s Involvement Sparks Controversy

During the hearings, Abbate revealed that the FBI had discovered two different social media accounts that may belong to the shooter, Crooks. According to Abbate, one account featured “anti-Semitic” content, while the other on the Gab platform contained “divergent viewpoints.” These statements fueled the narrative that the attack was carried out by a “Trump sympathizer.”

However, Gab CEO Andrew Torba refuted these claims, stating that the FBI’s information was inconsistent with the shooter’s motives, as detailed in an Emergency Disclosure Request received by Gab.

Ongoing Confusion Surrounding the Shooter’s Motives

Torba asserted that Crooks was a pro-Biden supporter, particularly endorsing Biden’s immigration policy. This discrepancy between the FBI’s statements and the data provided by Gab raises further questions about the FBI’s motives.

Meanwhile, viral videos are circulating on social media, falsely suggesting that Trump paid the shooter to stage the attack.

The Broader Anti-Trump Campaign

An analysis of the bloggers spreading these messages reveals that they are the same individuals who have been actively promoting global anti-cultist ideas. These bloggers reacted strongly negatively to the release of “The IMPACT” and Egon Cholakian’s statements in the video “Crossroads,” which expose the real organizers behind the campaign of hatred and civil unrest in the U.S.

The Anti-Trump Narrative Continues to Evolve

The campaign against Donald Trump has been unfolding in stages. From 2016 to 2019, narratives selectively entered the media landscape, gaining significant momentum after 2019. The release of anti-cultist Steven Hassan’s book, The Cult of Trump, triggered a sharp increase in publications about the “Trump cult.”

Hassan’s book quickly gained support from major media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Hassan became a frequent guest on television, promoting dehumanizing and demonizing narratives about Trump and his supporters.

Steven Hassan’s Influence on the Anti-Trump Campaign

In his interviews, Hassan claimed that Trump had created a destructive cult around himself, acting as a narcissistic leader. He further asserted that Trump’s supporters were in a state of hypnotic submission, advocating for the forced “deprogramming” of citizens, implying a coercive alteration of their worldview.

Anti-cult organizations have employed the "guilt by association" method as a key tactic to discredit Trump, deliberately linking him to negative historical figures and leaders of destructive cults. This strategy aims to shape a negative image of Trump in the public consciousness by associating him with well-known cult leaders involved in abuses and tragic outcomes.

The Use of Historical Comparisons to Undermine Trump

For example, Trump is often compared to Jim Jones, the notorious leader of the “Peoples Temple,” known for leading hundreds of followers to suicide. This rhetorical device aims to create strong associations between Trump and cult leaders, reinforcing the narrative of Trump as a “destructive cult” leader.

Dehumanization Campaign Against Trump Intensifies

Such claims pose a direct threat to democratic principles and citizens’ rights, signaling the anti-Trump forces' willingness to use methods reminiscent of medieval inquisitions — aggressive "re-education" of dissenters, which is unacceptable in a society governed by the rule of law.

The Anti-Trump Campaign’s Dangerous Implications

Experts warn that the next step in this information war will be the widespread dissemination of the narrative that the assassination attempt on Trump was staged and that Trump is so ruthless and cynical that he would sacrifice the lives of his supporters for political gain.

This narrative will likely build on the established image of Trump as a "cult leader" and "crazy narcissist," supposedly indifferent to the fate of his supporters, similar to Jim Jones. By using manipulative propaganda methods, the architects of this scenario are spreading the version that Trump staged the assassination attempt to garner voter support.

Disinformation Spreads Beyond Niche Audiences

Initially, these narratives are activated in small social media niches but gradually seep into mainstream conversation — among families, at work, and among friends. This epidemic of disinformation and conspiracy theories, known as BlueAnon, is creating deep-seated doubts that evolve into a full-blown crisis of trust.

The Success of the Disinformation Campaign

The success of this campaign lies in the human brain's natural tendency to seek logical coherence, leading it to construct arguments that confirm initial doubts. Find detailed explanations about this and other events in the film "The Impact."

[ujjinatd]

Cyabra, una startup que ayuda a empresas y gobiernos a detectar la desinformación, planea salir a bolsa a través de una SPAC Cyabra, una startup con sede en Tel... https://ujjina.com/cyabra-una-startup-que-ayuda-a-empresas-y-gobiernos-a-detectar-la-desinformacion-planea-salir-a-bolsa-a-traves-de-una-spac/?feed_id=704101&_unique_id=66a0bc3fb6ece

[head-post]

Biden allies raise $10 million to challenge Trump

SuperPAC, the main campaign arm of US President Joe Biden, is raising millions of dollars to compete with Republican Donald Trump’s “social media machine,” according to Reuters.

