Mediaboss Marketing

In a proceedings paper presented at a Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence social media conference, a team of British, Italian, and Cypriot academics who worked with a Telefonica researcher presented their work analyzing 8,000,000 comments from 4chan's "politically incorrect" (AKA /pol/) boards, a hive of alt-right racism and hate.

The researchers attempted to quantify the effects that /pol/'s "raids" had on the discourse in mainstream political discourse, tracing the flows of news and talking points from /pol/ to and from Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

They found that alt-right raids were remarkably effective at steering the wider discourse, with "12% of the alternative news on worldnews (one of the main news boards on reddit) coming from 4chan. And over 16% of the alternative news on the same board is coming from The_Donald."

Here, we studied whether, once an event happens on one Internet platform (say, a hyperlink to a piece of news), the same event happens on another platform. It will be the exact same news link being posted on /pol/ that then makes its way to Twitter, lets say. We use a mathematical technique called 'Hawkes-process modelling', in which we can say with reasonable confidence that a particular event actually is related to the previous one that happened.

So we did this study, the first of its kind in tracing links between services. The idea here is that there has been quite some work on studying fake and alternative news. People look at how alternative news spreads on Twitter, for example; how people reshare it. But these services do not live in a vacuum theyre part of the greater web. These places where alternative news stories are posted and they talk about them and they make up these crazy conspiracies and all of that: we wanted to understand whether this actually has an impact on the wider web.

Kek, Cucks, and God Emperor Trump: A Measurement Study of 4chans Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [Gabriel Emile Hine, Jeremiah Onaolapo, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Nicolas Kourtellis, Ilias Leontiadis, Riginos Samaras, Gianluca Stringhini and Jeremy Blackburn/11th Annual International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media]

Shining a light on the dark corners of the web [Daniel Cressey/Nature]

(via Naked Capitalism)

In a paper for IEEE Security, researchers from Cyberpion and Israels College of Management Academic Studies describe a Password Reset Man-in-the-Middle Attack that leverages a bunch of clever insights into how password resets work to steal your email account (and other kinds of accounts), even when its protected by two-factor authentication.

If youre an American whos lucky enough to live somewhere that received large influxes of immigrants during the Age of Mass Migration (1860 to 1920), congratulations! The immigrants who came to your territory brought along higher incomes, lower unemployment, higher levels of educational attainment and no reduction in social cohesion!

When Thomas Piketty and his team undertook their landmark study of wealth inequality in the world, they had to rely on the self-reported income of the super rich to see just how income was distributed by definition, they couldnt directly measure the unreported income hidden in tax havens (though they did estimate it, with []

Even though credit cards now feature an EMV chip for securing transactions, they still have to include the magnetic strip for compatibility with older point of sale systems. Because of this, theres no way for the chips new security capabilities to protect against card skimmers in the wild.How do you protect yourself from legacy-technology-induced fraud? []

As the old saying goes, You should sit in meditation for 30 minutes every day. Unless you are too busy, in which case you should meditate for an hour. Since most of us have an endless list of things to do and people to see, carving out quiet time can feel impossible, especially when most []

The Bragi Dash Truly Wireless Smart Earphones are far more than your run of the mill Bluetooth earbuds. While the earpiece design makes these earbuds ideal for exercise and activity, and passive noise cancelling is conducive to a more serene listening experience, these buds go well beyond just playing music.First of all, they can actually []

Read more:
Quantifying the influence of 4chan's alt-right trolls on normies ... - Boing Boing

Baby boomers and the Jewish elites, rather.

Disdain for baby boomers is a foundational tenet of the Alt-Right that associates the post-WWII generation with warmongering, selfish capitulation to big business at the cost of principled conservatism, and, most offensively, voluntary subjugation of themselves and their children to so-called cultural Marxism.

Ironically, some of the Alt-Rights most vociferous critics of baby boomers, such as Richard Spencer, depended on their parents while their movement careers were in their infancy. Spencer, head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute (NPI) and the de facto leader of the Alt-Right, lived out of his parents second home in the resort town of Whitefish, Montana, while building his reputation within the movement.

