The 179th Block: Keeping up with the devil
He has many names
This week…
Your reading time is about 6 minutes. Let’s start.
Here’s my honest reaction to XTwitter:
Among other things, XTwitter started rolling out a new ad format that cannot be blocked or reported, and also dropped story headlines and links so that now you can do things like this:
You can, if you wish, click on the links to get to the actual context, but would you?
And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
ICYMI: The Previous Block notified you of my migration from XTwitter to Threads and rumours, conspiracies, and AI-enabled crimes in India, Maui, and South Korea. CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified. Slovakia’s election deepfakes show AI is a danger to democracy ($)
Morgan Meaker for Wired:
Just two days before Slovakia’s elections, an audio recording was posted to Facebook. On it were two voices: allegedly, Michal Šimečka, who leads the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, and Monika Tódová from the daily newspaper Denník N. They appeared to be discussing how to rig the election, partly by buying votes from the country’s marginalized Roma minority.
Šimečka and Denník N immediately denounced the audio as fake. The fact-checking department of news agency AFP said the audio showed signs of being manipulated using AI. But the recording was posted during a 48-hour moratorium ahead of the polls opening, during which media outlets and politicians are supposed to stay silent. That meant, under Slovakia’s election rules, the post was difficult to widely debunk. And, because the post was audio, it exploited a loophole in Meta’s manipulated-media policy, which dictates only faked videos—where a person has been edited to say words they never said—go against its rules.
The audio loophole, eh? Smart.
How Cubans were recruited to fight for Russia
Dave Sherwood for Reuters:
Yoan Viondi, 23, who lives a few-minute bike ride up the road from the main drag, said he knew about 100 men in Villa Maria, the district that includes La Federal, had been recruited for the Russian war effort since June.
He said a friend gave him the WhatsApp contact for Dayana, a Cuban woman who he said bought plane tickets for recruits. Dayana was also mentioned as a key contact by most of the recruits and relatives Reuters spoke with.
Viondi wasted no time.
“Hi, good afternoon,” Viondi said to her in a July 21 message, viewed by Reuters. “Please I need information.”
Dayana, who appears in her chat icon as a dark-haired woman in a camouflage cap, responded with contract terms almost instantaneously, according to time stamps. The first line of the message states: “This is a contract with the Russian military by which you receive citizenship.”
The contract was for one year and offered a signing bonus of 195,000 roubles followed by a monthly salary of 200,000 roubles, plus 15 days of vacation after the first six months of work.
It helps when the Cuban government shuts an eye.
As Pakistan approaches a crucial election, its media watchdog bans critical voices from TV
Raksha Kumar interviews Raza Rumi for Reuters Institute:
Q. How is the online space regulated in Pakistan?
A. In 2016, the Parliament passed the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA). Under this law, social media posts have become liable for criminal prosecution and this has given untrammelled powers to the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), an agency regulating telecommunications in the country.
Under [Imran Khan’s] government, this agency brought in further draconian measures. However, these rules were challenged by civil society. As a result, the High Court struck down some of the provisions of the law and also said that the rules have to be formed after a proper process.
As of now, no social media bans have taken place in Pakistan. The internet is a relatively open and free space. It is also quite difficult to ban platforms like YouTube. Pakistan did try to ban YouTube once over an amateur video on Prophet Mohammad’s life. But the government didn’t manage to take down that particular video and created chaos before the courts intervened and lifted the ban.
At Naya Daur, we have an Urdu website that was taken down in both 2019 and 2020. But it was restored after we removed some of the articles. So, online spaces are not 100% safe after all.
It's the same playbook everywhere.
What I read, listen, and watch…
I’m reading Milena McKay’s The Headmistress. Actually, listen to the audiobook — Abby Craden is an excellent narrator.
I’m listening to The Big Story’s episode on QAnon’s ‘queen’ of Canada.
I’m watching Getty Image CEO Craig Peters discuss his plan to defend photography from AI and disinformation at Code Conference 2023. Convinced?
Other curious links:
“Escape from the rabbit hole: The conspiracy theorist who abandoned his dangerous beliefs” by Amelia Gentleman for The Guardian.
“The completely unbelievable story of the ‘Deepfake Cheer Mom’” by Mack DeGeurin for Gizmodo.
“Doctors discover their bios being used by clinic despite never working there” by Giacomo Panico for CBC News.
“Naomi Klein’s quest to understand her double” by Laura Kipnis for The Nation.
“Un juez respalda a una empresa que filtró a la prensa datos personales de una trabajadora despedida” por Laura Olías en elDiario.es. Y protección de datos?
« Femme autochtones en prison : l’insoluble problème » par Delphine Jung et Sophie Leclerc dans Radio-Canada.
Chart of the week
Social media traffic to top news sites craters, reports Sara Fischer for Axios. This may not come as a surprise to many, what with Facebook’s retreat from news and… whatever is happening with XTwitter — but visualising it this way makes it quite stark. Facebook’s referrals to top news sites went from under 120 million in August 2022 to 21.4 million in August 2023. In the same period, XTwitter went from just over 50 million to 22.6 million.
And one more thing
