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otherkinnews · 2 months ago

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Russia proposes banning quadrobics and furry fandom

[This article was originally posted on the main blog for Otherkin News, on DreamWidth: https://otherkinnews.dreamwidth.org/95252.html Orion Scribner @frameacloud wrote it on December 8, 2024.]

The Kremlin-aligned Safe Internet League is an organization for censoring the internet in Russia and educating the public about risks they may encounter there. The State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children helped establish the organization in 2011. The League’s Ombudsman is Irina Volynets. In the spring of 2024, Volynets said that the furry fandom and quadrobics are both dangerous hobbies. She said that furries dress as pigs and eat from troughs. (Later, a furry explained to the news that they don’t do that.) Soon afterward, Volynets claimed to have received death threats from quadrobists, which she said shows they’re generally hostile. The League doesn’t plan to ban cartoons for having furry characters. Instead, they want to ban quadrobics and furry fans for encouraging “crazy” behavior and having direct connections with LGBT. Russia bans LGBT for allegedly being an extremist movement.

At the end of the summer of 2024, Russian pop singer Mia Boyka humiliated a small child for expressing an interest in quadrobics. Boyka derided the cat-masked child to tears on the concert stage in front of a booing audience. Boyka then posted a video clip of that to her TikTok, asking her followers what they thought of quadrobics. The child’s parents filed a police report, because they hadn’t consented to Boyka doing any of this. The child had been brought on stage because she had gotten lost at the concert so her parents could come find her. Other celebrities and authorities scolded Boyka for her cruelty. Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League, wrote to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation that she thought that what Boyka did was unacceptable treatment of a child, even though she didn’t support quadrobics either.

In September, soon after Boyka’s video clip went viral, Russian Senator Natalia Kosikhina proposed banning quadrobics. The Senator claimed that the sport was dangerous because supposedly, quadrobist teens attack and bite people who visit parks. So far, I haven’t found names, dates, or proof that those sorts of attacks actually happened. State Duma deputy Svetlana Bessarab says the ban is unnecessary, because the Code of Administrative Offenses would cover any bad behavior that could develop in connection with the hobby, whereas the hobby itself is a healthy form of play.

Something consistent across the articles that I read about this is that they describe quadrobics as a fashionable hobby among children and teens, derived from normal ways that smaller children play, and connected with the furry fandom. They don’t mention therianthropes.

About the author: Orion Scribner is a moderator on the Otherkin News blog. I used machine translation to get the gist of the Russian-language sources, which isn't a real translation, so I welcome corrections to that from fluent speakers. However, I never write articles with the assistance of procedural generation or so-called artificial intelligence (AI), and that type of content isn’t allowed on this blog.

Annotated List of Sources

Fliskaya, Anna, and Lomeiko, Alexandra (Анна Флиская, Александра Ломейко) (September 11, 2024). “Больше запретов — выше интерес. Кому и чем не угодили квадроберы.” (“More bans, more interest. Who and what did not please the quadrobists.”) 360.ru. https://360.ru/news/obschestvo/bolshe-zapretov-vyshe-interes-komu-i-chem-ne-ugodili-kvadrobery/ Archived September 27, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240927163837/https://360.ru/news/obschestvo/bolshe-zapretov-vyshe-interes-komu-i-chem-ne-ugodili-kvadrobery/

Bessarab’s interview with 360.ru, where he said the ban isn’t necessary. 360.ru is the news site counterpart of the TV satellite channel called "360°," which has 24-hour news. It's owned by the Russian government, and I noticed in one of the other articles from them that they had distorted the facts of events.

Kedr.Media (September 12, 2024). “«Может привести к трагическим последствиям». В Совфеде заявили о необходимости запрета квадробинга — детского подражания животным.” (“‘It could lead to tragic consequences.’ The Federation Council has declared the need to ban quad-racing — children's imitation of animals.”) Kedr.Media.https://kedr.media/news/mozhet-privesti-k-tragicheskim-posledstviyam-v-sovfede-zayavili-o-neobhodimosti-zapreta-kvadrobinga-detskogo-podrazhaniya-zhivotnym/ Archived December 4, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241204123625/https://kedr.media/news/mozhet-privesti-k-tragicheskim-posledstviyam-v-sovfede-zayavili-o-neobhodimosti-zapreta-kvadrobinga-detskogo-podrazhaniya-zhivotnym/

About the proposed ban, and how psychologists and authorities don’t support the ban and think it’s okay for children to be quadrobists. Kedr.Media is an independent social media blog that usually covers news about the environment.

Kholodov, Vlad (Влад Холодов) (April 26, 2024). “Психиатр Федорович: Увлечение «фурри» может нарушить психику ребенка.” (“Psychiatrist Fedorovich: The furry fandom can violate the psyche of the child.”) Общественной службе новостей (Public News Source). https://www.osnmedia.ru/obshhestvo/psihiatr-fedorovich-uvlechenie-furri-mozhet-narushit-psihiku-rebenka/ Archived May 26, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240526235959/https://www.osnmedia.ru/obshhestvo/psihiatr-fedorovich-uvlechenie-furri-mozhet-narushit-psihiku-rebenka/

This is the original interview with the children’s psychiatrist Alexander Fedorovich about the furry fandom. Despite the clickbait headline, Federovich says that the furry fandom isn’t inherently bad for children, but parents should supervise and pull children out of it if they get into age-inappropriate risks. That seems reasonable, but he does make a strange claim that role-play can interfere with a child’s developing sense of identity, and that it would be healthy only if they do not have an animal character all the time.

Kosolapova, Tatiana (Татьяна Косолапова) (September 12, 2024). “Психолог рассказала, как вести себя при встрече с агрессивными квадроберами” (“The psychologist told how to behave when meeting with aggressive quadrobist.”) Vzglyad. https://vz.ru/news/2024/9/12/1286730.html Archived November 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241108083139/https://vz.ru/news/2024/9/12/1286730.html In Russian.

An interview with a psychotherapist from Moscow State University, Vera Sukhikh, about what she thinks of quadrobics. She praises their athleticism as they play outside, and doesn’t think it’s inherently any harm. The journalist claims that quadrobists attack and bite people. The psychotherapist doesn’t actually agree that that happens, but advises that if they do attack you, they’re only children, so you should just explain to them that’s not appropriate behavior. Media Bias Fact Check rates this newspaper as a questionable source with propaganda and many failed fact checks.

