© Scott Ball for The New York Times
To defend a leftist politician who spoke in front of an upside-down American flag, Axios published a fake fact check claiming the video was “doctored” by AI and that, in reality, the flag was right side up.
The post Nolte: Axios Uses Fake AI Image to Run Damage Control for Somali Politician Who Spoke Next to Upside-Down Flag appeared first on Breitbart.
© Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times
“Non serve necessariamente una regia esterna”. Così Walter Quattrociocchi, professore ordinario alla Sapienza di Roma e direttore del Center of Data Science and Complexity for Society (CDCS), risponde ad Affaritaliani sulla possibilità che le proteste e i disordini possano essere sfruttati da Stati stranieri nell’ambito di operazioni di guerra ibrida.
“Per parlare di guerra ibrida servono evidenze di un coordinamento intenzionale riconducibile ad attori esterni”, spiega il professore, sottolineando come le mobilitazioni possano essere il risultato di dinamiche spontanee: “Le proteste, anche quando degenerano, possono essere spiegate da dinamiche di contagio sociale che si sviluppano lungo linee identitarie”.
A favorire questi processi sono anche i meccanismi cognitivi e le interazioni tra persone con idee simili: “Le persone tendono a cercare conferme alle proprie convinzioni, il cosiddetto confirmation bias, e a interagire con chi condivide le loro posizioni. È così che si formano le echo chamber, ambienti nei quali determinate narrazioni si rafforzano reciprocamente”.
Anche i social network possono essere utilizzati per tentare di destabilizzare un Paese, ma individuare una manipolazione non significa dimostrare che abbia prodotto effetti concreti: “Certamente esistono tentativi di manipolazione attraverso i social, ma tentare un’operazione di influenza e riuscire a orientare concretamente i comportamenti sono due cose molto diverse”, osserva Quattrociocchi.
Le piattaforme, infatti, sono caratterizzate da dinamiche difficili da controllare, che possono favorire la diffusione di contenuti divisivi: “Gli algoritmi di raccomandazione, guidati da modelli di business fondati sull’attenzione, possono amplificare contenuti divisivi indipendentemente dalle intenzioni di chi li produce”. Per questo, avverte il professore, “dimostrare una regia esterna richiede quindi prove di coordinamento e attribuzione, non semplicemente contenuti virali”.
Sul fronte delle possibili contromisure, la priorità è comprendere i meccanismi attraverso cui si diffondono le informazioni e si consolidano le narrazioni online. “Prima ancora di cercare nemici esterni, dobbiamo comprendere il funzionamento ordinario delle piattaforme. Servono accesso ai dati, ricerca indipendente e trasparenza degli algoritmi per distinguere operazioni coordinate da fenomeni spontanei di contagio sociale”, sottolinea Quattrociocchi.
La soluzione, però, non deve tradursi in restrizioni dei diritti fondamentali: “La risposta non può essere limitare la libertà di espressione o il diritto di manifestare”. Il punto, conclude il professore, è capire “come identità collettive, bias cognitivi e incentivi economici delle piattaforme possano trasformare tensioni preesistenti in fenomeni di mobilitazione e polarizzazione, anche senza alcun intervento straniero”.
L'articolo Proteste a Milano, l’esperto: “Attacchi hacker o regia straniera? Spesso è solo contagio sociale” proviene da Affaritaliani.it.
US photojournalist describes ‘protective shield’, vows to return to work in West Bank and criticises Netanyahu comments on incident
The Washington Post photojournalist who was attacked and seriously injured by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Friday has described how she was saved with the help of local Palestinians.
Heidi Levine sustained four fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs and four puncture wounds when she was knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten by a crowd of masked settlers while she and other journalists were covering the olive harvest in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah.
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© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
A Getty Images, um dos maiores bancos de imagens do mundo, com fotografia editorial, vídeo e música, pediu esta quarta-feira insolvência nos EUA, ao abrigo do Chapter 11 da legislação norte-americana, para avançar com o plano de reestruturação anunciado na semana passada, noticia a Reuters.
