#institute for strategic dialogue

[whats-in-a-sentence]

How can we use the latest technologies to our advantage to identify online users at risk of radicalisation and help them escape the toxic narratives of extremist recruiters? In 2017, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) piloted the world's first deradicalisation project to employ social media network analyses to identify members of violent extensive movements and use social media messaging services to reach out to them.

"Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists" - Julia Ebner

[tenth-sentence]

They launched a coordinated campaign using the hashtag #NichtOhneMeinKopftuch (#notwithoutmyheadscarf), which ended up being used in over 100,000 tweets in just one day, as our research at ISD showed.

"Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists" - Julia Ebner

[mariacallous]

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are sharing Hitler-related propaganda and trying to recruit new members on TikTok, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) shared exclusively with WIRED. The TikTok algorithm is also promoting this content to new users, researchers found, as extremist communities are leveraging the huge popularity of TikTok among younger audiences to spread their message.

The report from ISD details how hundreds of extremist TikTok accounts are openly posting videos promoting Holocaust denial and the glorification of Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, and suggesting that Nazi ideology is a solution to modern-day issues such as the alleged migrant invasion of Western countries. The accounts also show support for white supremacist mass shooters and livestream-related footage or recreations of these massacres. Many of the accounts use Nazi symbols in their profile pictures or include white supremacist codes in their usernames.

Nathan Doctor, an ISD researcher who authored the report, says he began his investigation earlier this year when he came across one neo-Nazi account on TikTok while conducting research for another project.

He was quickly able to unmask a much broader network of accounts that appeared to be actively helping each other through liking, sharing, and commenting on each other’s accounts in order to increase their viewership and reach.

The groups promoting neo-Nazi narratives are typically siloed in more fringe platforms, like Telegram, the encrypted messaging app. But Telegram has become a place to discuss recruitment techniques for TikTok specifically: White supremacist groups there share videos, images, and audio tracks that members can use, explicitly telling other members to cross-post the content on TikTok.

“We posted stuff on our brand new tiktok account with 0 followers but had more views than you could ever have on bitchute or twitter,” one account in a Neo-Nazi group posted on Telegram about their outreach on TikTok. “It just reaches much more people.”

Others have followed suit. One prominent neo-Nazi has often asked his thousands of Telegram followers to “juice,” or algorithmically boost, his TikTok videos to increase their viral potential.

An extremist Telegram channel with 12,000 followers urged members to promote the neo-Nazi documentary Europa: The Last Battle by blanketing TikTok with reaction videos in an effort to make the film go viral. Researchers from ISD found dozens of videos on TikTok featuring clips from the film, some with over 100,000 views. “One account posting such snippets has received nearly 900k views on their videos, which include claims that the Rothschild family control the media and handpick presidents, as well as other false or antisemitic claims,” the researchers wrote.

This is far from the first time the role that TikTok’s algorithm plays in promoting extremist content has been exposed. Earlier this month, the Global Network on Extremism and Technology reported that TikTok’s algorithm was promoting the “adoration of minor fascist ideologues.” The same researchers found last year that it was boosting Eurocentric supremacist narratives in Southeast Asia. Earlier this month, WIRED reported how TikTok’s search suggestions were pushing young voters in Germany towards the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of last month’s EU elections.

“Hateful behavior, organizations and their ideologies have no place on TikTok, and we remove more than 98 percent of this content before it is reported to us,” Jamie Favazza, a TikTok spokesperson tells WIRED. “We work with experts to keep ahead of evolving trends and continually strengthen our safeguards against hateful ideologies and groups.”

Part of the reason platforms like TikTok have in the past been unable to effectively clamp down on extremist content is due to the use of code language, emojis, acronyms, and numbers by these groups. For example, many of the neo-Nazi accounts used a juice box emoji to refer to Jewish people.

“At present, self-identified Nazis are discussing TikTok as an amenable platform to spread their ideology, especially when employing a series of countermeasures to evade moderation and amplify content as a network,” the researchers write in the report.

But Doctor points out that even when viewing non-English-language content, spotting these patterns should be possible. “Despite seeing content in other languages, you can still pretty quickly recognize what it means,” says Doctor. “The coded nature of it isn't an excuse, because if it's pretty easily recognizable to someone in another language, it should be recognizable to TikTok as well.”

TikTok says it has more than “40,000 trust and safety professionals” working on moderation around the globe, and the company says its Trust and Safety Team has specialists in violent extremism who constantly monitor developments in these communities, including the use of new coded language.

While many of the identified accounts are based in the US, Doctor found that the network was also international.

“It's definitely global, it's not even just the English language,” Doctor tells WIRED. “We found stuff in French, Hungarian, German. Some of these are in countries where Naziism is illegal. Russian is a big one. But we even found things that were a bit surprising, like groups of Mexican Nazis, or across Latin America. So, yeah, definitely a global phenomenon.”

Doctor did not find any evidence that the international groups were actively coordinating with each other, but they were certainly aware of each others’ presence on TikTok: “These accounts are definitely engaging with each others' content. You can see, based on comment sections, European English-speaking pro-Nazi accounts reacting with praise toward Russian-language pro-Nazi content.”

The researchers also found that beyond individual accounts and groups promoting extremist content, some real-world fascist or far-right organizations were openly recruiting on the platform.

Accounts from these groups posted links in their TikTok videos to a website featuring antisemitic flyers and instructions on how to print and distribute them. They also boosted Telegram channels featuring more violent and explicitly extremist discourse.

In one example cited by ISD, an account whose username contains an antisemitic slur and whose bio calls for an armed revolution and the complete annihilation of Jewish people, has shared incomplete instructions to build improvised explosive devices, 3D-printed guns, and “napalm on a budget.”