Lutsenko, Nadezhda, and Petrov, Anatoly (Надежда Луценко, Анатолий Петров). (September 5, 2024). “«Замаскированная форма экстремизма». В России призвали запретить движение квадроберов.” (“‘A Disguised Form of Extremism’: Russia Calls for Banning Quadrobics Movement.”) 360.ru.https://360.ru/tekst/obschestvo/zamaskirovannaja-forma-ekstremizma-v-rossii-prizvali-zapretit-dvizhenie-kvadroberov/ Archived October 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008065407/https://360.ru/tekst/obschestvo/zamaskirovannaja-forma-ekstremizma-v-rossii-prizvali-zapretit-dvizhenie-kvadroberov/

Political scientist Alexei Yaroshenko has an interview with 360.ru about what he thinks of quadrobics. He says Russia should recognize quadrobics as an extremist movement and banned. He says quadrobists attack passersby because when people imitate animal behavior, they are no longer guided by human morals. He says it’s the same as how people can be transgender in the West. He compares it with the “Blue Whale Challenge,” and says that quadrobics is also a deadly game. (Orion’s note: the Blue Whale Challenge is an urban legend. It was a moral panic in 2016 where people were afraid that millions of youth were committing suicide as the climax of a specific series of dares being given to them by administrators on social media.) He says that if children play on all fours, then next they will want to cross the street at the wrong place, as animals do. Everything he said was out of touch with reality. This is also the only source I read that claimed that the pop singer hadn’t really insulted the little child, that she had told her she was beautiful without her mask. That’s a distortion of facts, because independent news sources and Kremlin-aligned ones had all agreed that the pop star had gone too far in mistreating the child.

Moscow Times Reporter (September 13, 2024). “What Is Quadrobics, Russia’s Viral But Divisive Youth Subculture?” The Moscow Times. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/13/what-is-quadrobics-russias-viral-but-divisive-youth-subculture-a86370 Archived October 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008073201/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/13/what-is-quadrobics-russias-viral-but-divisive-youth-subculture-a86370

Media Bias Fact Check rates this as a high credibility source with a left-center bias. This is the English-language source where I first heard about this. Hat tip to Mord for having posted a link to it in the Discord server for the Otherkin Wiki. Many of the other sources that I’m listing here, I learned about them from this article.

Mustafa, Samer (Самер Мустафа) (September 11, 2024). “В России предложили запретить квадроберов.” (“Russia proposes banning quadrobics.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2024/09/11/23896279.shtml?updated

Media Bias Fact Check says this is “one of Russia’s leading online newspapers,” but rates the newspaper as a questionable source, lacking in transparency. This article is a secondary source. It says RIA Novosti is the primary source for this news. That one is elsewhere in my list of sources.

Nekasrov, Ivan (Иван Некрасов) (September 3, 2024). “«Позор тебе и твоим фанатам»: Миа Бойка унизила ребенка со сцены — теперь ее требуют отменить.” (“‘Shame on you and your fans:’ Mia Boyka humiliated the child from the stage – now they demand to cancel it.”) Chita.ru. https://www.chita.ru/text/culture/2024/09/03/74039252/ Archived September 9, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240909054834/https://www.chita.ru/text/culture/2024/09/03/74039252/ In Russian.

This magazine article goes into the most depth about the pop singer publicly humiliating a small child for liking quadrobics.

RIA Novosti (November 9, 2024). “В Совфеде предложили запретить субкультуру квадроберов.” (“The Federation Council proposed banning the quadrobics subculture.”) RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/20240911/kvadrobery-1971964812.html Archived October 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008010414/https://ria.ru/20240911/kvadrobery-1971964812.html

About the Senator’s proposal to ban quadrobics. I think this article may be the primary source for her proposal. It sounds like she said it directly to this newspaper. If there’s a legal source for the proposed ban itself, I don’t know where to look for it. Media Bias Fact Check rates this Russian government owned newspaper as a questionable source with state propaganda and many failed fact checks.

Titorenko, Danila (Данила Титоренко) (April 23, 2024). “В Татарстане рассказали о новой вредоносной субкультуре с Запада.” (“Tatarstan talks about a new harmful subculture from the West.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/04/23/22855358.shtml

Volynets says she will fight the furry fandom because it is from the West. She says that furries engage in psychologically destructive behavior, such as– she claims– eating out of troughs like pigs.

Vesnina, Alexandra (Александра Веснина) (April 27, 2024). “«Размытие границ»: Волынец увидела в квадробике расчеловечивание.” (“‘Blurring the Lines’: Volynets Sees Dehumanization in the Quadrobists.”) Национальная служба новостей (National News Service). https://nsn.fm/society/razmytie-granits-volynets-uvidela-v-kvadrobike-raschelovechivanie Archived November 1, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241101212302/https://nsn.fm/society/razmytie-granits-volynets-uvidela-v-kvadrobike-raschelovechivanie

Volynets announced in Russia's National News Service press center that after she spoke against quadrobists, she received death threats.

Vesnina, Alexandra (Александра Веснина) (April 27, 2024). “«��урачество!»: Милонов предрек исчезновение квадробики через полгода.” (“‘Stupidity!’: Milonov predicts quadrobics will disappear in six months.”) Национальная служба новостей (National News Service)https://nsn.fm/society/durost-milonov-predrek-ischeznovenie-kvadrobiki-cherez-polgoda Archived April 27, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240427112916/https://nsn.fm/society/durost-milonov-predrek-ischeznovenie-kvadrobiki-cherez-polgoda

Vitaly Milnov is the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Paternity, Motherhood and Childhood. He says that the furry fandom and quadrobics are foolish teen fads that come from Japan and Korea. He says everyone will forget about it later this year.

Zakarian, Ekaterina (April 23, 2024). “Фурри заявили Ирине Волынец, что не подражают свиньям и не едят из корыта.” (“Furry told Irina Volynets that they do not imitate pigs and do not eat from troughs.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/04/23/22856132.shtml?updated

An anonymous administrator of a furry fandom community on the social media network VKontakte spoke up about how Volynets is spreading misinformation about furry fans. He says they don’t imitate animal behavior or eat from troughs, as Volynets claimed. Instead, they appreciate cartoon animals that behave like humans, including those from Soviet cartoons, not just from the West.

Zamanova, Rosalia (Розалия Заманова) (April 26, 2024). “Психиатр заявил об опасности субкультуры фурри для психики ребенка.” (“Psychiatrist warns about the dangers of a furry subculture for the psyche of the child.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/04/26/22877533.shtml

This is a secondary source reporting on the Public News Source’s interview with the children’s psychiatrist Alexander Federovich, which I have elsewhere in this list of sources.

Zamanova, Rosalia (Розалия Заманова) (May 2, 2024). “Волынец заявила об угрозах от представителей квадробика.” (“Volynets reported threats from representatives of quadrobics.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/05/02/22918993.shtml

Volynets claims that after she started writing on social media that quadrobists are dangerous, she received death threats from them.

Zamanova, Rosalia (Розалия Заманова) (September 12, 2024). “В Госдуме не поддержали идею запретить квадроберов в России.” (“Duma did not support banning quadrobics in Russia.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/09/12/23906437.shtml

This is a secondary source about the interview with 360.ru.

