steinbring

I have been following @milwaukee and @wisconsin from kbin.social and I noticed that starting around a week ago or so, I can post to the communities but new posts and comments don't make it from midwest.social to kbin.social. Is there a federation issue? Was something recently broken?

#kbinMeta

From the article:

Of all of the revelations to emerge from the federal prosecution of Representative George Santos’s treasurer, the most outrageous is the existence of a $500,000 loan that did not in fact exist.

The fictional loan goes to the heart of one of the most vexing questions surrounding Mr. Santos since he was elected to Congress last year: How did a man of seemingly modest means suddenly accrue enough money to lend his campaign a half-million dollars?

The answer, it turns out, is simple: He did not. And that fact could have serious ramifications for his case.

In May, Mr. Santos, a New York Republican, was charged with 13 felonies in three unrelated financial schemes, to which he has pleaded not guilty. On Thursday, his campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy related to her oversight of Mr. Santos’s finances.

It is clear that prosecutors see a link between Ms. Marks’s criminal activity and Mr. Santos. The same team of U.S. attorneys handled their cases; the proceedings share the same court docket number and were overseen by the same judge, Joanna Seybert.

Mr. Santos has not been charged with falsifying the loan or with other campaign finance violations, and Ms. Marks’s lawyer has said that she is not cooperating with prosecutors. But Mr. Santos’s proximity to the criminal activity admitted by Ms. Marks would seem to leave him vulnerable to additional charges.

From the article:

As false information about the rapidly changing war between Gaza Strip militants and Israel proliferated on the social media platform X over the weekend, owner Elon Musk personally recommended that users follow accounts notorious for promoting lies.

“For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors & @sentdefender are good,” Musk posted on the platform formerly called Twitter on Sunday morning to 150 million follower accounts. That post was viewed 11 million times in three hours, drawing thanks from those two accounts, before Musk deleted it.

Both were among the most important early spreaders of a false claim in May that there had been an explosion near the White House. The Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index briefly dropped 85 points before that story was debunked.

Emerson T. Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council Digital Forensics Research Lab, posted that @sentdefender is an “absolutely poisonous account. regularly posting wrong and unverifiable things … inserting random editorialization and trying to juice its paid subscriber count.”

The War Monitor account has argued with others over Israel and religion, posting a year ago that “the overwhelming majority of people in the media and banks are zionists” and telling a correspondent in June to “go worship a jew lil bro.”

Information researchers said that the new conflict was an early test of how the revamped X conveys accurate data during a major crisis, and that the immediate impression was poor.

“Anecdotal evidence that X is failing this stress test is plentiful,” said Mike Caulfield, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. “Go on the platform, do a search on Israel or Gaza — you don’t have to scroll very far to find dubious or debunked information.”

Musk left up his replies to the two accounts he had promoted, each of which have more than 600,000 followers, boosting their visibility. He also continued to fault “mainstream media,” telling users to trust X instead.

Other accounts on X drew engagement with photos or videos of unrelated attacks from years earlier and false claims that Iran or others had entered the conflict.

An account imitating the Jerusalem Post falsely reported that the Israeli prime minister had been taken to the hospital, collecting more than 700,000 views.

Numerous accounts promoted a faked document saying that the White House had approved $8 billion in aid to Israel. Others posted video of buildings collapsing in Syria in the past and said they were in Gaza.

Spokespeople for X did not return emails seeking comment.

X and other real-time sources of information are especially subject to rumors, false claims and propaganda during major events.

Researchers have said that X has gotten much less reliable since Musk took control nearly a year ago. He ended the practice of awarding “verified” checks to established media accounts, stopped labeling some accounts as government-affiliated and began sending money to accounts drawing heavy engagement, rewarding views instead of accuracy.

A recent study published by the European Commission concluded that Russian propaganda about its war in Ukraine has reached more people on X this year than it did last year.

“People who have paid for blue checks have a financial incentive to LARP [live action role-play] as war reporters by dredging up old stories or fake footage,” Brooking wrote. “Elon Musk enables this.”