O plano prevê retirar a Getty Images de bolsa, passando as entidades afiliadas à família Getty e à Koch Equity Development a deter 100% da empresa reorganizada. As duas partes comprometeram-se a investir até 533 milhões de dólares (474 milhões de euros) em novo capital próprio no âmbito da reestruturação.
A GettyImagesabandonou em julho a fusão de 3,7 mil milhões de dólares (3,29 mil milhões de euros) com a rival Shutterstock, depois de ter decidido, a 30 de junho, não prosseguir com o processo de venda do negócio editorial desta última. A autoridade britânica da concorrência tinha condicionado a aprovação da operação à venda desse negócio. Por trás da reestruturação estão também a dívida elevada e a crescente concorrência de imagens geradas por inteligência artificial (IA), que têm pressionado o negócio da Getty.
A fornecedora de conteúdos visuais afirmou que continuará a operar normalmente durante todo o processo, sem impacto previsto para os contribuidores de conteúdos, parceiros, clientes, trabalhadores ou fornecedores. A reestruturação deverá ficar concluída até ao final do ano.
Wedgewood Polls said project was designed to highlight lack of scrutiny over polling sector by mainstream media
A polling firm has admitted to using fabricated data in surveys that were picked up by national media outlets in the US, claiming the project was a “social experiment” designed to expose the lack of scrutiny over the sector.
Wedgewood Polls released a statement on Tuesday on social media, after the polling and election analysis site FiftyPlusOne reached out for comment on an investigation it had conducted into their surveys and data.
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© Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
© Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
© Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire's (LPNH) X account—which has become infamous for its bigoted and controversy-ridden posts—is finally gone. But the state's spurious role in its banning raises free speech concerns.
Last week, New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte sent a letter to X's safety team, asking the company to suspend the account. Ayotte's letter made mention of several clear violations of X's content policies: "This account has openly called for the assassination of elected officials from the New Hampshire Democratic Party, has said it condones murdering elected officials for their policy positions, and most recently threatened a member of House leadership.…I'm calling on X to remove [the posts] and suspend the account immediately."
The letter referenced one particularly bold post from September (which the account later deleted). The post read: "We openly support the assassination of basically every elected democrat in New Hampshire. But if you don't have the balls to do it, then you should probably vote GOP."
X suspended the account the day after Ayotte sent the letter.
The removal of the LPNH account has likely elicited a sigh of relief from the Libertarian Party's (L.P.) leadership, which has repeatedly tussled with LPNH over its extreme rhetoric, undermining of L.P. candidates, and constant creation of P.R. crises for the party. In 2024, the LPNH endorsed Donald Trump for president instead of Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, pushing the Libertarian National Committee to disaffiliate LPNH from the L.P.'s structure this past May. The Granite State Libertarian Party was designated the state's new L.P. affiliate in September.
Even though the LPNH has clearly violated X's terms and does not adhere to the most basic requirements for L.P. membership (such as pledging to uphold the nonaggression principle), the government should not tell private firms when to enforce their own policies. This sentiment was shared by Granite State L.P., which recently said in a social media post, "While a private company has a right to remove someone screaming about setting people on fire…the government should play zero part in that decision."
Jeremy Kauffman, the chair of the LPNH, is outraged but unsurprised, posting on Sunday that he and the LPNH are "exploring a lawsuit against the New Hampshire government." He tells Reason, "Ayotte's letter was a classic example of jawboning. When a governor sends a demanding letter like this to a private company, there is a clear implicit threat attached."
Speaking to Reason, Trace Mitchell, a technology and free speech expert at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, defines jawboning as, "when the government, through veiled threats or direct coercion, pressures a private entity to take an action that the government could not lawfully take or mandate itself."
In Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963), the Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot make recommendations to private companies if those recommendations come with legal repercussions—even implied or veiled repercussions. Doing so would qualify as jawboning, which violates the First Amendment. Though Ayotte's letter could be construed as extralegal pressure, it does not imply a punishment for noncompliance and likely falls short of legally recognized jawboning.