To receive the complete instructions, the account holder urged followers to join a “secure groupchat” on encrypted messaging platforms Element and Tox. Doctor says that comments under the account holder’s videos indicate that a number of his followers had joined these chat groups.

ISD reported this account, along with 49 other accounts, in June for breaching TikTok’s policies on hate speech, encouragement of violence against protected groups, promoting hateful ideologies, celebrating violent extremists, and Holocaust denial. In all cases, TikTok found no violations, and all accounts were initially allowed to remain active.

A month later, 23 of the accounts had been banned by TikTok, indicating that the platform is at least removing some violative content and channels over time. Prior to being taken down, the 23 banned accounts had racked up at least 2 million views.

The researchers also created new TikTok accounts to understand how Nazi content is promoted to new users by TikTok’s powerful algorithm.

Using an account created at the end of May, researchers watched 10 videos from the network of pro-Nazi users, occasionally clicking on comment sections but stopping short of any form of real engagement such as liking, commenting, or bookmarking. The researchers also viewed 10 pro-Nazi accounts. When the researchers then flipped to the For You feed within the app, it took just three videos for the algorithm to suggest a video featuring a World War II-era Nazi soldier overlayed with a chart of US murder rates, with perpetrators broken down by race. Later, a video appeared of an AI-translated speech from Hitler overlaid with a recruitment poster for a white nationalist group.

Another account created by ISD researchers saw even more extremist content promoted in its main feed, with 70 percent of videos coming from self-identified Nazis or featuring Nazi propaganda. After the account followed a number of pro-Nazi accounts in order to access content on channels set to private, the TikTok algorithm also promoted other Nazi accounts to follow. All 10 of the first accounts recommended by TikTok to this account used Nazi symbology or keywords in their usernames or profile photos, or featured Nazi propaganda in their videos.

“In no way is this particularly surprising,” says Abbie Richards, a disinformation researcher specializing in TikTok. "These are things that we found time and time again. I have certainly found them in my research."

Richards wrote about white supremacist and militant accelerationist content on the platform in 2022, including the case of neo-Nazi Paul Miller, who, while serving a 41-month sentence for firearm charges, featured in a TikTok video that racked up more than 5 million views and 700,000 likes during the three months it was on the platform before being removed.

Marcus Bösch, a researcher based in Hamburg University who monitors TikTok, tells WIRED that the report’s findings “do not come as a big surprise,” and he’s not hopeful there is anything TikTok can do to fix the problem.

“I’m not sure exactly where the problem is,” Bösch says. “TikTok says it has around 40,000 content moderators, and it should be easy to understand such obvious policy violations. Yet due to the sheer volume [of content], and the ability by bad actors to quickly adapt, I am convinced that the entire disinformation problem cannot be finally solved, neither with AI nor with more moderators.”

TikTok says it has completed a mentorship program with Tech Against Terrorism, a group that seeks to disrupt terrorists’ online activity and helps TikTok identify online threats.

“Despite proactive steps taken, TikTok remains a target for exploitation by extremist groups as its popularity grows,” Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, tells WIRED. “The ISD study shows that a small number of violent extremists can wreak havoc on large platforms due to adversarial asymmetry. This report therefore underscores the need for cross-platform threat intelligence supported by improved AI-powered content moderation. The report also reminds us that Telegram should also be held accountable for its role in the online extremist ecosystem.”

As Hadley outlines, the report’s findings show that there are significant loopholes in the company’s current policies.

“I've always described TikTok, when it comes to far-right usage, as a messaging platform,” Richards said. “More than anything, it's just about repetition. It's about being exposed to the same hateful narrative over and over and over again, because at a certain point you start to believe things after you just see them enough, and they start to really influence your worldview.”

[mllemaenad]

It always strikes me as weird that there’s no point at which the Brotherhood and Minutemen automatically come into conflict that I can find. One would think that the Brotherhood’s methods of gathering supplies (basically racketeering) would automatically lead to issues with the Minutemen, whose job is to defend against such raiders. I know the game mechanics reason for this, but can you think of anything in-universe to explain it?

I think there are a few things going on here – some gameplay related, some thematically related. But to be honest I don't think it's always easy to separate those two things.

Point one - who's in charge?

If you follow Fallout 4's opening quests then you are the General of the Minutemen. That means that your Sole Survivor gets to make big important decisions like "do we go to war with this new group?" You do not lead the Brotherhood, Railroad or Institute (you may, of course, inherit control of the Institute at the end of the game, but that's after all these decisions take place) and consequently decisions about who your enemies are take place over your head. You can pick a side if two factions you belong to come into conflict ... but you can't ultimately change their politics.

There is no point in the story where you are forced to go to war with the Brotherhood as the General of the Minutemen ... but you absolutely can go to war with the Brotherhood as the General of the Minutemen.

So this is both a gameplay and narrative point: what does your Sole Survivor think of the Brotherhood of Steel? Maybe they are also a dedicated member of the Brotherhood, and have no problem with them "commandeering" supplies. Maybe you work with the Railroad, and their attitudes frighten you. Maybe you're a pure Minuteman character and just resent another group of raiders causing problems for your settlements.

Every other faction makes the decision of when to invoke "War never changes" for you. This one's on you.

Point two – who shot first?

Obviously, the Brotherhood of Steel does end up in forced conflict with the Railroad as part of the main quest. There's no way to make peace between them, no matter how many quests you've done for either faction.

But. Well. I mean – there's an obvious aggressor in this one. It's not like Desdemona wakes up one morning, finishes her Sugar Bombs and coffee and says "Hey, guys, given that we've just barely clawed our way back from extinction, doesn't picking a fight with a group of heavily armed thugs sound like a great idea?"