Last week, Musk said he would change the way articles are shared by removing the headlines and promoting only pictures, which experts said would decrease traffic to news sites.

Musk also has been contributing to a broader legal and political campaign that has succeeded in quieting some academics and research groups who track misinformation by accusing them of fostering unconstitutional censorship. He has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League over its reports showing a rise in antisemitic posts on X since Musk bought it last October.

Biden administration officials did not respond immediately to questions about whether it was working with social media companies to identify misinformation. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is among the government agencies being targeted by Musk and some Republicans, referred questions to the State Department, which monitors foreign disinformation.

Officials there did not respond to a query. The White House also did not respond to emails.

From the article:

The transparent Flipper Zero is available in a limited edition of 7,500 units and costs the same as the regular model: $169.99 in the US. Unfortunately for the 400,000 or so people who already have a Flipper Zero, the transparent shell won’t be available separately — I did ask.

How is this not a violation of Trump's release?!?

From the article:

Former President Donald J. Trump said he hoped Mark Meadows — his final White House chief of staff and a co-defendant in a sweeping racketeering indictment in Georgia stemming from efforts to thwart the 2020 election — was still “loyal” to him.

Mr. Trump made his comment during a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker, the new moderator of NBC’s “Meet The Press,” broadcast on Sunday morning. Mr. Trump has been warned by the federal judge in a case also stemming from his efforts to stay in office, brought against him by the special counsel Jack Smith, to avoid saying anything that might affect the testimony of witnesses. His comment about Mr. Meadows could attract new interest.

A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump are among 19 co-defendants in the Fulton County, Ga., indictment brought by the district attorney, Fani T. Willis. It accuses those charged with a criminal conspiracy to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss in the state in his re-election effort.

“By the way, do you think your former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is still loyal to you? He just pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case,” Ms. Welker asked.

“Well, I hope he’s loyal to me,” Mr. Trump said.

“Do you worry about him flipping?” Ms. Welker asked.

“I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Mr. Trump replied.

Legal experts have suggested that prosecutors may push to have some of the defendants in the case plead guilty and become witnesses against others involved.

Mr. Trump recorded the interview with Ms. Welker late last week. On Friday, a day after the interview, prosecutors asked the judge in the federal election interference case, Tanya S. Chutkan, for a limited gag order against Mr. Trump after weeks of attacks on the special counsel, among others.

“Like his previous public disinformation campaign regarding the 2020 presidential election,” they wrote, “the defendant’s recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the court, the jury pool, witnesses and prosecutors,” Mr. Smith’s office wrote in the request, which they said they wanted to be narrowly tailored.

Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Smith again shortly after the request was made, writing on his social media site, “I’m campaigning for President against an incompetent person who has WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent, & I am not allowed to COMMENT? How else would I explain that Jack Smith is DERANGED, or Crooked Joe is INCOMPETENT?”

Judge Chutkan has yet to rule on the request.

In his “Meet the Press” interview, Mr. Trump extensively reiterated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, despite facing indictment in both Georgia and Washington on the matter.

When Ms. Welker pointed out to him that the most senior lawyers in his administration had told him following dozens of legal challenges that he had lost, and that he listened to outside groups of lawyers, Mr. Trump said it was because “I didn’t respect them.”

“But I did respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged,” Mr. Trump said.

And when Ms. Welker noted that he himself had reportedly said some of his outside lawyers had “crazy theories” about election interference, he replied, “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening.”

As she asked fresh questions, he went on: “My instincts are a big part of it. That’s been the thing that’s gotten me to where I am, my instincts. But I also listen to people. There are many lawyers. I could give you many books.” But ultimately, he told her, “It was my decision. But I listened to some people.”

Mr. Trump’s statements were in keeping with — and yet could ultimately complicate — his efforts to raise what is known as an advice of counsel defense in the election interference case. Under the strategy, defendants seek to avoid liability for criminal charges by arguing that they were merely following the professional advice of their lawyers.

The application has been bought out by “TPE.FYI LLC” in late 20221 that forcibly joins your devices into a botnet for use of market research, without your knowledge.