Richard Spencers grandfather was a wealthy Louisiana doctor-turned-cotton planter and there has been some speculation that the sale of family farming land has allowed him to pursue his life of thought-crime. His fathers salary as an ophthalmologist afforded Spencer the opportunity to attend St. Marks School of Texas, arguably Dallass most prestigious prep school. Spencer then went on to attend some of the most elite and expensive universities in the nation.

One of many memes mocking Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes.

Theres a yawning gap between the familial resources afforded to the Alt-Rights leaders and many of their adherents, but that hypocrisy hasnt impeded the base from running with the vitriolic anti-boomer sentiment propagated by its leading lights.

The biggest cultural changes of the 20th century occurred during the 1960s when the baby boomer generation was coming of age, wrote Ben Richards on the Daily Stormer. Through the use of televised propaganda, many of that generation bought into the Jewish promoted ideals of Cultural Marxism. This was sold to them as a liberating form of rebellion against the conservative ideals of their parents. Jews were able to use the rebellious nature of their youth to push a society destroying agenda that is still playing out today.

While the Alt-Right by and large a youthful movement celebrated Trump's election, the supporters who actually propelled Trumps candidacy to victory consisted of a demographic that the Alt-Right loathes: baby boomers.

Dissatisfaction over President Trumps abandonment of campaign promises which has increased daily among even his most enthusiastic supporters has forced the Alt-Right to find other outlets for their rage. Recently, this has taken the form of physical theatrics like the confrontations in Houston with the armed cosplayers in fatigues that make up This is Texas.

Militias like This is Texas which organized the Hermann Park protests in Houston have become vehicles for the Alt-Right to pivot back to their defining anger toward baby boomers. Much of this rage is attributed to declining economic prospects for millennials and generation Z due to the perceived selfishness of boomers and the resulting fragmentation of communities.

The only places a young man can find entry level work any more is in large urban cities for some shitty giant corporation that can afford to take a chance on a young guy, but has no problem giving him the boot if it ain't working out, wrote Doctor Mayhem in a thread titled Why We Should Hate Boomers and Owe Them Nothing on The Right Stuffs 504um. The real kicker is dad, mom, grandpa, and grandma then have the gall to bitch that you moved so far away, without even considering that it was their political apathy that brought in Juan, Carlos, and Chang to take all the decent entry level jobs for pennies on the dollar, forcing you to move.

Richard Spencer frequently and self-satisfyingly acknowledges the indebtedness of the Alt-Right to the left for this line of boomer critique in an April 21 video titled Bill OReilly and the End of Boomer Conservatism.

In the video Spencer lifts up the disgraced Fox News television anchor Bill OReilly as an icon of white America and of conservative America, before tearing him down as the archetypical Boomer Conservative.

To simply deny this and think race can be dissolved into muh patriotism or to loudly harangue anyone who doesnt think that race structures society is a kind of clueless denialism ... It is something certainly characteristic of boomer conservatism, where they will very cluelessly, very absurdly claim that race doesnt exist or they dont see it and were all muricans and thats something that millennials certainly scoff ... its something that the entire left scoffs at and they scoff at it because it does lack self-awareness, it lacks truth, its a way of glossing over some deeper problem, or deeper essence of our society.

Spencers own lack of self-awareness is whats truly on display here. While trying to make the novel point that the Alt-Right is taking cues from the left, who in Spencers alternate universe are also so-called race realists, he repeats one of the most tired tropes in politics: Everything is my parents generations fault and they dont understand me at all!

Through the tweet storm, Griffin attempts to level the economic plight of Selma, as a proxy for the blue-collar South, at the feet of John Lewis and the Civil Rights Movement, supported by boomers.

Meanwhile, Spencers only job to speak of is running a faux-think tank out of an Alexandria, Virginia, townhome.

Brad Griffin AKA Hunter Wallace of Occidental Dissent and the Neo-Confederate League of the South, made his own attempt at Spencers banal point three months earlier in a slew of tweets titled The Truth About Selma, depicting a road-trip from the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery through the rural Black Belt.

This acknowledgement of poor and working-class woes, blindered by a strict focus on race, is a favorite recruitment strategy of the hallucinatory chess masters of the marginal right. Its success has been notably invisible.

Griffin names the boomer.

In a post on The Right Stuffs Neo-Confederate offshoot Identity Dixie, a pseudonymous author, Braxton Bragg, shared a post titled Thoughts on the Boomer Question, which unpacks several of the grievances that the Alt-Right holds against the boomers.