Addressing Kauffman's proposed lawsuit, Mitchell says, "In this case he would likely have to show there is something beyond this letter…[like] outside communications, emails or text with X."
Safety officers at X provided no comment to Reason to justify the suspension. It is not clear whether there was any external communication involved beyond the letter. Without a more definite connection between Ayotte's request and X's decision, Kauffman may struggle to win in court. Still, that doesn't make the governor's request any less concerning.
While Ayotte's letter was a surprise, it was not unprecedented. As social media has become the public forum, all levels of government have tried to regulate what is said there. During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal officials under the Biden administration were revealed to be in near-constant communication with major social media firms, encouraging and recommending that misinformation be removed from the platforms. Many of these recommendations were paired with implied threats to review the firms' legal immunity for content posted on their platforms, which spawned a lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court in 2024.
Although the Court dismissed the case for lack of standing, some lawmakers have taken action to address concerns over jawboning, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) introducing the JAWBONE Act in June. The bill would make it easier for members of the public to sue government officials who pressure media networks, as well as require increased transparency for all federal communications to media networks.
Even if Kauffman cannot find legal remit, Ayotte's letter was a troubling move for the future of internet speech. Many of the offending posts referenced were months old or had been deleted before the letter was sent. The LPNH has likely been violating X's content policy for years, but X only took action after the government instructed it to.
You don't need a judge to see how that might be concerning.
The post X Bans Former Libertarian Party Affiliate—After the State Requests It appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Party given additional penalty by Electoral Commission for not paying original fine on time
Reform UK has been fined more than £2,000 for failing to declare it was the publisher of campaign material seen by voters – including an additional penalty for failing to pay on time.
Nigel Farage’s party was sanctioned by the Electoral Commission after four items of elections material were missing an “imprint” – a declaration of the publisher so voters know who has paid for the promotional message.
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© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
© JOSÉ COELHO/LUSA
© TIAGO PETINGA/LUSA
© TIAGO PETINGA/LUSA
Courtesy of Derek Thompson; BI
Derek Thompson writes and talks about a lot of things.
But some things pay better than others: "Dimes for analysis, dollars for facts, and Benjamins for facts about artificial intelligence," he tells me.
Thompson, a longtime Atlantic writer who left to launch his own Substack in 2025, has an avid following — Barack Obama reportedly reads him to stay on top of AI developments.
That following also creates an inherent tension: If he only creates work he knows will have a big audience, it squeezes out other subjects he's passionate about, like the way technology affects the media we consume. Or why he thinks Americans should embrace a pro-building mindset — the subject of "Abundance," the recent book he co-wrote with Ezra Klein.
I talked to Thompson about AI — of course — along with some of his other passions, like why he thinks pro sports are a conspiracy that lets the richest people in the world turn "their already-elevated wealth into exospherically extreme wealth." You can hear our entire conversation on my Channels podcast. The following is an edited excerpt:
Peter Kafka: Perhaps the only thing Americans agree on is data centers — they hate them, and don't want them built in their communities. What is the "Abundance" view on data centers? Could you argue that building them is good for the country — just like building more housing is good?
Derek Thompson: I don't see data centers and houses as being equivalent. I think data centers are houses for chips. Really, they're igloos for chips because they're very, very cold houses.
While I feel incredibly passionate about removing barriers to building housing where people want to live, I feel less passionate about saying we need to make sure that every AI company can site every data center wherever it wants to build it.
There are costs to an economic infrastructure project that leans so heavily into data centers that other modes of construction are being starved for resources. Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard, just published a graph showing that in the last year, while data center construction's up by more than 60%, construction of hospitals is down, construction of offices is down, construction of housing is down, construction of just about everything else that you can name, including manufacturing facilities, is down because data centers are essentially eating the economy and crowding out a lot of other investment.
Am I anti-data centers in the extreme? No. Do I think data centers are just like houses? Absolutely not. I think houses for people are more important to emphasize as a matter of public policy than houses for chips.