#quadrobics #quadrobist #quadrobists #quadrober #quadrobers #quads #furry #furry fandom #furry fan #furry fans #endogenic safe #квадроберов #Фурри

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buf309 · 1 year ago

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Pose Reference Resources

I promised Dia (aka aerequets) that I will make a collection of pose references in the reply of one of her art posts, and then I completely forgot about it. Until now. I'm sorry for my bad memory.

So, yeah, better late than never I guess?

The pose collection I use the most is no longer free. They used to let you download a whole album (more than 8GB worth of data) to use offline, but now you have to pay $40/package or $200 for full sets. I still have the zip file for a very old version of theirs, but I can't legally share it. So, let's skip to the other options.

1/ First, you heard of those 3D dolls program that let you model your own reference pose? This one is an online one and for free, the whole ordeal. Of course since it's online and free, you can't save your model for next time, and it costs quite a lot of time to set the model up. So, you should take as much screenshots in as many tricky angles as you need once you done with the setting. Best using for complicated scenes where those below don't have what you need already available.

2/ This one is free and in 3D, you can rotate the model to any angle that you need. The only set back is the numbers of poses are quite limited. This one is best for using as a basic blocks then build up what you want to draw, or just as a practice to improve your understanding of human anatomy.

3/ This one is free for personal uses and the pose collection is massive. The setbacks are the language barrier (it's in Japanese, English is sometimes tag-a-long) and you have to search through their pages for what you need. The pics for each pose is static but they are in different angle in almost 360 degrees. There are many 2-person and 3-person poses too. Great for illustration inspiration.

4/ This one will only show reference photos of human head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The web interface is easy to use. There are options like searching based on gender, ages, emotions, glasses, facial hair or not, etc. Good for practicing face drawing.

5/ This one will show reference photos for human body parts, at whatever angle you rotate the model, read the instructions for how to do it. The web interface is quite hard to use at first, just tinkering around for a bit, and you will be fine. There are options like searching based on gender and which particular parts that you need refs for. Good for that moment when you go "huh? how is this <body part> will look in this <situation>????"

6/ This one will only show reference photos of animal heads, and only the head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The accurate skull refencence list is their best point. There are enough common species in the drop down list. Tbh, I don't use this much because I often need refs for the whole animal most of the time. But it's best for furry artists, I guess?

7/ Real model photos. They sell pose reference in themed packs, but there are enough free packs to use as drawing practice too.

8/ This is the best for general background reference. Lots of options. Not really good for very specific location results, but good for random background in drawings.

9/ Lastly, for specific objects or background references at strange angles, I often search for 3D models on this site then take screenshots of whatever I need.

That's all, folks. Hope this list can help ease some of the struggles that we will encounter on our quest of learning the art of drawing things 😂

#reference #digital art reference

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toyhouse-code-hell · 11 months ago

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a bit of an appreciation post to everyone who asked for a code??? I'm yapping.

that is. a baffling(is it baffling? ive never seen triple digit codes but maybe this is normal) amount of toy house codes

Ok I'm going to do math here. I'm rounding up to an even 500 codes since the 500th code was given to a friend like within 3 days of me making the blog and inspired me to make it.

500 codes, with 2 new codes per week is 250 weeks. 250 weeks is 4.8 years for the codes I have not generated.

For total codes I have ever given, I have 5 pages of generated codes, with 100 codes per page, with the final page having 86. Taking my remaining 134 codes, I have had a total of 620 codes, totaling almost six years of premium to get that many codes.

Getting codes was my main reason to get premium since the site has been invite only since I joined in 2017. And now that I've gotten into web coding, having premium to attempt CSS and possibly make my own profile codes is incredibly exciting!!

And that's not to mention that people sell the codes, too. Codes for art means you're asking for people to undersell their art/you're underselling your own art. Codes for money is... Dubious as hell. Minimum premium is 1 month at 4.95 USD, which is 4 weeks, which is 8 codes. That makes 1 code worth 0.61 USD. NOBODY'S art is worth less than a dollar.

I've had "ask me for a toyhouse code" on my main tumblr, my artfight, and my toyhouse itself, but I've never had THIS LEVEL of interaction for any post I've made offering codes. It's made me super happy to finally give out these codes en masse and for people to be happy. I didn't think I would get even 30 asks. I have gotten over 360.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

So thanks to everyone for being so nice when asking, for giving me happy birthday messages, fun facts, little text creatures, song recommendations (if you read this THANK YOU the song was perfect to begin an oc playlist I've been struggling to start), and just being silly in my asks. It's made me very happy and I appreciate it.

So ya. Clay sappy yapping hour is over.

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sanfyconsultancy99 · 2 months ago

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Reduced Returns: By providing a true-to-life view, customers are more confident in their purchase, reducing the likelihood of returns.

6. User-Friendly CMS and Inventory Management Integration

An e-commerce website for jewelry should not only attract and convert visitors but also be easy to manage. Our team integrates content management systems (CMS) and inventory management tools that simplify product uploads, price updates, and inventory tracking. With our systems, you can:

Easily Update Content: Update product descriptions, prices, and images without technical assistance.

Track Inventory: Real-time inventory management keeps your website updated with accurate stock information, helping you avoid overselling.

Order Fulfillment Integration: Streamline your order management process with integration options that automate order processing, shipping, and notifications.

7. Conversion-Focused Copywriting and Product Descriptions

Great copy can make a significant difference in converting visitors to buyers. Our professional copywriters understand the art of conversion-focused writing, creating product descriptions and calls-to-action that speak directly to jewelry shoppers. Each product description emphasizes quality, style, and the emotional connection that fine jewelry often represents. Our copywriting services cover:

Engaging Product Descriptions: Detailed descriptions that convey the luxury, craftsmanship, and unique attributes of each piece.

SEO-Optimized Blog Content: Informative articles that provide value to your customers while driving organic traffic to your website.

Compelling CTAs: Effective calls-to-action that encourage visitors to make a purchase or explore other products on your site.

8. Ongoing Support and Optimization for Long-Term Success

Launching a successful jewelry website is only the beginning. To remain competitive, you need ongoing support to ensure your website continues to perform at its best. Our services at JewelExperts.com include ongoing maintenance, updates, and performance optimization to keep your website relevant and competitive. This support includes:

Regular SEO Audits: We analyze website performance, keyword rankings, and traffic patterns to identify new opportunities.

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9. Success Stories: Proven Results for Our Clients

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By combining expert design, cutting-edge technology, and marketing-driven strategies, we have a proven track record of transforming jewelry websites into high-performing e-commerce platforms. Each website is built to support the brand's goals and long-term growth.

Conclusion

An exceptional jewelry website requires more than just good design—it needs to be strategically optimized for search engines, visually appealing, user-friendly, and equipped with the right tools to convert visitors into loyal customers. At JewelExperts.com, we understand the intricacies of the jewelry industry and build e-commerce solutions tailored to meet these specific needs.