There are no Railroad quests that require you to directly attack the Brotherhood until after the Brotherhood tries to murder them. While Brotherhood and Railroad ideals are pretty clearly in conflict, the Railroad absolutely does not want to start another war. They're up to their eyeballs dealing with the Institute. The Brotherhood impose that conflict on them.

Why? Well, they tell you. The first reason is that the Brotherhood are intent on committing genocide, and they are aware that the Railroad's mission would require them to rescue and protect synths.

Even with their relatively small numbers, the Railroad is a constant threat to our operations. They've already proven to be resilient against superior forces, with a knack for disappearing when cornered. Worse still, they possess the capability to help synths flee the Institute. If we intend to end the synth menace, we need to plug the leaks. – Lancer Captain Kells Dialogue, Fallout 4

The other reason is because the Railroad has PAM, and the Brotherhood wants to steal her.

Our sources tell us that the Railroad has some sort of experimental or prototype robot in their headquarters. They're calling the "Predictive Analytic Machine," or "P.A.M." for short. Cute, huh? They use the robot for complex strategic calculations that are much more efficient than anything we can generate here. If you could use this holotape to decrypt the security on P.A.M.'s terminal, it will force the unit to return to the Prydwen. I'm certain we could put P.A.M.'s computing power to good use. Otherwise, destroy it. We wouldn't want it to fall into the Institute's hands. – Proctor Ingram Dialogue, Fallout 4

The conflict between the Brotherhood and Railroad occurs purely at the Brotherhood's instigation. While the Railroad doesn't like the Brotherhood they don't want to fight them unless they have to.

Which brings me back to the Minutemen. As an organisation, the Minutemen are pretty well indifferent to synths. Oh, they're one hundred percent opposed to the Institute sacking settlements with Gen 2s, or people being replaced by synths, or any other scenario where the people they've pledged to protect get hurt ... but there's no official policy on synths themselves.

Preston is broadly pro-freeing the synths because he's a good guy:

I never really thought about synths that way before, but it's hard to argue that they don't deserve freedom like everyone else. – Preston Garvey Dialogue, Fallout 4

But nothing about being involved with the Minutemen actually forces you to help a synth. So they are not on the Brotherhood's radar the way the Railroad are.

The Minutemen is also a pretty low tech organisation. Their signature weapon is the laser musket. Their big rebuilding quest, Old Guns, is about setting up some very old-school artillery. Nothing about that is going to make the Brotherhood start salivating and plotting to steal their stuff. Now, obviously that artillery can turn out to be very effective at dealing with the Prydwen if it comes to that, but that's a very Brotherhood mistake: they think shiny tech will protect them from superior numbers and rational tactics. They made the same error at HELIOS ONE.

So unlike the Railroad, the Minutemen are unlikely targets for Brotherhood aggression at this stage. They aren't forcing a conflict. But like the Railroad, the Minutemen start the game a hair's breadth from annihilation. Most of the game is spent rebuilding both their forces and their credibility. They clear raider strongholds and nests of feral ghouls. They're not much more likely to be actively pushing for an all-out-war than the Railroad.

Point Three - who the hell are these guys, anyway?

After all of that, I recognise there's still a problem, though. Because Feeding the Troops is still a pretty obnoxious quest and it does feel like a thing that would cause issues.

Fallout 4 does a lot with misinformation; appearance versus reality; what someone says and then what they do. I know I've brought it up before, but a big one is the difference between Diamond City and Goodneighbor. And one of the key points about that is that things change: Diamond City wasn't always run by the Institute; Goodneighbor wasn't always setting itself up as a haven for the lost. Things change. Bad things can improve, and good things can slip into evil.

Earlier games had a karma system associated with them: this is good, this is bad. Fallout 4 replaces this with companion opinions, which fits pretty well with its themes and ideas. It's not going to tell you which one is the good karma option. You've got to play the game and figure it out. And yes, sometimes the answer is "there's no good answer".

Two things about the Brotherhood: they arrive relatively late in the game, at the start of Act 2 ... and they were the good guys in Fallout 3. They were very explicitly the good karma option in Fallout 3. While, obviously, each game is going to pick up a bunch of new players who haven't played the older ones, it's also important to recognise that Fallout is a series, and the narrative continues from one game to the next.

By the time Fallout 4 starts all the various factions in the Commonwealth have been locked in conflict with the Institute for decades. Asking them to pivot and immediately start fighting these guys who turned up last Tuesday is a lot. While the Sole Survivor could never have heard of the Brotherhood of Steel, there's a really solid chance that you, the player, have heard of them. And you might make some assumptions, based on that.

They were the good guys, right? Okay, yes, kind of arseholes and a bit of a problem if you were from Underworld but ... they fought the Enclave! They defended Project Purity! They protected people from super mutants! It's a whole thing!

But. Well, there's clearly been a change in leadership since then. And they've specifically reintegrated the Outcasts, i.e. the anti-helping people Brotherhood faction.

Also, the Commonwealth is not the Capital Wasteland. The conflict there was Brotherhood-versus-Enclave and the Enclave was so very bad that virtually anyone could look heroic opposing them. The super mutants never coalesced into a coherent faction who wanted anything; they operated more like a plague. Simpler times. In the Commonwealth there are more factions, more differing ideals. The water needs purifying, sure, but if we could solve the political problems farming wouldn't be a major issue.

You see all this difficulty and ambivalence in the game's characters, too:

The Brotherhood. In Capital Wasteland, they really weren't bad. But now. – Deacon Dialogue, Fallout 4 Those Super Mutants are a threat to everyone in the whole Commonwealth. I'm glad to have the Brotherhood's help to take them out. – Preston Garvey Dialogue, Fallout 4 Long as the Brotherhood of Steel keeps the heavy artillery out of the city limits, they're welcome here. – Diamond City Security Dialogue, Fallout 4 Flying that ship into the heart of the Commonwealth. Mark my words, the Brotherhood's here to start a war. – Nick Valentine Dialogue, Fallout 4

Characters are aware that the Brotherhood did good in the past. They're concerned about the giant airship in their space. They're grateful when the Brotherhood does something that happens to be helpful, even if their reasons were selfish. The decision about what do about them is floating in the air, from the day they turn up.