The first key issue on which Boomers are ideologically different, from younger generations and the Alt-Right, is the question of race and egalitarianism. The majority of Boomers espouse the idea that all races of men are physiologically and psychologically the same ... The second key issue on which the Boomers differ ideologically, is on the question of Jewish influence and the United States relationship with Israel. ... Lastly, the Boomer generation lacks an understanding of the contrast between the world they grew up in and the world Generations X and Y have had to contend with. The Boomer generation had opportunities set before them by their parents, yet some of them chose to be indolent and instead railed against their parents as part of the counterculture movement ... The taxation of working class whites to subsidize the existence of those living off the welfare state has made it disadvantageous to start a family. Yet, many Boomers only see their kids being lazy or incapable.

The latter point betrays the political underpinnings of the Alt-Right as a reactionary movement animated by the grievances of a young, web-savvy whites who resent the opportunities available to their parents and grandparents and seek redress for socio- economic woes solely through racial separation.

It also neatly encapsulates the entire feud last Saturday between This is Texas and the Alt-Right and all of the shitposting that followed. An incapable militia group showed up en masse to protest an antifa event that never got closer to reality than Facebook, while a mob of fashy trolls exploited that ineptitude and spent a week online making lazy memes essentially complaining that mom and dad ruined everything.

Continued here:
Grilling Boomers: The Alt-Right Gets All Fired Up about BBQ (the Baby Boomer Question ) - Southern Poverty Law Center

Media Matters for America (blog)

Reporters fall into the alt-right trap with Julius Caesar stunt Media Matters for America (blog) Ever since President Donald Trump hired then-Breitbart.com chief executive Stephen Bannon to run his presidential campaign, the press has been struggling to comprehend the alt-right movement that his website helped promote. While many journalists ... Critics allege alt-right activists are attempting to profit from Shakespeare in the Park protestsTheBlaze.com 'Julius Caesar' interrupted again by pro-Trump protestersNew York Post Two Protesters Disrupt 'Julius Caesar' in Central ParkNew York Times New York Times -Los Angeles Times -New York Times all 153 news articles »

Go here to read the rest:
Reporters fall into the alt-right trap with Julius Caesar stunt - Media Matters for America (blog)

Tim 'Baked Alaska' Gionet posted a meme aimed at the 'alt light' rally.

Although the alt-right presents itself as a new kind of white male nationalism rewired for the 21st century, it is proving in practice to have many of the same qualities as its old 20th-century forebears: Riddled with infighting and internecine quarrels, the product of a movement whose sociopathic agenda attracts similar personalities, ego-driven and contentious.

The infighting, which first erupted last week between far-right Oath Keepers and whitenationalist alt-righters, deepened this week when two factions outright white nationalists and committed racists on one hand, and alt-righters (dismissed as the "alt-light") who disavow them and their politics while embracing the movement agenda squared off on social media over a series of free speech events aimed at provoking left-wing counter-protests and, potentially violence.

The result is that there will be two competing free speech events this Sunday in Washington, D.C.;one a Rally Against Political Violence hosted by alt-right provocateur Jack Posobiec, planned for noon at the White House; the other a Freedom of Speech Rally hosted by Colton Merwin at the Lincoln Memorial, and featuring such whitenationalist figures as Richard Spencer, Nathan Damigo of Identity Evropa, far-right neo-Pagan Augustus Invictus, blogger Jason Kessler, and social-media celebrity Tim Baked Alaska Gionet.

The White House rally will feature alt-right figures such as Laura Loomer (who recently made headlines by taking the stage during a performance of Julius Caesar in New York City), Kekistan fan Cassandra Fairbanks, and Kyle Prescott of the alt-right fight club Proud Boys. It apparently was organized by alt-right figure Mike Cernovich and Posobiec in response to the roster of speakers invited to the Lincoln Memorial rally; speakers such as Loomer (whose background included a stint as a writer for hate-group leader Pamela Gellers Islamophobia operation) had originally been scheduled to speak there but then canceled.

Organizers explained the rally is intended to condemn political violence such as the attack on Steve Scalise and US Congress recently, as well as depictions of gruesome displays of brutality against sitting US national leaders. All sides must join together to condemn violence and the violent rhetoric that inspires it!