If you’re ready to elevate your jewelry brand with a website that stands out in search rankings and captivates your audience, JewelExperts.com is here to help you achieve online success.

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peroxidebutch · 2 years ago

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engaging and educational things to do on the web :)

ArcGIS StoryMaps - informative, presents maps with spatial GIS data on numerous topics from various organizations in a scrollable format (best on desktop). we really enjoyed For the Birds :)

United States Botanic Garden Virtual Tour - 360 degree view of various parts of the U.S. Botanic Garden, indoors and outdoors, also includes links to video tours (youtube)

National Museum of Natural History Virtual Tour - includes permanent, current, and past exhibits, narrated tours, and more!

Van Gogh Museum: Enjoy the Museum From Home - high quality views of Gogh’s paintings, 4k video tour (youtube), virtual book club (meetings have ended, but the free EPUBs and PDFs remain on the site for download), Unravel Van Gogh application to learn more about individual paintings, and a children’s media section

bonus: while not really educational, we’re a big fan of the calming Window Swap, which allows you to see the view out of people’s windows all over the world (with audio!)

mandatory disclaimer we have not tried every link on these sites and are not affiliated with these organizations. some links may have ads (window swap especially). please feel free to add on your favourite sites like these in the notes!

#text #mine #not vc #virtual museum tour #window swap #arcgis storymaps #it's been a hot minute since we've done anything vc related ourself tbh but we wanted to share these resources w you all :)#hopefully once we move we can get back into bone cleaning but that's hard w a roommate and no yard. we will be starting to make cyanotypes..#...though! stay tuned for that on our art blog we're very excited to make botanical prints and #maybe even some hats tote bags etc. if they work out we might sell some!

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smbhax · 10 months ago

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Namco/M2 didn't create the NES version of Pac-Man Championship Edition released as the "new" centerpiece of Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 in 2020; they polished an unacknowledged, unreleased 2008 homebrew port by Japanese 8-bit console port hobbyist coke0774 ( https://www.youtube.com/@coke0774 ):

Session: https://youtu.be/cXMMva8CCv8

2007 CE releases on Xbox 360 2008 coke774 posts video of their "FC VER."/"NES" CE to YouTube and Niconico, and screenshots to their personal website 2009 A presumed copy of coke774's 2008 NES CE video appears on Vimeo

vimeo

2013 coke774 tweets (Google Translate) "It's been a while since I received an email from a foreigner asking for a Pac-Man ROM" 2014 A Twitter user shares a photo of a Famicom cart w/ a sticker on it saying "PACMAM Championship Edition DX"

2015 According to Namco's NES CE director in a 2020 interview, Namco "negotiates" & starts work on a never-released stand-alone 3DS port of NES CE 2018 coke774's YouTube NES CE video nears 150K views 2019 coke774 sets their NES CE videos private & takes down their personal web site 2020

Namco teases their "new," NES version of CE

Namco's NES CE director says "While there are some people who knew about this project beforehand, I bet even they will still be surprised at the finished game!"--no mention of coke774

Official NES CE release as flagship game in the "Namco Museum Archives Volume 1" collection, credited entirely to M2

Confronted by Ars Technica, Namco half-assedly admits "In the case of Coke774, his work was highly appreciated by our team and we worked with him officially to implement his design into our game"

TCRF/Shacknews analysis: M2 polished the FX, replaced the sound, added more fruit, and the menu stuff: Extra mode, in-game achievements, replays, sound test

Sources:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/we-traced-namcos-new-pac-man-demake-to-its-source-a-2008-fan-romhack/

https://medium.com/attract-mode/so-about-that-pac-man-championship-edition-demake-a39c92ab6e6e by @attract-mode-collective (their tumblr version of article)

https://www.siliconera.com/pac-man-championship-edition-demake-started-out-as-a-3ds-game/

https://www.mobygames.com/game/146704/namco-museum-archives-vol-1/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true

https://www.google.com/search?q=twitter+tweet+412916369680629760

https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Pac-Man_Championship_Edition_(NES)

https://www.shacknews.com/article/122931/the-best-game-released-in-2020-was-an-nes-demake-from-2008

#pacman #pac man #pac man championship edition #coke774 #pacman championship edition #demake #pacman ce #pac man ce #namco museum archives volume 1 #namco museum #namco #m2 co ltd #homebrew #Vimeo #gaming videos

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day6source · 11 months ago

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DAY6 CONCERT <Welcome to the Show>

INFORMATION TITLE : DAY6 CONCERT <Welcome to the Show> DATE : 2024.04.12 FRI 8PM (KST) / 04.13 SAT 6PM (KST) / 04.14 SUN 5PM (KST) (+Beyond LIVE) VENUE : Jamsil Indoor Stadium TICKET PRICE : ALL 154,000 KRW RESERVATION : YES24 AGE LIMIT : 7 years and over ORGANIZER : JYP ENTERTAINMENT - 4/14 (SUN) show will be broadcasted live online (https://beyondlive.com). Information for the related products will be announced later. TICKET RESERVATION ANNOUNCEMENT ▶ FANCLUB PRESALE : Monday, March 25, 2024 20:00-23:59 (KST) (Purchase Limit: 1 ticket per person for all performances) - FANCLUB PRESALE is available without an extra verification process if you log in with the YES24 ID that you used to register for DAY6 OFFICIAL FANCLUB ‘My Day’ 4th Generation on YES24. ▶ GENERAL SALE : Tuesday, March 26, 2024 20:00~ (KST) (Purchase Limit: 2 tickets per person for each show) - 2 tickets per person, including the ticket purchased through the FANCLUB PRESALE. ▶ WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE SEAT RESERVATION ANNOUNCEMENT - Wheelchair accessible seat reservation is only available by phone. Please contact the YES24 Customer Service Number (T. 1544-6399) for reservations starting from Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at 10AM. (*Customer Service Operating Hours: Weekdays (9AM~6PM) / Saturday (9AM~5PM) / Sunday & Public Holidays are closed.) - Wheelchair accessible seats can only be purchased by wheelchair users. Wheelchair users can purchase up to 2 wheelchair accessible seating tickets, including 1 ticket for a companion. ※ To be able to collect your ticket and view the concert, please make sure to reserve tickets for yourself under your own name only. If you are not the person who made the reservation, you cannot watch the show. ※ YES24 Global Ticket Service will be available. ※ Those who reserve tickets on the global page do not have to authenticate themselves via mobile or I-PIN to be able to reserve tickets. However, you will only be able to collect your tickets on-site after presenting a proper ID. ※ For more detailed information, please check the instructions on the ticket reservation web page. - This performance will take place on a 360-degree circular stage, with no specific front direction. - Please note that some seats may have obstructed views due to stage setup and artist positioning, including structures, equipment, and cameras.

