Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Deepfake used to attack activist couple shows new disinformation frontier

Oliver Taylor, a student at England’s University of Birmingham, is a twenty-something with brown eyes, light stubble, and a slightly stiff smile.

Online profiles describe him as a coffee lover and politics junkie who was raised in a traditional Jewish home. His half dozen freelance editorials and blog posts reveal an active interest in anti-Semitism and Jewish affairs, with bylines in the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel.

The catch? Oliver Taylor seems to be an elaborate fiction.

His university says it has no record of him. He has no obvious online footprint beyond an account on the question-and-answer site Quora, where he was active for two days in March. Two newspapers that published his work say they have tried and failed to confirm his identity. And experts in deceptive imagery used state-of-the-art forensic analysis programs to determine that Taylor’s profile photo is a hyper-realistic forgery – a “deepfake.”

Who is behind Taylor isn’t known to Reuters. Calls to the U.K. phone number he supplied to editors drew an automated error message and he didn’t respond to messages left at the Gmail address he used for correspondence.

Reuters was alerted to Taylor by London academic Mazen Masri, who drew international attention in late 2018 when he helped launch an Israeli lawsuit against the surveillance company NSO on behalf of alleged Mexican victims of the company’s phone hacking technology.

In an article in U.S. Jewish newspaper The Algemeiner, Taylor had accused Masri and his wife, Palestinian rights campaigner Ryvka Barnard, of being “known terrorist sympathizers.”

Masri and Barnard were taken aback by the allegation, which they deny. But they were also baffled as to why a university student would single them out. Masri said he pulled up Taylor’s profile photo. He couldn’t put his finger on it, he said, but something about the young man’s face “seemed off.”   

Six experts interviewed by Reuters say the image has the characteristics of a deepfake.

“The distortion and inconsistencies in the background are a tell-tale sign of a synthesized image, as are a few glitches around his neck and collar,” said digital image forensics pioneer Hany Farid, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Artist Mario Klingemann, who regularly uses deepfakes in his work, said the photo “has all the hallmarks.”

“I’m 100 percent sure,” he said.

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Fertility rate: ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born

The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a “jaw-dropping” impact on societies, say researchers.

Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century.

And 23 nations – including Spain and Japan – are expected to see their populations halve by 2100.

Countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as there are being born.

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‘Cancel Culture’ Letter Really About Stifling Free Speech

An open letter published by Harper’s magazine, and signed by dozens of prominent writers and public figures, has focused attention on the apparent dangers of what has been termed a new “cancel culture.”

The letter brings together an unlikely alliance of genuine leftists, such as Noam Chomsky and Matt Karp, centrists such as J. K. Rowling and Ian Buruma, and neoconservatives such as David Frum and Bari Weiss, all speaking out in defense of free speech.

Although the letter doesn’t explicitly use the term “cancel culture,” it is clearly what is meant in the complaint about a “stifling” cultural climate that is imposing “ideological conformity” and weakening “norms of open debate and toleration of differences.”

It is easy to agree with the letter’s generalized argument for tolerance and free and fair debate. But the reality is that many of those who signed are utter hypocrites, who have shown precisely zero commitment to free speech, either in their words or in their deeds.

Further, the intent of many them in signing the letter is the very reverse of their professed goal: they want to stifle free speech, not protect it.

To understand what is really going on with this letter, we first need to scrutinize the motives, rather than the substance, of the letter.

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“Watch the Show Folks”: Cop Poses on Livestream as He Savagely Beats Man Over Traffic Stop

As the video shows, Thompson is not resisting in anyway, has both of his hands up, and is simply not willing to get out of the vehicle over an allegation that a cop smelled a plant.

“Sir, my hands are up, and we are on camera,” Thompson says as the Trooper becomes more enraged.

Hewitt then responds by telling Thompson that “you are gonna get your ass whooped in front of f*cking lord and all creation.”

Thompson says again and again that his hands are up and he’s not resisting. However, the enraged Hewitt doesn’t seem to care. He looks to the camera, poses with his soon-to-be victim and says “Watch the show folks” as he attacks Thompson.

Though the camera goes blank, you can still hear Thompson pleading with his attackers to “please get off my neck” as Hewitt continues to beat him.

Instead of listening and getting off of his neck, Hewitt starts shouting, “how do you like that motherf**ker?” as he continues his attack on Thompson.

Thankfully, Derrick survived. Other people have not been so lucky.

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