Last year, you wrote this great piece about how "Everything is Television," where you argue that it's inevitable that all media becomes video. But you've also said that you've become a video podcaster because your podcast company nudged you to do that. How much of the video push is corporate incentive, and how much is what people want?
My theory is that it's corporate incentives because it's what people want.
Companies have attempted pivoting to video infinity times. But other pivots to video, especially in the last few years, have essentially become the norm. Everyone's podcast goes to YouTube now, or Spotify or Netflix. That suggests to me that the instinct to pivot to video reflected a reasonable corporate interpretation of an underlying consumer reality: that, at the end of the day, what most people want to do with most of their time is sit on a comfortable couch or chair and look at moving images.
There does seem to be something spookily, biologically inherent about the degree to which we want to just watch moving images. Television went from zero to 50% adoption rate in a decade.
There is just something true, with a capital T, about the media success of a technology that allows us to do nothing but turn our minds into a receiver for moving images. I'm not saying that's good. I'm just saying that apparently is the situation.
How has going independent changed how you work and what you make?
When you go from being a salaried employee, where you make one amount of money all year, no matter what, to being self-employed, where the line goes up the harder you work, it's very hard to ignore that signal and not work harder.
I feel more harried about work than I did. When that line doesn't go up, when it starts to slip, when 12 months has elapsed since a big article I wrote last year, and because 10% to 20% of subscribers are gonna drop out of the list, it sucks to see any number go down. And then I start to think, "God, I gotta work harder. I gotta get that next article to make the revenue line go back up."
Are you more inclined to think, "That story about sports billionaires did well, let's do more of those," in a way you might have been insulated from at The Atlantic?
Yeah, there's no question. And again, this is not something I think is altogether good. I said one thing I've learned from a year on Substack is that it's dimes for analysis, dollars for facts, and Benjamins for facts about artificial intelligence.
Recognizing that it's dimes for social analysis and Benjamins for AI analysis, there is a part of the job that pulls me toward writing more about AI than I might ...
Because the market wants it.
The market clearly wants it. That said, I do think artificial intelligence is not only the most important but also the most interesting story in the world. It's an economic story. It's a safety story. It's a stock story.
I have this long list of essentially social essays that I want to write. Stuff like "Everything Is Television." But I know that if I only write those essays for a month, if I only write those essays for a year, the line's gonna go down.
And so I'm interested in AI, and fortunately, the AI stuff sells. The AI reporting that I do creates a zone of extraordinary comfort for me to spend time writing stories that I know won't make money, but I think could be really, really broadly read as social analysis.
© TOMÁS SILVA/OBSERVADOR
© TIAGO PETINGA/LUSA
Aqui há uns tempos o meu filho mais novo tirou as amígdalas e com isso tivemos oportunidade de estar mais tempo juntos, em casa, durante a sua recuperação. E foi fácil e giro encontrar assuntos comuns em frente à televisão.
A televisão tem tido sempre esse papel central nas casas das famílias. Aglutinador. E se antigamente eram a Cornélia e as primeiras novelas brasileiras, depois poderá ter perdido alguma dessa capacidade até que o Covid chegou e nos sentou a todos em casa. E, de novo, a TV ganhou centralidade e nova vida com os canais a registarem audiências recordes, mas também com novas realidades como o streaming e o Youtube que começou aí a sua evolução de saltar do ecrã pequenino do telefone para o ecrã gigante das smartTV´s. E essa evolução é tal que já vemos tudo ou quase tudo lá, desde música a séries e até mesmo jogos do Campeonato do Mundo de futebol.
Voltando às amígdalas do meu filho e às horas que passamos juntos em frente ao ecrã da televisão a vermos YouTube, admito que me maravilhei: devorámos horas e horas de episódios de “outdoor boys” e muitas outras coisas relacionadas. Ou seja, tudo o que são os nossos interesses comuns estavam e estão lá para maratonas. Mas depois foi cansando. Vimos muito, mas quando mais víamos, mais me parecia mais do mesmo.