#day6 #fourever #concert: welcome to the show #240315 #[LETS GOOOOOO!!! also 360 stage omg??????]

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the-guiding-qui · 2 years ago

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Today I've been digging a LOT for official DS2 gameplay statistics and it's impossible to find actual stuff. Wish someone archived the data in waybackmachine but it might not have been within it's capability to record cuz it was behind dropdown menus so anyways...

This is the thing I knew existed and soooo many places site that IGN article specifically. Of note: (March 2014)

Data provided by From Software reveals that the Fume Knight from Crown of the Old Iron King is statistically the most punishing boss in Dark Souls 2, defeating challengers almost 93 percent of the time. The Ruin Sentinel gauntlet wins the prize for the single most-frequented boss encounter among all Dark Souls 2 players. Heroes have pitted themselves against the Sentinels almost 25 million times, with an average success rate of 76 percent across all platforms, meaning the Sentinels win about one out of every four attempts.

That article however has absolutely ZERO SOURCES :/ So! I searched. I found a total of 3 articles talking about stats and the other 2 thankfully DID SITE THEIR SOURCES.

March 2014

the Xbox 360 side of the site claims 1,311,973 total deaths, while the PlayStation 3 side reports 2,991,976.

April 2014

which enemy was killed most? If you answered "Stray Hound," reward yourself with a cookie and a pat on the back. As of this writing, PlayStation 3 players have killed 78,396,878 of these easy foes, whereas Xbox 360 players have only felled 32,200,775 of them. The runner-up in deaths is the Hollow Royal Soldier (Greatsword), dying 65,805,375 times on PlayStation 3, and 26,948,637 times on Xbox 360. The enemy that has perished the least is the Prowling Magus. PlayStation 3 players have only reaped the souls from 228,949 of them, and Xbox 360 have only racked up 83,934 kills against this adversary.

These are really cool stats from early in the game's life and they're basically all that remains from it. Where is the info from? Now I know, thanks to the previous 2 links, they're from Beyond the Bonfire/farfire.darksoulsii.com a site that no longer exists. So now I had a direction.

The data nerd I am would've loved seeing this back in the day. At this point I knew I would never find a full list for any part of it but I needed to figure out what it looked like at least. So, of course, the next step is waybackmachine and it doesn't quite give me things to work with cuz the data was behind a dropdown menu and it didn't collect the numbers at the time so, what we're left is just... The skeleton of the website and a couple articles on it. You can look at these if you want, they're actually pretty damn cool (and donate some money to wayback while you're at it if you want). farfire international https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/http://farfire.darksoulsii.com/ darksouls 2 dot com https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/https://darksoulsii.com darksouls dot jp https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/http://info.darksouls.jp

So, if I couldn't find it to take pictures of, I had to look for pictures of it. And 2014 means the best place to look is forums. The following is all I could find and they're a combination of Reddit, GiantBomb, SomethingAwful and Fextra forum searching. Aug 08, 2014 Level Distribution, PS3/XBOX 360/PC https://fextralife.com/forums/t37291/dark-souls-current-player-sls-8814/

Cause of Death Ratio PS3 March 12th 2014 https://www.giantbomb.com/dark-souls-ii/3030-40798/forums/dark-souls-2-live-stats-lost-souls-deaths-network-1474994/

Evidence the site was where the standardized wiki names for the enemies came from https://fextralife.com/forums/p607878/enemy-naming-based-on-official-quotfarfirequot-site?hilit=farfire.darksoulsii.com#p607878

Online Activity May 3rd 2014 https://forum.donanimhaber.com/dark-souls-ii-2014-scholar-of-the-first-sin-2015-ana-konu--87486929-31

### PC ### Cov. members total : 214,396 Times cleared : 17,505 Total deaths : 44,346,355 Total coop : 6,676,797 Total invasions : 1,338,490 ### PS3 ### Cov. members total : 168,581 Times cleared : 280,986 Total deaths : 225,297,890 Total coop : 3,762,881 Total invasions : 1,421,950 ### XBOX ### Cov. members total : 72,001 Times cleared : 211,047 Total deaths : 87,546,635 Total coop : 1,542,398 Total invasions : 838,648

Most popular gear per platform April 8th 2014 https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/22igio/fromsoft_is_collecting_data_on_player_deaths/

Player deaths etc on PS3: http://i.imgur.com/1cqSsWt.jpg Player deaths etc on 360: http://i.imgur.com/3ZwIr56.jpg Most popular armor (just showing helm/armor, was same on both consoles): http://i.imgur.com/2ey2We1.jpg Most popular rings on PS3: http://i.imgur.com/P2opb4I.jpg Most popular rings on 360: http://i.imgur.com/tWsdV1z.jpg

Really happy with the last one in particular but the whole haul was fun :3 ty for reading

#dark souls 2 #soulsborne #scholar of the first sin #game journalism #research #rabbit hole #infodump

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death-in-a-handbasket · 2 years ago

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Yes I was the one who commented on Ao3 ch13 because the writing made me go AWOOGA, got me giddy and kicking my feet from the great quality. It made me feel like the first time I experienced reading x reader fanfics and my world took a 360⁰, also I'm very glad that you plan on finishing the fic. Checked your Ayatsuji art and it got me screaming into my pillow? Ayatsuji in an apron was a need I didn't know I needed in my life, thank you for the food.

Of course !! :D glad to provide especially since there’s not enough fanworks for him 😔 shout out to my homies and other misc bros on this webbed site who’ve made shit for him

also fuck yeah apron moment, I like to imagine him going down into his basement to bust out the clay and rolling up his sleeves and tying on an apron. ough. frothing at the mouth I’m gonna be honest

that FIGURE.. tiny little waist with the broad shoulders ..

licking him sucking him fucking him

IM SORRY ILL SHUT UP NOW

#I’m so glad you love the stuffs though <333 #discount confessional #bsd gaiden #yukito ayatsuji #bsd ayatsuji #ayatsuji yukito x reader

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overthevalleyparagliding · 1 year ago

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theculturedmarxist · 2 years ago

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In Costa Rica and Latvia today, the Atlantic Council is hosting its 360/OS Summit at RightsCon Costa Rica and NATO’s Riga StratCom. Among other things, the influential think tank will be previewing its “Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web” report, which they hope will “lay the groundwork for stronger cross-sectoral ideation and action” and “facilitate collaboration now between the expanding community dedicated to understanding and protecting trust and safety.”

In human terms, conference attendees are discussing how best to stay on-brand by presenting the Censorship-Industrial Complex as a human rights initiative, and as #TwitterFiles documents show, they have the juice to pull it off.