So now I'm back to my first point. You're the General of the Minutemen. Odds are, defending the Commonwealth as a Minuteman was one of the very first pledges you made at the start of the game. And sure, you're visiting all the factions and doing their quests, because that's how these games work.

Cool. So – I mean, they've asked you to bully and steal from the farmers you swore to protect. If you take your non-human companions to the Prydwen they will say the most horrible things about them. They've sent you to murder your friend Danse, even though he hasn't done anything and it's not like he can choose to not be a synth. They're powering up this really scary robot they can use to terrorise people. They're sending you to slaughter the Railroad, unprovoked, because they want their robot. At what point have you had enough? At what point do you go "Ohhhhh. This is the bad karma faction"?

There's a warning, right at the beginning of their quest line, from Haylen:

Field Scribe Haylen, personal log entry 324A. I'm starting to wonder if joining the Brotherhood of Steel was a good choice. I originally signed up seeking protection and comradeship but I'm worried that I've traded away a bit of my humanity in the process. The Brotherhood's message of hope for the future is idealistic and noble but their methods leave a lot to be desired. The leadership seems especially misguided. Instead of diplomacy, they wield violent confrontation to exert control. Despite all that, I've been successfully avoiding the fighting by following the career path of a field scribe. I suppose only time will tell how long I can stand the sight of spilled blood over my own moral fiber. – Scribe Haylen's Personal Log, Fallout 4

If you can recognise some foreshadowing, you can see where this is going.

I think the game doesn't force you to fight the Brotherhood with the Minutemen because you are the General of the Minutemen. It doesn't have karma options, it asks you to review the situation and make a decision what to do. You can fight the Brotherhood, if you choose to. In fact, you kind of swore that you would.

Yeah, they're running a protection racket. What are you going to do about it?

And I think that's very in line with the sort of story Fallout 4 wants to tell.

[follow-up-news]

Russia has helped amplify and spread false and misleading internet claims about recent hurricanes in the United States and the federal government’s response, part of a wider effort by the Kremlin to manipulate America’s political discourse before the presidential election, new research shows. The content, spread by Russian state media and networks of social media accounts and websites, criticizes the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, exploiting legitimate concerns about the recovery effort in an attempt to paint American leaders as incompetent and corrupt, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The London-based organization tracks disinformation and online extremism. In some cases, the claims about the storms include fake images created using artificial intelligence, such as a photo depicting scenes of devastating flooding at Disney World that never happened, researchers say. The approach is consistent with the Kremlin’s long-standing practice of identifying legitimate debates and contentious issues in the U.S. and then exploiting them. Previous disinformation campaigns have harnessed debates about immigration, racism, crime and the economy in an effort to portray the U.S. as corrupt, violent and unjust.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Corey Walker

The author of a book on Jewish American identity enjoyed a sellout crowd at a rescheduled event after the original discussion was canceled over the presence of a Zionist panelist.  Joshua Leifer, author of Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, spoke alongside Rabbi Andy Bachman at the Center for New Jewish Culture in Brooklyn on Monday. The original discussion, which was scheduled at Powerhouse Books in Brooklyn last Tuesday, was canceled at the last minute by an employee who did not want the bookstore to platform a “Zionist�� rabbi.  During Monday’s discussion, Leifer lambasted the cancellation as both “wrong and antisemitic” as well as “the dumbest strategic thing you can do.” The bookstore’s owner, Daniel Power, later clarified in an interview that Powerhouse Books does not maintain an official ban on Zionist authors and that the employee acted on her own. He revealed that the employee responsible for canceling the event quit on her own accord before he could fire her.  The bookstore issued an apology soon after the incident, writing, “litmus tests as a precondition for participation in public life are wrong. Rejections of dialogue, debate, and nuance are wrong.” Despite the inconvenience, the backlash over the viral incident seems to have benefited Leifer. Roughly 300 people attended the rescheduled discussion, as opposed to the estimated two dozen that showed up for the original event. Leifer’s book currently holds the number one spot in the “History of Judaism” section on Amazon. “In large part, this sanctuary is filled because of what happened,” Bachman stated at the event.  Leifer, a political progressive and writer, has issued blistering criticisms of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. He has called for a change in the “status quo” of Israeli policy and has encouraged the American Jewish community to reexamine its relationship with Israel.  In an essay published in The Atlantic, Leifer reflected on the decision to snub Bachman for being a Zionist, saying that it “exemplified the bind that many progressive American Jews face.” “We are caught between parts of an activist left demanding that we disavow our communities, even our families, as an entrance ticket, and a mainstream Jewish institutional world that has long marginalized critics of Israeli policy. Indeed, Jews who are committed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who are also outraged by Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, feel like we have little room to maneuver,” Leifer wrote. “My experience last week was so demoralizing in part because such episodes make moving the mainstream Jewish community much harder,” Leifer added. “Every time a left-wing activist insists that the only way to truly participate in the fight for peace and justice is to support the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) idea that opposing the status quo requires Israel’s destruction.” 

Leifer still doesn't get it. Jew-hatred, in the guise of Israel hatred has become part of the progressive canon. "Critics of Israeli policy" are lionized, not marginalized among progressive Jews.

[pigeonflavouredcake]

My Grimoire Research Library

this is a list of my major resource I've referenced/am currently referencing in my big grimoire project. For books I'll be linking the Goodreads page, for pdfs, websites and videos i'll link them directly.