The previously unreported effort by Future Forward USA Action underscores widespread concern among Democrats and Biden’s donors. They worry that the president and his campaign are losing the viral video war against the Republican Party.

Democrats claim the Palo-Alto-based SuperPAC, backed by tech giants like Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman, is raising at least $10 million. It will help better understand the algorithms that help Trump and his allies dominate vertical video platforms.

Many popular social networks, such as TikTok and Instagram, use short vertical videos as their primary format. They have allegedly created a network of “influencers” who use the platforms to reach millions of Americans with content.

Future Forward joined Democratic groups Way to Win and Hub Project last month to host 140 influencers for a three-day event called “Trending Up,” organisers reported. Future Forward’s current efforts were focused on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok, according to sources.

Future Forward is around to help solve problems, and TikTok is a problem and the group is reasonably trying to solve that problem.

Social media influence

The social media battle could have a huge impact on the race between Biden and Trump, which polls show is very close. Since February, when Biden’s campaign headquarters officially joined the TikTok platform, it had posted more than 200 publications, amassing just over 380,000 followers. Trump, for his part, joined TikTok about a fortnight ago, but had already accumulated 6.4 million followers.

Meanwhile, fake accounts posting about the US presidential election multiplied on social media platform X, Reuters reported earlier this year. Analysts at Israeli technology company Cyabra, which uses a type of artificial intelligence called machine learning to identify fake accounts, found that 15% of X accounts praising Trump and criticising Biden were fake. The report also found that 7% of accounts praising Biden and criticising Trump are fake.

Social media plays a crucial role in US news consumption, especially among young people. According to a February study by the Pew Research Center, half of US adults get their news from social media at least sometimes.

Read more HERE

[endquire]

Cyabra: The Intelligence Cutout Waging Israel's Online Propaganda War

[socialistexan]

Huh, I wonder why that person just so happened to bring up Cyabra, a private "bot tracking" firm I had never heard of and has a collective total of 850 twitter followers?

Ah.

Oh this article just lays out how deeply fucking evil the democratic party and joe biden is man.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Trump testifies in fraud trial (AP) A defiant Donald Trump sparred with a New York judge and slammed the state attorney general suing him Monday, using the witness stand at his civil fraud trial to defend his riches and lash out at a case that imperils his real estate empire. The former president’s barbed testimony spurred the judge to admonish, “This is not a political rally.” The judge repeatedly chided Trump for going off-topic, at one point asking his lawyers, “Can you control your client?”  Trump’s long-awaited testimony about property valuations and financial statements was punctuated by personal jabs at state Judge Arthur Engoron, who he said was biased against him, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom he derided as a “political hack.” The testy exchanges and frequent rebukes from the judge underscored Trump’s unwillingness to adapt his famously freewheeling rhetorical style to a formal courtroom setting governed by rules of evidence and legal protocol.

In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas (NYT) The conflict between Israel and Hamas is fast becoming a world war online. Iran, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel, while denigrating Israel’s principal ally, the United States. Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have also joined the fight online, along with extremist groups, like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were previously at odds with Hamas. The deluge of online propaganda and disinformation is larger than anything seen before, according to government officials and independent researchers—a reflection of the world’s geopolitical division. “It is being seen by millions, hundreds of millions of people around the world,” said Rafi Mendelsohn, vice president at Cyabra, a social media intelligence company in Tel Aviv, “and it’s impacting the war in a way that is probably just as effective as any other tactic on the ground.”

Russia’s Putin to stay in power past 2024, sources say (Reuters) Vladimir Putin has decided to run in the March presidential election, a move that will keep him in power until least 2030, as the Kremlin chief feels he must steer Russia through the most perilous period in decades, six sources told Reuters. Putin, who was handed the presidency by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has already served as president for longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin, beating even Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year tenure. For Putin, who opinion polls show enjoys approval ratings of 80% inside Russia, the election is a formality if he runs: with the support of the state, the state media and almost no mainstream public dissent, he is certain to win.

Myanmar’s unrelenting airstrikes (Washington Post) When jets began circling over her camp in July, Thandar Soe, 11, had already run from the Myanmar military nine times in two years, her parents said. Like thousands of others in eastern Myanmar, her family had come to the Daw Noe Ku displacement camp, which hugged the border of Thailand, because it was one of the few places the military had left alone since it ousted the country’s elected government and seized power in 2021, sparking a civil war. A few sleepless nights passed in Daw Noe Ku as adults took turns watching the skies, leaving their doors open for children to run to bunkers that had been dug outside. Then, on July 12, a little after 1 a.m., the first of five bombs was dropped on the camp of 5,000 residents. By dawn, survivors said, the camp “was finished.” In one of the world’s most intense conflicts, people forced from their homes are being repeatedly driven from one settlement to another by an aerial bombardment campaign that has increasingly targeted civilian sites. In the small southeastern state of Kayah, where Daw Noe Ku was located, 60 airstrikes were carried out in the first nine months of 2023—more than five times in all of 2022—and at least 11 struck camps where civilians were taking refuge, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Myanmar’s military said it bombed ‘terrorists.’ It killed children.