EngageMedia (which I co-founded and was the long-time Executive Director) co-organized RightsCon in Manila in 2015, and I personally oversaw a lot of the preparations. That looks like a big mistake. I now believe RightsCon represents everything that has gone wrong in the digital rights field. Specifically, it represents the capture of a once-vibrant movement by corporate and government interests, and a broader shift towards anti-liberal and authoritarian solutions to online challenges. I left EngageMedia on good terms, but now have no formal relationship.

In honor of this week’s RightsCon and 360/OS Summit, we dug into the #TwitterFiles to revisit the integration of the Atlantic Council’s anti-disinformation arm, the Digital Forensic Research Labs (DFRLab), while also highlighting its relationship with weapons manufacturers, Big Oil, Big Tech, and others who fund the NATO-aligned think tank.

The Atlantic Council is unique among “non-governmental” organizations thanks to its lavish support from governments and the energy, finance, and weapons sectors. It’s been a key player in the development of the “anti-disinformation” sector from the beginning. It wasn’t an accident when its DFRLab was chosen in 2018 to help Facebook “monitor for misinformation and foreign interference,” after the platform came under intense congressional scrutiny as a supposed unwitting participant in a Russian influence campaign. Press uniformly described DFRLab as an independent actor that would merely “improve security,” and it was left to media watchdog FAIR to point out that the Council was and is “dead center in what former President Obama’s deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes called ‘the blob.’”

What’s “the blob”? FAIR described it as “Washington’s bipartisan foreign-policy consensus,” but thanks to the Twitter Files, we can give a more comprehensive portrait. In the runup to the 360/OS event in that same year, 2018, Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council boasted to Twitter executives that the attendees would include the crème de la crème of international influence, people he explained resided at the “no-kidding decision-maker level”:

Similar correspondence to and from DFRLab and Twitter outlined early efforts to bring together as partners groups that traditionally served as watchdogs of one another. Perhaps more even than the World Economic Forum meetings at Davos or gatherings of the Aspen Institute in the US, the Atlantic Council 360/OS confabs are as expansive a portrait of the Censorship-Industrial Complex as we’ve found collected in one place.

In October 2018, DFRLab was instrumental in helping Facebook identify accounts for what became known as “the purge,” a first set of deletions of sites accused of “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Facebook in its announcement of these removals said it was taking steps against accounts created to “stir up political debate,” and the October 2018 “purge” indeed included the likes of Punk Rock Libertarians, Cop Block, and Right Wing News, among others. Even the progressive Reverb Press, founded by a relatively mainstream progressive named James Reader, found his site zapped after years of pouring thousands of dollars a month into Facebook marketing tools. “That’s what sticks in my craw. We tried to do everything they suggested,” Reader said then. “But now, everything I worked for all those years is dead.”

In the years since, DFRLab has become the central coordination node in the Censorship Industrial Complex as well as a key protagonist in the Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project. Its high-profile role at RightsCon, the biggest civil society digital rights event on the calendar, should concern human rights and free expression activists.

According to their London 2019 event “360/OS brings together journalists, activists, innovators, and leaders from around the world as part of our grassroots digital solidarity movement fighting for objective truth as a foundation of democracy.” Their Digital Sherlocks program aims to “identify, expose, and explain disinformation.” But DRFLabs are more Inspector Gadget (or double agents) than Sherlock Holmes. The Twitter Files reveal DFRLab labeled as “disinformation” content that often turned out to be correct, that they participated in disinformation campaigns and the suppression of “true” information, and that they lead the coordination of a host of actors who do the same.

Twitter Files #17 showed how DFRLab sent Twitter more than 40,000 names of alleged BJP (India’s ruling nationalist party) accounts that they suggested be taken down. DFRLab said it suspected these were “paid employees or possibly volunteers.” However as Racket’s Matt Taibbi noted, “the list was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics.” Twitter recognized there was little illegitimate about them, resulting in DFRLab pulling the project and cutting ties with the researcher.

Twitter Files #19 further revealed DFRLab was a core partner in the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which “came together in June of 2020 at the encouragement of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA” in order to “fill the gaps legally” that government couldn’t. As a result, there are serious questions as to whether the EIP violated the US First Amendment.

DFRLab was also a core partner on the Virality Project, which pushed its seven Big Tech partners to censor “stories of true vaccine side-effects.” The Stanford Internet Observatory, which led the project, is now being sued by the New Civil Liberties Alliance for its censorship of “online support groups catering to those injured by Covid vaccines.” Debate as to the frequency of serious adverse events is ongoing, however. The German health minister put it at 1 in 10,000, while others claim it is higher.

The Virality Project sought to suppress any public safety signals at all. The Stanford Internet Observatory is also at the moment reportedly resisting a House Judiciary Committee subpoena into its activities.

TwitterFiles #20 revealed some of the Digital Forensic Lab’s 2018 360/0S events, which brought together military leaders, human rights organizations, the Huffington Post, Facebook and Twitter, Edelman (the world’s biggest PR firm), the head of the Munich Security Conference, the head of the World Economic Forum (Borge Brende) a former President, Prime Minister and CIA head, intel front BellingCat and future Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, all to combat “disinformation.” We can now reveal more.

Introducing the Atlantic Council

The Atlantic Council is a NATO-aligned think tank established in 1961. Its board of directors and advisory board are a Who’s Who of corporate, intelligence and military power, including:

James Clapper – former Director of National Intelligence whose tenure included overseeing the NSA during the time of the Snowden leaks. Asked whether intelligence officials collect data on Americans Clapper responded “No, sir,” and, “Not wittingly.” Clapper also coordinated intelligence community activity through the early stages of Russiagate, and his office authored a key January 2017 report concluding that Russians interfered in 2016 to help Donald Trump. Clapper has been a 360/OS attendee.

Stephen Hadley, United States National Security Advisor from 2005 to 2009 (also a 360/OS attendee)

Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State who oversaw the carpet bombing of Vietnam, among other crimes against humanity

Pfizer CEO Anthony Bourla

Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder, The Blackstone Group

Meta’s President for Global Affairs, Nick Clegg

Richard Edelman, CEO of the world’s largest PR firm (and 360/OS attendee)

The Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Former Secretary General of NATO

Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, Former President of the World Bank

Leon Panetta, former US Secretary of Defense & CIA Director. Panetta oversaw the US’s massive growth in drone strikes.

John F. W. Rogers. Goldman Sachs Secretary of the Board

Chuck Hagel, chairman of the Council, sits on the board of Chevron and is also a former US Secretary of Defence.

The Atlantic Council raised $70 million in 2022, $25 million of which came from corporate interests. Among the biggest donors were: the US Departments of Defense State, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller Foundation, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Google, Crescent Petroleum, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Meta, Blackstone, Apple, BP, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, Shell, Twitter, and many more. Ukraine’s scandal-ridden energy company, Burisma, whose links to Hunter Biden were suppressed by the August 2020 table-top exercise coordinated by the Aspen Institute, also made a contribution. You can view the full 2022 “honor roll” by clicking here.