There are plenty of generalised practitioner resources that can work for everyone but as I have Irish ancestry and worship Hellenic deities quite a few of my resources are centred around Celtic Ireland, ancient Greece and the Olympic mythos. If you follow other sects of paganism you are more than welcome to reblog with your own list of resources.

Parts of my grimoire discuss topics of new age spiritualism, dangerous conspiracy theories, and bigotry in witchcraft so some resources in this list focus on that.

Books

Apollodorus - The Library of Greek Mythology

Astrea Taylor - Intuitive Witchcraft

Dee Dee Chainey & Willow Winsham - Treasury of Folklore: Woodlands and Forests

John Ferguson - Among The Gods: An Archaeological Exploration of Ancient Greek Religion

Katharine Briggs - The Fairies in Tradition and Literature

Kevin Danaher - The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs

Laura O'Brien - Fairy Faith in Ireland

Lindsey C. Watson - Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome

Nicholas Culpeper - Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Plutarch - The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives

R.B. Parkinson - A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Around the World

Rachel Patterson - Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness

Raleigh Briggs - Make Your Place: Affordable & Sustainable Nesting Skills

Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass

Ronald Hutton - The Witch: A History of Fear in Ancient Times

Rosemary Ellen Guiley - The Encyclopaedia of Witches and Witchcraft

Thomas N. Mitchell - Athens: A History of the World's First Democracy

Walter Stephens - Demon Lovers: Witchcraft S3x and the Crisis of Belief

Yvonne P. Chireau - Black Magic: Religion and The African American Conjuring Tradition

PDFs

Anti Defamation League - Hate on Display: Hate Symbols Database

Brandy Williams - White Light, Black Magic: Racism in Esoteric Thought

Cambridge SU Women’s Campaign - How to Spot TERF Ideology 2.0.

Blogs and Websites

Anti Defamation League

B. Ricardo Brown - Until Darwin: Science and the Origins of Race

Dr. S. Deacon Ritterbush - Dr Beachcomb

Folklore Thursday

Freedom of Mind Resource Centre - Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

Institute for Strategic Dialogue

Royal Horticultural Society

The Duchas Project -National Folklore Collection

Vivienne Mackie - Vivscelticconnections

YouTube Videos

ContraPoints - Gender Critical

Emma Thorne Videos - Christian Fundie Says Halloween is SATANIC!

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - The Source Of All Conspiracies: A 1902 Document Called "The Protocols"

The Belief it or Not Podcast - Ep. 40 Satanic Panic, Ep 92. Wicca

Wendigoon - The Conspiracy Theory Iceberg

Other videos I haven't referenced but you may still want to check out

Atun-Shei Films - Ancient Aryans: The History of Crackpot N@zi Archaeology

Belief It Or Not - Ep. 90 - Logical Fallacies

Dragon Talisman - Tarot Documentary (A re-upload of the 1997 documentary Strictly Supernatural: Tarot and Astrology)

Lindsay Ellis - Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

Overly Sarcastic Productions - Miscellaneous Myths Playlist

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - SATANIC PANIC! 90s Video Slanders Satanists | Pagan Invasion Saga | Part 1

ReignBot - How Ouija Boards Became "Evil" | Obscura Archive Ep. 2

Ryan Beard - Demi Lovato Promoted a R4cist Lizard Cult

Super Eyepatch Wolf - The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers and Mediums

Weird Reads with Emily Louise -The Infamous Hoaxes Iceberg Playlist

Wendigoon - The True Stories of the Warren Hauntings: The Conjuring, Annabelle, Amityville, and Other Encounters

[liesmyteachertoldme]

A New Type of War

While many still have not realized it, we are at war. The aggressors are government intelligence and security agencies that have turned their weapon of choice — information — against their own citizens.

And, while the organizations doing the CIA's dirty work may have changed, the basic organizational structure is the same as it was in 1967. Taxpayer money gets funneled through various federal departments and agencies into the hands of nongovernmental agencies that carry out censorship activities as directed. As recently reported by investigative journalists Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger:6

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say.

When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.

But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.

The reason all of this matters is that ADL's advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk's takeover last November.

Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years."

What we have now is government censorship by proxy, a deeply anti-American activity that has become standard practice, not just by intelligence and national security agencies but federal agencies of all stripes, including our public health agencies.

September 8, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's injunction banning the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI from influencing social media companies to remove so-called "disinformation."7

According to the judges' decision,8 "CDC officials provided direct guidance to the platforms on the application of the platforms' internal policies and moderation activities" by telling them what was, and was not, misinformation, asking for changes to platforms' moderation policies and directing platforms to take specific actions.

"Ultimately, the CDC's guidance informed, if not directly affected, the platforms' moderation decisions," the judges said, so, "although not plainly coercive, the CDC officials likely significantly encouraged the platforms' moderation decisions, meaning they violated the First Amendment."

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the U.S. government is not acting alone. Governments around the world and international organizations like the World Health Organization are all engaged in censorship, and when it comes to medical information, most Big Tech platforms are taking their lead from the WHO. And, if the WHO's pandemic treaty9 is enacted, then the WHO will have sole authority to dictate truth. Everything else will be censored.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Jacob Davey, researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and expert on the international far right's online playbook, argues that we have seen a range of activities associated with internet culture entering the mainstream in recent years.

"Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists" - Julia Ebner

[beardedmrbean]

Liberal watchdog Media Matters fired at least a dozen staffers Thursday — and management and some of the laid-off journalists blamed X owner Elon Musk for the cuts.