The Lincoln Memorial rally organizers expressed their regrets: I'm sure some of you have already heard by now, but several speakers have dropped out due to the confirmation of Richard Spencer as a speaker. Now, not only is this horribly hypocritical, but is also bordering on an Antifa principle. By not sharing the platform with someone you disagree with you are therefore not supporting their right to speak.

I don't know Spencer, I have been famously ambivalent toward the man, but I am looking forward to meeting with him and to defending his right to say whatever the hell he's going to say on Sunday, chimed in Augustus Invictus. That is where I stand.

The two sides began sniping at each other on social media. All of you guys pulling out of the Freedom of Speech Rally are cucks, posted a critic on the Facebook page of the Political Violence rally. It's flat out hypocritical to be speaking at a Freedom of Speech rally only to pull out of the event because someone you disagree with is speaking. That makes you a hypocrite with no balls and no conviction. Grow a pair.

On Twitter, Spencer labeled Posobiec a cuck, and taunted him: Oooosh... Jack Posobiec is a great war hero. No one can criticize him. He dismissed the rally as the "Alt Light," and called them "a collection of liars ... perverts ... and Zionist fanatics."He also made fun of them for changing the focus of their rally: Apparently, these dorks blushed at the idea of calling their little meet-up a free speech rally. He added: The Tea Party, at least at its inception, was an authentic expression of American nationalism. These people total zeros.

Jason Kessler posted a video demonstrating that Posobiec had plagiarized his work while he was employed at the Canadian alt-right website The Rebel; in response, Posobiec blocked him. Posobiec also apparently blocked Baked Alaska for criticizing one of his media stunts.

Baked Alaska also got into a Twitter war with Loomer after he posted a meme with her face Photoshopped into a gas chamber, outside which stood Donald Trump in a Nazi uniform, ready to pull the switch: Et tu, brute? it read.

Loomer responded in shock: Wow. I'm calling on @bakedalaska to fully condemn anti-Semitism after posting this pic of me inside a gas chamber.

He laughed at her: It's a fucking meme. You're an SJW [Social Justice Warrior] now and it's hilarious.

The poster for Kessler's Aug. 12 event.

A similar feud threatened to break out over another free speech event, this one an Aug. 12 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., organized by Kessler as part of his ongoing protest against the threatened removal of a Confederate monument to Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The lineup for that event includes Spencer, Augustus Invictus, white nationalist Matthew Heimbach, and League of the South president Michael Hill.

Infighting is part of every movement - but it doesn't have to be, posted Augustus Invictus on his Facebook page, along with a poster for the event.

A white nationalist commented: Very happy to see that Based Stickman, the anti-white civic nationalist cuck and shameless mountebank, has apparently been removed from the line-up. Good. He would've been fundamentally at odds with the other speakers.

Responded Kessler: He's planning to be here in a non-speaking role to back-up our attendees in the event of Antifa violence. For that, he is a friend to the event and to the First Amendment rights of our speakers.

In the meantime, another would-be participant posted: "Will the Oath Cucks be there?"

It might be time to stock up on the popcorn.

Read more:
Competing Alt-Right 'Free Speech' Rallies Reveal Infighting Over White Nationalism - Southern Poverty Law Center

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

You may have mocked claims about the existence of paid protesters as just another lie from the right. As it turns out, at least on this one issue, theyre actually telling the truth. The problem is, the right neglected to mention those paid protesters are part of the right wing apparatus.

The story starts last week, when the right wing decided to aim its collective outrage at a free staging of Shakespeares play Julius Caesar held in New York Citys Central Park. Mike Cernovich, a self-described member of the alt-right whothinksthe U.S. should give immigrants IQ tests, put up a YouTube video in which he offered cash to any protesters willing to disrupt the play for pay.

Ill give up to 10 people $1,000, Cernovich says in thefootage. I need you to get up with either a CNN is ISIS or Bill Clintons a rapist or The media is terrorism [sign]. And if youre able to get up and be escorted out by security, then I will give you $1,000.

In other words, Cernovich was actively and openly looking to recruit paid protesters. You know how conservatives made up that ridiculous myth about George Soros sending checks to liberals who march in protests? This is the real version of that, only sponsored by Cernovich.