The Atlantic Council is the Establishment, though many suffer from the delusion that in putting on a “Digital Sherlock” cape, they’re somehow with the rebel alliance. The opposite is true. The Atlantic Council and DFRLab don’t hide their militarist affiliations. This week’s OS/360 event at RightsCon Costa Rica runs together with a 360/OS at NATO’s Riga StratCom Dialogue, which DFRLab note they have “worked closely with” “since 2016.”

The Birth of the Digital Forensic Research Lab

DFRLab was founded in 2016, and has been a major catalyst in expanding the “anti-disinformation” industry. Among non-governmental entities, perhaps only the Aspen Institute comes close to matching the scope, scale and funding power of DFRLab. DFRLab claims to chart “the evolution of disinformation and other online and technological harms, especially as they relate to the DFRLab’s leadership role in establishing shared definitions, frameworks, and mitigation practices.”

Almost $7 million of the Atlantic Council’s $61 million spent last year went to the DRFLabs, according to their 2022 annual financial report. Through its fellowship program, it has incubated leading figures in the “disinformation” field. Richard Stengel, the first director of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), was a fellow. GEC is an interagency group “within” the State Department (also a funder of the Atlantic Council), whose initial partners included the FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, DARPA, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and others. GEC is now a major funder of DFRLab and a frequent partner:

In this video, Stengel says, “I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, they have to do it to their own population, and I don’t think it’s that awful.”

Stengel was true to his word, and apart from DFRLab, the GEC funded the Global Disinformation Index, which set out to demonetize conservative media outlets it claimed were “disinformation.” (See 37. in the censorship list) He thought the now-disgraced Hamilton68 was “fantastic.” In total, GEC funded 39 organizations in 2017. Despite Freedom of Information requests, only 3 have been made public to date. Roughly $78 million of GEC’s initial $100 million budget outlay for fiscal year 2017 came from the Pentagon, though the budgetary burden has shifted more toward the State Department in the years since.

The Global Engagement Center was established in the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, via a combination of an executive order and a bipartisan congressional appropriation, led by Ohio Republican Rob Portman and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy. The GEC was and remains virtually unknown, but reporting in the Twitter Files and by outlets like the Washington Examiner have revealed it to be a significant financial and logistical supporter of “anti-disinformation” causes.

Though tasked by Obama with countering “foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests,” its money has repeatedly worked its way back in the direction of policing domestic content, with Gabe Kaminsky’s Examiner reports on the GDI providing the most graphic example.

GEC frequently sent lists of “disinformation agents to Twitter.” Yoel Roth, former head of Trust and Safety referred to one list as a “total crock.” Roth is now a member of DFRLab’s Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web. Let’s hope he brings more trust than Stengel. You can read more on GEC’s funding here.

Other DFRLab luminaries include Simon Clark, Chairman of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (a UK “anti-disinformation” outfit that aggressively deplatforms dissidents), Ben Nimmo (previously a NATO press officer, then of Graphika (EIP and the Virality Project partners) and now Facebook’s Global Threat Intelligence Lead), and Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat. Bellingcat has an ominous reputation, which it’s earned in numerous ways, including its funding by the National Endowment for Democracy (see Glenn Greenwald’s recent report and Aaron Maté’s here). Most recently, Bellingcat assisted in the arrest of the 21-year-old Pentagon leaker, further speeding up the abandonment of the Pentagon Papers Principal where the media protected, rather than persecuted, leakers. Bellingcat was part of 360/OS backroom meetings with former intel chiefs, the head of Davos and the Munich security conference among many others, as we will see soon.

As noted in the introduction, DFRLab itself has made several wrong calls on “disinformation.” In one report they highlighted “outright false narratives,” which focused mainly on the notion that Covid was an engineered bioweapon, but lumped in the “unverified” claim Covid was the “result of a lab accident.” A lab accident is now the preferred hypothesis of the US Department of Energy, the FBI, and many others. To the DFRLab it was “disinformation” and a “conspiracy theory.”

The Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project

DFRLab were core partners on two of the most influential “anti-disinformation” initiatives of recent times.

The Virality Project built on the EIP and had partnerships with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Google, TikTok and more to combat vaccine “misinformation.” Stanford and DFRLab partnered with the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Center for Social Media and Politics, and the National Congress on Citizenship. Through a shared Jira ticketing system they connected these Big Tech platforms together, with Graphika using sophisticated AI to surveil the online conversation at scale in order to catch “misinformation” troublemakers.

VP went far beyond any kind of misinformation remit, most infamously recommending to their Big Tech partners that they consider “true stories of vaccine side effects” as “standard misinformation on your platform.”

A Virality Project partner called the Algorithmic Transparency Initiative (a project of the National Congress on Citizenship) went further. Their Junkipedia initiative sought to address “problematic content” via the “automated collection of data” from “closed messaging apps,” and by building a Stasi-like “civic listening corps,” which in recent years has taken on a truly sinister-sounding mission. The current incarnation might as well be called “SnitchCorps,” as “volunteers have an opportunity to join a guided monitoring shift to actively participate in monitoring topics that disrupt communities”:

Garret Graff, who oversaw the Aspen Hunter Biden table-top exercise, was chairman of that same National Congress on Citizenship when they collaborated on the Virality Project. Both EIP and VP were led by Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory, a former CIA fellow who engineered the now disgraced New Knowledge initiative, which developed fake Russian bots to discredit a 2016 Alabama senate race candidate, as acknowledged by the Washington Post. You can read Racket’s previous work on the Virality Project here.

DFRLab are the elite of the “anti-disinformation” elite. They work closely with a wide range of actors who have participated in actual disinformation initiatives. Here they’re invited to an elite Twitter group set up by Nick Pickles of “anti-disinformation” luminaries First Draft, also participants in the Hunter Biden laptop tabletop, and the Alliance for Security Democracy, part of the RussiaGate Hamilton68 disinformation operation.

360/OS

The 360/OS event marries this tarnished record with the financial, political, military, NGO, academic and intelligence elite. Some of this is visible through publicly available materials. Twitter Files however reveal the behind the scenes, including closed door, off-the-record meetings.

“I’ve just arrived in Kyiv” Brookie notes in 2017, as he seeks to line up a meeting with Public Policy Director Nick Pickles as they discuss Twitter providing a USD $150K contribution to OS/360 (seemingly secured), and to garner high level Twitter participation.

Pickles is visiting DC and Brookie suggests he also meet with the GEC and former FBI agent Clint Watts of Hamilton 68 renown. “Happy to make those connections,” he chimes.

360/OS events are elite and expensive — $1 million according to Brookie — so closer collaboration with Twitter, especially in the form of funding, is a high priority.