E foi aí que me chegou a dúvida em relação a esta utilização nova do equipamento TV. É que se sempre vi a televisão e a sua programação, desde entretenimento a informação, como uma janela para o mundo, para me abrir horizontes. Mas agora ela deixou de ser uma janela e parece-me mais um espelho. Um espelho aumentado de todos os meus interesses, mas de onde o algoritmo não me deixa sair facilmente e quase que, mesmo com muitas horas de conteúdo, não me mostra tanto o novo, mas só o reflexo de mim, um reflexo do que gosto agora, permitindo pouca descoberta para o que eu não estava à espera.
Por isso, porque achei que poderia estar a ser injusto e porque há quem sabe muito mais de televisão do que eu, pedi ajuda ao Ricardo Costa, ex-jornalista e administrador do grupo Impresa e perguntei-lhe: e tu, Ricardo, também pensas que o aparelho de TV pode estar a deixar de ser uma janela para o mundo para se transformar num espelho dos nossos interesses? Ou estamos só numa fase híbrida e evolutiva, em que curadoria de programação e conteúdos estão a aprender a conviver?
Caro António, ao contrário do Nuno Jerónimo na crónica anterior, vou discordar. Talvez seja vício dos painéis de comentário, mas convém não concordarmos em tudo. Primeiro temos de circunscrever o que estamos a discutir: a televisão é programada por um algoritmo? Não. Mas existem hoje conteúdos que se veem na televisão e que são condicionados ou programados por algoritmos? Sim e sim.
Para situar a questão convém recuar muito além da operação às amígdalas do teu filho. A televisão, como os jornais ou a rádio, nasceu como mass media. Ora, como o nome indica, a televisão trabalha para audiências vastas, cruzando dois conceitos claros: grandes denominadores comuns e simultaneidade. Mesmo num contexto de declínio de consumo, os dois conceitos mantêm-se inalterados.
Estou a escrever(-te) numa terça. Ontem, o último segmento do Jornal da Noite — o SIC Verifica, dedicado integralmente a fact checking — durou 30 minutos, com 9,7 pontos de rating, quase 1 milhão de espectadores em média. Logo de seguida — após um simpático break — veio o último episódio da novela Vitória e, com mais um simpático break, a nova novela Destino Maior, as duas com 8,2 e 8,1 pontos de rating.
As duas novelas, tal como a que se seguiu, Páginas da Vida — podes contar ao teu filho que viste a original da Globo, que esta tem um elenco estupendo e que a versão da Carminho do Wave está ao nível da do Tom Jobim — estão disponíveis em simultâneo na Disney e na Amazon Prime. Porquê? Tu sabes a resposta. Denominador comum e recorrência. E muita qualidade, claro. Tudo bens escassos.
A net está cheia de fact cheking. Se ficares interessado pelo tema, o algoritmo vai dar-te fact cheking, queiras ou não. Se fores de direita, vai expor-te a políticos de esquerda. Se fores de esquerda, é ao contrário. Se detestares um político, vai dar-te gasolina para o regares. Se gostares de outro, tê-lo-ás a saltar de nenúfar em nenúfar no teu ecrã.
Quem quiser consumir o SIC Verifica tem por onde escolher. Está no site da SIC Notícias inteiro ou por assunto, e, claro, está desagregado em redes, comandado pelos algoritmos das plataformas. Mas há quase 1 milhão de pessoas que preferem vê-lo num alinhamento linear. Porquê? Tu sabes a resposta. Curadoria, alinhamento bem feito, boa televisão.
Sabemos desde sempre que um algoritmo é o contrário de linearidade. Sabemos há cem anos que um ecrã de televisão é plano. Sabemos há vinte anos que o mundo é plano, no sentido que Thomas Friedman lhe deu, com a globalização e a tecnologia a nivelarem a concorrência económica em todo o planeta. E sabemos agora que estamos a assistir à convergência desses conceitos — linearidade, algoritmo e mundo plano — no ecrã de televisão.
Esse ecrã é janela e é espelho, depende do que se faça dele e do que se faça para ele.
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