The story actually gets richer, so to speak, as it continues. The night after Cernovichs offer, two protesters went to see Julius Caesar in the park. Semi-notorious right-wing media figure Laura Loomer snagged a ticket for a second-row seat that definitely should have gone to someone who actually wanted to see the play. Alt-right provocateur Jack Posobiec, whose greatest hits includepizzagateand the Seth Richconspiracy lie, also showed up. The two Trumpites told theNew Yorkerthey hadnt planned to meetwhich may or may not be trueand once they spotted each other, they sat apart so as not to arouse suspicion. Are you here for the Cernovich contest? Posobiec reportedly texted Loomer, according to the New Yorker. She responded, Just stay tuned.

In the middle of the production, Loomer stormed the stage, briefly halting the action and earning a chorus of boos from an audience that just wanted to see some Shakespeare. Theresfootageof the whole thing, including Loomer being removed from the stage as she shouts CNN is ISISthe exact phrase Cernovich suggestedover and over. As Loomer was escorted out, Posobiec stood up and began yelling Nazis and Goebbels at the audience, until he was removed. He alsorecordedhis outburst, possibly because Cernovich wants proof before hell pay out.

Loomer continued yelling even once she was put outside the venue, and police finally showed up at some point to arrest her. She was then led away, upright and intact, like a human being who does not also happen to be an unarmed black kid.

Its important to note that Loomer works for right-wing Canadian media outlet Rebel Media, and untillate May, so did Posobiec. The blogCanadalanddescribes it as a Breitbart-esque site filled with contributors who have called for a new Crusade to expel Muslims from the Holy Land, outlined what they hate about the Jews, and most recently, said thatBritish Muslims are enemy combatants, at least some of whom should beplaced into camps.

Loomer was released hours after her arrest. Rebel Media put up a Free Laura page on its website, including a link to afundraising sectionfor her legal defense fund. Loomer herself alsotweeted a request to support [her] legal defense fund. The link in the message leads to a campaign on WeSearchr, a crowdfunding site thats like a Go Fund Me for hard-right causes. As of this writing, Loomers page has banked more than $12,000. Josh Jordan, whos written for both Forbes and the conservative National Review, poined out that Loomers page previously noted she had a fundraising goal of $25,000, complete with screengrab. That target number has been erased, but the total intake keeps climbing. And presumably, while the Rebel Media Free Laura page doesnt display tallies, thereve been contributions via that site as well.

There are a few things that are curious here, that brought out the social media detectives. The first is that Rebel Media creator Ezra Levant made the Free Laura page at 6pm UTC or 2pm Eastern time, a fullfour hoursbefore Loomer was actually arrested. Its safe to assume that Levant doesnt have the power to see into the future, but that he and the team at Rebel hoped shed get arrested and planned to use the fabricated injustice to raise funds.

Theres also the matter of Loomers hefty request for donations. She faces charges of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass in the third degree. The latter is a class B misdemeanor, while the former is merely a violation, meaning its even less serious. I spoke to Matthew Galluzzo, a New York City criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorneys office. He isnt representing Loomer, so he cant speak specifically to her case.

Most people charged with trespass with no criminal record are unlikely to be convicted of a crime or serve jail time, he noted, or have to pay a fine in excess of $120.

In fact, based on the charges she faces, theres no outcome that could account for the funds being requested, unless Loomer has a rap sheet as a serial killer thats been kept hush-hush. So why is Loomer raising so much money? Its unclear, and no one aside from Loomer and Rebel Media know. However, it is worth noting that Levant recently lost a libel case on appeal, which keeps him on the hook foran $80,000fine. Its also true that a company that targeted Breitbart for a boycott has done the same with Rebel Media, which has resulted in the loss of at least one majorcompanypulling ads from the site.

If it seemed incongruous that the new rightwhose members have declared themselves the defenders of free speech and conservationists of Western cultureclaimed to be so outraged by the recent staging of a Shakespeare play, this might explain why. And when the right talks about paid protesters, just assume they personally know whence they speak.

KaliHolloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

Header image source.

Read the original:
Paid Protesters? Yes, Sent By The 'Alt-Right' - The National Memo (blog)