Twitter offers $150,000:

When Brookie mentions the attendees at the “no-kidding decision maker level” he isn’t kidding. Parallel to the 360/OS public program is the much more important off-the-record meeting of “decision makers ranging from the C-Suite to the Situation Room.” Here, he is explicit about a convening of military and financial power. Vanguard 25 is presented as a way to “create a discreet and honest way to close the information gap on challenges like disinformation between key decision makers from government, tech, and media.”

The document boasts of its high-level participants:

More are revealed in email exchanges, including Madeleine Albright and the head of the WEF:

They go on to list a bizarre mishmash of media leaders, intelligence officials, and current or former heads of state:

It appears Germany’s Angela Merkel was out of reach in the end, but many of the others attended this behind the scenes meeting on “disinformation.” Who are they?

Matthias Dopfner – CEO and 22% owner of German media empire Axel Springer SE, the biggest media publishing firm in Europe

Borge Brende – head of the World Economic Forum and former Norwegian foreign minister

Toomas Hendrick Ilves – former President of Estonia who co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Blockchain Technology. Hendrick is also a fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (where the Stanford Internet Observatory is housed) and is on the advisory council of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, of Hamilton 68 renown.

Chris Sacca – billionaire venture capitalist

Mounir Mahjoubi – previously Digital Manager for President Macron’s presidential campaign, and former Chairman of the French Digital Council

Reid Hoffman – billionaire and Linkedin co-founder

Ev Williams – Former CEO of Twitter and on the Twitter board at the time

Kara Swisher – New York Times opinion writer, who founded Vox Media Recode

Wolfgang Ischinger - Head of the Munich Security Conference

Aleksander Kwasniewski – Former President of Poland. Led Poland into NATO and the EU.

Richard Edelman – CEO of the largest PR company in the world

Elliot Shrage – previously Vice-President of Public Policy at Facebook (DFRLab had election integrity projects with Facebook)

Lydia Polgreen – Huffington Post Editor in Chief

Jim Clapper – former US Director of National Intelligence

Maria Ressa – co-founder of Rappler and soon to be winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

JK Rowling was also invited to give an award, though appears she didn’t make it in the end:

Why would such a group all gather specifically around the question of “disinformation”? Is disinformation truly at such a level that it requires bringing together the world’s most popular author with military and intelligence leaders, the world’s biggest PR company, journalists, billionaires, Big Tech and more? Or is this work to build the case that there is a disinformation crisis, to then justify the creation of a massive infrastructure for censorship? A glimpse of the agenda offers clues:

Here the head of the most important military and intelligence conference in the world (Munich) sits down in a closed door meeting with a former Secretary of State and the Executive Vice-Chair of the Atlantic Council.

Which is followed by a closed door session with the Editor-in Chief of the now-defunct Huffington Post and peace-maker Maria Ressa who presented to the same group of military, intelligence, corporate and other elites. Is the role of a journalist and Nobel laureate to work behind closed doors with militarists and billionaires, or to hold them to account?

At 2022’s OS/360 at RightsCon Ressa conducted a softball interview on disinformation with current US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. In testimony last April 2023, former CIA deputy director Michael Morrell stated that Blinken “set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement” by more than 50 former intelligence officials that the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russia information operation.”

The Twitter Files also revealed that in August 2020 the Aspen Institute organized a table-top exercise to practice how best to respond to a “hack and leak” of a Hunter Biden laptop. The laptop only came to light however two months later. In attendance was First Draft (now the Information Futures Lab), the New York Times, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, CNN, Yahoo! News, Facebook, Twitter and more. Here, DFRLab head Graham Brookie speaks with the Aspen Institute’s Garret Graff, who coordinated the Hunter Biden tabletop exercise.

After it turned out the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and the disinformation operation was more appropriately described as having been led by the likes of Blinken and the Aspen Institute. The appropriate response is apparently for RightsCon, DFRLab, Blinken and Ressa to put on a nice forum to promote these figures as “anti-disinformation” leaders.

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Former DFRLab fellow and intel front Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins is also invited to the closed door sessions with a former head of the CIA, a former Prime Minister and a President. How do you keep power accountable when you are in the same cozy club? This theme runs throughout. Bellingcat is featured heavily at the public sessions also:

Higgins has a unique way of expressing himself online, given the DFRLab emphasis on striking out against divisiveness:

Would this pass RightsCon’s code of conduct? If not, he appears to be good enough for DFRLab to promote.

On the public side, we see Amnesty International participating to further collapse the distinction between those who are meant to hold power to account, and the powerful themselves. The Iraq war gave us embedded journalists, and the “anti-disinformation” field gives us embedded digital rights activists.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Chris Krebs also joined the closed door session. Krebs was Co-Chair of the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder. Other members included Prince Harry, the Virality Project’s Alex Stamos (Stanford Internet Observatory) and Kate Starbird (University of Washington and previous 360/OS participant), Katie Couric, and more. Craig Newmark attended as an observer.

Meanwhile Renee DiResta, former CIA fellow and Stanford Internet Observatory Research Director, presented with the former Prime Minister of Sweden. This was years before she would launch the Virality Project, and take on the bugbear of “true stories of vaccine side effects.”

The President of the Atlantic Council participated in an “off-the-record, “ behind closed doors conversation on “trust” with the CEO of the world’s biggest PR firm, Edelman.

“Public relations” and “trust” may well be opposites, and trust is being destroyed not by the disinformation street crime that these groups claim to target, but by the disinformation corporate crime protected by, or in some cases created by these same people. Disinformation is real, but its biggest purveyors are governments and powerful corporate interests.

DFRLab and RightsCon show just how far the capture of civil society by elite interests has come. Again, I made a mistake helping to co-organize RightsCon in 2015. The jumping in bed with the government and Big Tech was arguably there in 2015, though to a much lesser degree. It now partners with militarists in the form of the Atlantic Council and is an enabler of the “disinformation” grift that is so deeply impacting freedom of speech and expression.

The air-gaps that should separate civil society, media, military, billionaires, intelligence and government have collapsed, and many of these actors have formed a new alliance to advance their shared interests. If weapons manufacturers funding human rights is considered legitimate then where is the red line? Effectively, there is none.

This collapse however has also been pushed by funders, who have been proactive in asking NGOs to collaborate more with Big Tech and government - something I successfully resisted for my almost 18 years at EngageMedia, critically RightsCon was the only time I let my guard down.

The RightsCon sponsor matrix wouldn’t be out of place at NASCAR:

This is the equivalent of hosting a Climate Change conference sponsored by Shell, BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil. How do you keep power accountable when Big Tech pays your wage? The “let’s all work together” approach has failed. The weakest partner, civil society, got captured and we lost. Many more lost their way and have acquiesced to and often enabled much of the new censorship regime.

A renewed and much more independent digital rights movement, with a strong commitment to freedom of expression, is well overdue.

Note: A previous version of this article mistook Blackstone for Blackwater. This has been corrected.

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