The billionaire mogul sued the Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization for defamation last November, accusing the company of manufacturing images showing advertisements from major companies alongside posts made by white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

The lawsuit led to federal probes by Republican Attorneys General Ken Paxton of Texas and Andrew Bailey of Missouri into the outlet for possible fraudulent activity by allegedly manipulating data on the site formerly known as Twitter.

Media Matters did not immediately return requests for comment but its president Angelo Carusone released a statement on Thursday regarding the layoffs.

“We’re confronting a legal assault on multiple fronts and given how rapidly the media landscape is shifting, we need to be extremely intentional about how we allocate resources in order to stay effective,” Carusone said.

“Nobody does what Media Matters does. So, we’re taking this action now to ensure that we are sustainable, sturdy and successful for whatever lies ahead.”

Ousted staffers took to social media Thursday to announce their sudden dismissal, with one having particularly harsh words for Musk.

“Bad News: I’ve been laid off from @mmfa, along with a dozen colleagues. There’s a reason far-right billionaires attack Media Matters with armies of lawyers: They know how effective our work is, and it terrifies them (him),” Kat Abughazaleh wrote.

The Post reached out to Musk for comment.

Other longtime Media Matters journalists lamented the layoffs.

“After nearly four years of working at media matters, I got laid off,” wrote a staffer named Beatrice. “So if anyone is looking for researchers with video experience, drop a line.”

“Journalism milestone achieved (got laid off),” now-former Media Matters writer Bobby Lewis added.

“Layoffs at Media Matters today. Lots of smart people available for jobs now,” said Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute of Strategic Dialogue.

At the time of the Musk lawsuit, Carusone called it “meritless” and pointed out that “major brands” are “rightly skittish of partnering” with the social media platform.

The suit — which was filed in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas — is still winding through the judicial system.

Media Matters’ purge is the latest in a slew of layoffs in the industry — and notably at liberal outlets.

NowThis laid off half of its editorial team in February as part of a “broader initiative to realign our resources and structure to ensure a long-term sustainable business in the evolving media landscape,” The Daily Caller first reported.

The Intercept also laid off 15 staffers, including its editor in chief Roger Hodge, on the same day. Last month, The New York Times reported that the news site co-founded by Glenn Greenwald is running low on cash and that it is in danger of closing next year.

[mariacallous]

This is a gift article.

The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. As Hurricane Milton churned across the Gulf of Mexico last night, I saw an onslaught of outright conspiracy theorizing and utter nonsense racking up millions of views across the internet. The posts would be laughable if they weren’t taken by many people as gospel. Among them: Infowars’ Alex Jones, who claimed that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were “weather weapons” unleashed on the East Coast by the U.S. government, and “truth seeker” accounts on X that posted photos of condensation trails in the sky to baselessly allege that the government was “spraying Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton” in order to ensure maximum rainfall, “just like they did over Asheville!”

As Milton made landfall, causing a series of tornados, a verified account on X reposted a TikTok video of a massive funnel cloud with the caption “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO FLORIDA?!” The clip, which was eventually removed but had been viewed 662,000 times as of yesterday evening, turned out to be from a video of a CGI tornado that was originally published months ago. Scrolling through these platforms, watching them fill with false information, harebrained theories, and doctored images—all while panicked residents boarded up their houses, struggled to evacuate, and prayed that their worldly possessions wouldn’t be obliterated overnight—offered a portrait of American discourse almost too bleak to reckon with head-on.

Even in a decade marred by online grifters, shameless politicians, and an alternative right-wing-media complex pushing anti-science fringe theories, the events of the past few weeks stand out for their depravity and nihilism. As two catastrophic storms upended American cities, a patchwork network of influencers and fake-news peddlers have done their best to sow distrust, stoke resentment, and interfere with relief efforts. But this is more than just a misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants.

Some of the lies and obfuscation are politically motivated, such as the claim that FEMA is offering only $750 in total to hurricane victims who have lost their home. (In reality, FEMA offers $750 as immediate “Serious Needs Assistance” to help people get basic supplies such as food and water.) Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, and Fox News have all repeated that lie. Trump also posted (and later deleted) on Truth Social that FEMA money was given to undocumented migrants, which is untrue. Elon Musk, who owns X, claimed—without evidence—that FEMA was “actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping.” That post has been viewed more than 40 million times. Other influencers, such as the Trump sycophant Laura Loomer, have urged their followers to disrupt the disaster agency’s efforts to help hurricane victims. “Do not comply with FEMA,” she posted on X. “This is a matter of survival.”

The result of this fearmongering is what you might expect. Angry, embittered citizens have been harassing government officials in North Carolina, as well as FEMA employees. According to an analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an extremism-research group, “Falsehoods around hurricane response have spawned credible threats and incitement to violence directed at the federal government,” including “calls to send militias to face down FEMA.” The study also found that 30 percent of the X posts analyzed by ISD “contained overt antisemitic hate, including abuse directed at public officials such as the Mayor of Asheville, North Carolina; the FEMA Director of Public Affairs; and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.” The posts received a collective 17.1 million views as of October 7.

Online, first responders are pleading with residents, asking for their help to combat the flood of lies and conspiracy theories. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said that the volume of misinformation could hamper relief efforts. “If it creates so much fear that my staff doesn’t want to go out in the field, then we’re not going to be in a position where we can help people,” she said in a news conference on Tuesday. In Pensacola, North Carolina, Assistant Fire Chief Bradley Boone vented his frustrations on Facebook: “I’m trying to rescue my community,” he said in a livestream. “I ain’t got time. I ain’t got time to chase down every Facebook rumor … We’ve been through enough.”