China has acquired a global network of strategically vital ports (Washington Post) A decade ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Maritime Silk Road, the oceanic component of his flagship Belt and Road Initiative aimed at improving China’s access to world markets by investing in transportation infrastructure. The initiative’s investments have since slowed as Chinese growth falters, the United States pushes back and countries question the indebtedness the projects brought. But China has already secured a significant stake in a network of global ports that are central to world trade and freedom of navigation. Although the stated goal of the investments was commercial, the United States and its allies have grown increasingly concerned about the potential military implications. Xi has frequently talked of his ambition to turn China into a “maritime superpower.” The port network offers a glimpse into the reach of those ambitions. China now owns or operates ports and terminals at nearly 100 locations in over 50 countries, spanning every ocean and every continent. Many are located along some of the world’s most strategic waterways. The majority of the investments have been made by companies owned by the Chinese government, effectively making Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party the biggest operator of the ports that lie at the heart of global supply chains.

The US is quietly arming Taiwan (BBC) When US President Joe Biden recently signed off on a $80m (£64.6m) grant to Taiwan for the purchase of American military equipment, China said it “deplores and opposes” what Washington had done. To the casual observer it didn’t appear a steep sum. It was less than the cost of a single modern fighter jet. While fury is Beijing’s default response to any military support for Taiwan, this time something was different. For the first time in more than 40 years, America is using its own money to send weapons to a place it officially doesn’t recognise. This is happening under a programme called foreign military finance (FMF). in Taipei it’s apparent that America is redefining its relationship with the island, especially so given the urgency with which Washington is pushing Taiwan to re-arm. And Taiwan, which is outmatched by China, needs the help—the island is woefully under-prepared for a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s army has hundreds of ageing battle tanks, but too few modern, light missile systems. Its army command structure, tactics and doctrine haven’t been updated in half a century. Many front-line units have only 60% of the manpower they should have. In 2013 Taiwan reduced military service from one year to just four months, before reinstating it back to 12 months, a move that takes effect next year. But there are bigger challenges. It’s jokingly referred to as a “summer camp” by the young men who go through it. A war-gaming exercise conducted by a think-tank last year found that in a conflict with China, Taiwan’s navy and air force would be wiped out in the first 96 hours of battle.

U.S. Officials Fear American Guns Ordered by Israel Could Fuel West Bank Violence (NYT) An Israeli government request for 24,000 assault rifles from the United States is drawing scrutiny from American lawmakers and some State Department officials who fear the weapons might end up in the hands of settlers and civilian militias trying to force Palestinians from land in the West Bank, where violence has been surging, U.S. officials say. The semiautomatic and automatic rifles are valued at $34 million and are being ordered directly from American gunmakers, but they require State Department approval and congressional notification. Israel says the rifles would be used by the national police force, but has also indicated that they could be given to civilians. Even before the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks set off the current war in Gaza, violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank who aim to force Palestinians from strategic tracts of land had risen well above the level of recent years. U.S. officials attributed that to the encouragement of settlers by the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and statements by some Israeli officials supporting the annexation of the West Bank. Since Oct. 7, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank—nearly equal to the number in all of 2022, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

As Gaza Hospitals Collapse, Medical Workers Face the Hardest Choices (NYT) Every day is a choice between who lives and who dies. Doctors and nurses in Gaza’s teetering hospitals, which are nearing collapse without electricity and basic supplies, say they must now decide which patients get ventilators, who gets resuscitated, or who gets any medical treatment at all. They make snap decisions amid the screams of small children undergoing amputations or brain surgeries without anesthesia or clean water to wash their wounds. Some veterans of wartime medicine in the Gaza Strip say conditions inside the overcrowded and impoverished territory are the worst they have ever seen, as entire apartment blocks, schools and hospitals crumble under an Israeli bombardment that has meted out a devastating civilian toll. “Our teams are physically and psychologically exhausted,” said Basem al Najjar, the deputy of the head of Al Aqsa Hospital in the city of Deir al Balah in central Gaza. “Some doctors remain a whole week in the hospital. Some of their families are brought to the hospital killed or injured. And some doctors go home and are killed there,” and then the bodies are brought back to the hospital, he said. More than 9,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and nearly 25,000 have been wounded, the Gaza Ministry of Health said on Sunday. The toll rises every day, with some of the casualties believed to still be buried under rubble.