It is difficult to capture the nihilism of the current moment. The pandemic saw Americans, distrustful of authority, trying to discredit effective vaccines, spreading conspiracy theories, and attacking public-health officials. But what feels novel in the aftermath of this month’s hurricanes is how the people doing the lying aren’t even trying to hide the provenance of their bullshit. Similarly, those sharing the lies are happy to admit that they do not care whether what they’re pushing is real or not. Such was the case last week, when Republican politicians shared an AI-generated viral image of a little girl holding a puppy while supposedly fleeing Helene. Though the image was clearly fake and quickly debunked, some politicians remained defiant. “Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter,” Amy Kremer, who represents Georgia on the Republican National Committee, wrote after sharing the fake image. “I’m leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now.”

Kremer wasn’t alone. The journalist Parker Molloy compiled screenshots of people “acknowledging that this image is AI but still insisting that it’s real on some deeper level”—proof, Molloy noted, that we’re “living in the post-reality.” The technology writer Jason Koebler argued that we’ve entered the “‘Fuck It’ Era” of AI slop and political messaging, with AI-generated images being used to convey whatever partisan message suits the moment, regardless of truth.

This has all been building for more than a decade. On The Colbert Report, back in 2005, Stephen Colbert coined the word truthiness, which he defined as “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support.” This reality-fracturing is the result of an information ecosystem that is dominated by platforms that offer financial and attentional incentives to lie and enrage, and to turn every tragedy and large event into a shameless content-creation opportunity. This collides with a swath of people who would rather live in an alternate reality built on distrust and grievance than change their fundamental beliefs about the world. But the misinformation crisis is not always what we think it is.

So much of the conversation around misinformation suggests that its primary job is to persuade. But as Michael Caulfield, an information researcher at the University of Washington, has argued, “The primary use of ‘misinformation’ is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” This distinction is important, in part because it assigns agency to those who consume and share obviously fake information. What is clear from comments such as Kremer’s is that she is not a dupe; although she may come off as deeply incurious and shameless, she is publicly admitting to being an active participant in the far right’s world-building project, where feel is always greater than real.

What we’re witnessing online during and in the aftermath of these hurricanes is a group of people desperate to protect the dark, fictitious world they’ve built. Rather than deal with the realities of a warming planet hurling once-in-a-generation storms at them every few weeks, they’d rather malign and threaten meteorologists, who, in their minds, are “nothing but a trained subversive liar programmed to spew stupid shit to support the global warming bullshit,” as one X user put it. It is a strategy designed to silence voices of reason, because those voices threaten to expose the cracks in their current worldview. But their efforts are doomed, futile. As one dispirited meteorologist wrote on X this week, “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes.” She followed with: “I can’t believe I just had to type that.”

What is clear is that a new framework is needed to describe this fracturing. Misinformation is too technical, too freighted, and, after almost a decade of Trump, too political. Nor does it explain what is really happening, which is nothing less than a cultural assault on any person or institution that operates in reality. If you are a weatherperson, you’re a target. The same goes for journalists, election workers, scientists, doctors, and first responders. These jobs are different, but the thing they share is that they all must attend to and describe the world as it is. This makes them dangerous to people who cannot abide by the agonizing constraints of reality, as well as those who have financial and political interests in keeping up the charade.

In one sense, these attacks—and their increased desperation—make sense. The world feels dark; for many people, it’s tempting to meet that with a retreat into the delusion that they’ve got everything figured out, that the powers that be have conspired against them directly. But in turning away, they exacerbate a crisis that has characterized the Trump era, one that will reverberate to Election Day and beyond. Americans are divided not just by political beliefs but by whether they believe in a shared reality—or desire one at all.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Rafal the Unethical Psychologist - Part 5

[Today’s feature article was titled: “How Strategic Incongruity and Cognitive Dissonance in Visuals Enhance Victims' Distress Levels," which Rafal read as one would the morning paper.]

Rafal: [grouchily] What a bore. As if I don’t already know that. Is that what institutions are squandering their money on these days?

[Sophie walks in, as if on cue.]

Rafal: Look, [He waves the paper in Sophie’s general direction.] we know this, no studies needed to prove it. [He glances over at Sophie in an airy, primrose pink gown and glass slippers.]

Sophie: [smirks at the headline]

Rafal: Why do you think I chose you for Evil? Your Evil is splendid, my love. Magnificent, alluring, the best disguise.

Sophie: Thank you, darling. [she preens] It's time someone acknowledged my genius—I’d make a phenomenal case-study, wouldn’t I?

Rafal: Interesting proposition, but I’m too hopelessly biased in your favor and bound to your whims to conduct any sort of experiment.

Sophie: Naturally. But say we did conduct one—where would we find someone new to scare?

Rhian: [from the other end of the table] Can't you two ever have a normal breakfast conversation without plotting?

Sophie: Hello 'voice of reason.' I don't recall inviting you into our high-minded dialogue.

Rhian: High-minded? Well, that's certainly one way to put it.

⸻

Ok, to explain the joke here, if anyone would like more clarification: Sophie is basically the incarnation of cognitive dissonance, Evil yet Ever-like, deadly yet beautiful, which would probably cause an initial fog of confusion in the minds of unwitting victims.

[crispylilworm]

OpenAI has found that Israel (in addition Russia, China, and Iran) is guilty of using their generative software to manipulate the public.

The recent report notes that online influence operations based in these countries use OpenAI’s tools “to generate social media comments in multiple languages, make up names and bios for fake accounts, create cartoons and other images, and debug code.”

If you have felt that you are encountering a lot of bots or people arguing unsourced information during online discussions about the genocide in Gaza - it’s because you are, deliberately driven by malicious attempts based out of Israel to manipulate the online narrative.

NPR goes on to detail how a large campaign traced to a political marketing firm based out of Tel Aviv was disrupted by both OpenAI and Meta: “Fake accounts posed as Jewish students, African-Americans, and concerned citizens. They posted about the war in Gaza, praised Israel’s military, and criticized college antisemitism and the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip.”

While this news doesn’t come at a surprise, it’s a reminder to stay vigilant to not only the media sources you consume but the people in the discussion as well. If you see a profile that is clearly a bot posting AI-generated images or only posting bad translations/ChatGPT dialogue - do not interact, flag them as a bot for review, and move on.

In a similar NPR article published April 16th (titled “As Iran attacked Israel, old and famed videos and images got millions of views on X”), researchers from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified a post with a video of computer-generated explosions that garnered over 22 million views before it was labeled as computer-generated.

These falsified narratives continue to go viral without people giving a second thought to its authenticity. Checking sources, reporting bots, and using software to detect AI-generated content are invaluable tools in this misinformation war. Stay curious, but also stay skeptical. And free Palestine.

[owens-design]

Putting Customers First in the Custom Automation Equipment Development Process

As a leading custom automation equipment solution provider in the semiconductor metrology and inspection, medical devices, and emerging technologies, we have witnessed how the relentless pursuit of technical excellence—prioritizing streamlined processes and criteria fit—can inadvertently overshadow the deeper needs customers.

That is why this article focuses on the importance of understanding customer needs from the beginning. By embracing a holistic approach and redirecting the focus towards customer needs, stronger relationships are developed, exceptional experiences are delivered, and mutual success is achieved.

Exploring Strategic Objectives: The Foundation of Understanding

Steering teams towards a more strategic understanding of our customers, instead of superficial interactions, is an important duty as company leaders. It’s important to inspire teams to learn what customers really need and what is important to them instead of over-focusing on technical specifications. This can be accomplished by, "What do you want to achieve?" or "What would a successful outcome look like?" These answers will reveal a deeper understanding of customer needs, beyond what lies upon the surface.

Typical goals include:

Commercialization of a product concept

Accelerated time-to-market

Scaling manufacturing

Strategic objectives can be broader and include corporate, user or environmental goals. The more all high-level objectives are known, the stronger the potential partnership.

Empathy Is Key

Nurturing an atmosphere of empathy within our institutions is crucial to be effective leaders. We must prioritize customer concerns and fears with sincerity and understanding. Doing so will lead to a comprehensive knowledge of their expectations, build trust, and open the door for tailored solutions.

Asking "What are your biggest concerns or fears regarding this project?" or "What obstacles do you anticipate?" lead to deeper conversations, trust, and pave the way for a more successful outcome.

Customization as a Competitive Advantage

It’s important to remember that the true value lies in tailoring solutions to meet the unique needs of customers, more so than achieving technical excellence. Encourage teams to consider more than just technical specs, including scheduling, budgeting and more is crucial. This sets the stage for proposing solutions that better align with customer specific needs and can lead to a competitive advantage for them.

For example, during one discussion, a client expressed concerns about project timelines and potential delays that they experienced with vendors in the past. Commitments were made to the customer’s customers, so on-time delivery was critical. After engaging in an open and honest dialogue and listening closely to their worries and discussing options and tradeoffs, led to a better understanding so the project could move forward with both parties having more confidence in it.

By understanding how they felt, we developed a detailed project plan that met their timeline and accounted for potential challenges and risks. This level of proactive engagement addressed their concerns while solidifying our status as a trusted advisor that is invested in their success, which is a higher level relationship than a partnership.

Developing a Customer-Centric Culture

Cultivating a customer-centric culture within our company is critically important as leaders. By encouraging our teams to actively listen, develop a deep understanding of customer needs with empathy, we will be in a much stronger position to serve customers in the way they need and elevate our position to that of an advisor that can be trusted.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Mathias at HuffPost:

Last weekend, former President Donald Trump posted another anti-immigrant screed to Truth Social. It would have been unremarkable ― at least, graded on the Trumpian curve of extreme xenophobia ― except for one word. “[We will] return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),” he wrote. “I will save our cities and towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and all across America.” Many people might have glossed over his use of “remigration.” White nationalists did not. “#Remigration has had a massive conceptual career,” Martin Sellner — leader of the Austrian chapter of Generation Identity, a pan-European white supremacist network — tweeted in his native German. “Born in France, popularized in German-speaking countries and now the term of the hour from Sweden to the USA!”

It was a succinct and accurate history from Sellner, a 35-year-old who typically trafficks in vicious lies and conspiracy theories, particularly about Black and brown people. He has been at the vanguard of pushing “remigration” — a euphemism for ethnically cleansing non-white people from Western countries — into the popular political lexicon in Europe. Now Sellner was seeing his favorite little word all grown up, moving overseas in service of the 45th president of the United States, who has promised to implement the largest mass deportation of immigrants in U.S. history if elected back to the White House in six weeks’ time. Trump’s use of “remigration” is the latest instance of the GOP’s intensifying anti-immigrant rhetoric in the run-up to November’s election, underscoring the degree to which one of America’s two major political parties is sourcing many of its talking points and policy ideas directly from neo-fascists.

“Trump’s rhetoric about ‘remigration’ has its origins in the international far-right,” Jakob Guhl, a senior manager of policy and research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, explained to HuffPost in an email. “The term remigration was popularized by groups adhering to Identitarianism, a pan-European ethno-nationalist movement, as their policy to reverse the so-called ‘great replacement.’” “The great replacement theory is a conspiracy theory which claims that ‘native’ Europeans are being deliberately replaced through non-European migration while suppressing European birth-rates,” he continued. “This theory has inspired numerous terrorist attacks, including the Christchurch massacre, where 51 people were killed, as well as attacks in Poway, El Paso, Halle, Buffalo, and Bratislava.”

Donald Trump takes inspiration from far-right European anti-immigrant extremists by using the term “remigration” to call for the deportation of undocumented immigrants.