Israel’s war in Gaza and the specter of ‘genocide’ (Washington Post) In protests around the world, in the corridors of the United Nations and in the angry chambers of social media, one word is getting louder and louder: genocide. That’s what critics of Israel’s offensive against the Islamist group Hamas say the Jewish state is doing in its ravaging of the Gaza Strip, which is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians. Over the weekend, demonstrators slathered a White House gate in red paint, in a message to the Biden administration about the perceived blood on its hands for its staunch support for Israel. In condemning Israel’s actions, governments in Brazil, South Africa and Colombia, among others, have all explicitly invoked “genocide” to explain their outrage. Israel’s overwhelming campaign against Hamas has led to the widespread devastation of besieged Gaza, triggering a humanitarian crisis. Israeli bombardments have now killed more than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory, more than one-third of whom are children. The living find themselves trapped in a nightmare of debris and mounting disease, with electricity, water and food scarce. The country that emerged out of the ashes of the most horrifying genocide in human history sees in Hamas an enemy that wants Israel to be erased from the map and wants to kill Jews wherever it can. Its critics see the most powerful military in the Middle East, buttressed by the solidarity of most Western governments, perpetrating what may be de facto ethnic cleansing.

‘The nightmare in Gaza’: UN Secretary-General's Press Conference (UN.org) The nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity. The intensifying conflict is shaking the world, rattling the region and, most tragically, destroying so many innocent lives. Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day. More journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in any comparable period in the history of our organization. … Ten days ago, I met with some of the family members of [the Israeli] hostages. One mother movingly shared with me her desolation over her abducted son, Hersh. And on the subject of confronting hatred, she said: “When you only get outraged when one side’s babies are killed, then your moral compass is broken and your humanity is broken.” Even in her utter despair, she stood before the world and reminded us: “In a competition of pain, there is never a winner.”

[headlinehorizon]

Hamas' Sophisticated Fake Accounts Exposed in Social Media Campaign

https://headlinehorizon.com/Business/Tech/852

An analysis by cybersecurity company Cyabra uncovers the use of advanced fake accounts in Hamas' social media campaign. Discover the shocking number of fake profiles, their narratives, and the implications for online content consumption.

[eretzyisrael]

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw raw data from some 87 million Facebook users harvested without their knowledge, netizens have been increasingly concerned about protecting their privacy on social media.

The European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that recently went into effect (as anyone with an email inbox could not have failed to notice), is part of the push to counter future privacy breeches.Beyond policy, there is a growing bevy of startups aimed at keeping our social data safe. Given Israel’s prowess in cybersecurity, the Startup Nation has not surprisingly jumped to the fore as one of the leaders in preventing hackers from accessing our accounts and keeping social-media bullies at bay.

Raed More: Israel21c

[pronoun-fucker]

“Cyabra, an Israeli firm that tracks online disinformation, has been following the Depp/Heard case for weeks. It analyses accounts that are spreading memes, videos and comments and tries to assess if they are genuine members of the public.

The results so far are startling, according to the company's spokesman, Rafi Mendelsohn.

"From the beginning of the trial, we were really interested to see what people are actually saying and how much of that conversation is driven by fake accounts.

"We were amazed to see that actually nearly 11% of the conversation around the trial was driven by fake accounts, which is a very high number," Mr Mendelsohn said.

"To give some context, at any given conversation on average, we see maybe around 3 to 5% of the conversation involving fake accounts," he added.

The best comparison for a conversation with this level of bot and fake accounts would be a big election campaign, he said.

Cyabra is not alone in being interested in the level of pro-Depp online traffic.

Ms Heard raised the issue at the beginning of the trial, and throughout the case two Heard supporters, Cristina Taft and Daniel Brummit, have been regular visitors to the Virginia court house to voice concerns about what is happening online.

They have written a book together called Amber Heard and Bots.

"We saw new accounts and new postings in February and January," Ms Taft said, noting that in those two months, the Daily Mail news paper published two audio recordings of the former couple on YouTube.

"Then it went to Twitter and there are new accounts that… post like two days later," she said.”

Link

[justiceamberheard]

Do you know of anyone else that's analyzed Depp's use of bots? I don't know much about Cyabra since this is the first I've heard of it, but I do 100% believe their analysis of the bots was correct. But unfortunately I'm hesitant to use it as a source for arguments, because I feel like a lot of people are just going to read as far as "Israeli firm" and decide it's a bad source ://

Check out Bot Sentinel. They found 6,000 active not accounts in Summer 2021 and are working on a follow-up report now.