Hasta La Gadget!

Private aircraft developer Hermeus has scored a $60 million deal with the United States Air Force (USAF), the company has announced. The funds are earmarked specifically for flighting testing the aerospace firm’s Quarterhorse, a sleek aircraft featuring Hermeus’s own turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine and a futuristic, nearly sci-fi appearance. Quarterhorse is Hermeus’s first aircraft and, according to the private … Continue reading

Facebook has banned a marketing firm for its involvement in a disinformation campaign that used influencers and fake accounts to undermine COVID-19 vaccines. The company removed 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts associated with a campaign, which also recruited unwitting influencers to boost its message.

According to Facebook, the network “originated in Russia,” but was linked to Fazze, a subsidiary of a UK-registered marketing firm that operates from Russia. The accounts primarily targeted India and Latin America, though the United States was also targeted “to a much lesser extent.” The campaign came in “two distinct waves,” according to Facebook.

“First, in November and December 2020, the network posted memes and comments claiming that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine would turn people into chimpanzees,” the company wrote in a report. “Five months later, in May 2021, it questioned the safety of the Pfizer vaccine by posting an allegedly hacked and leaked AstraZeneca document.” Facebook didn’t speculate on who hired Fazze or what their motive was, but Ben Nimmo, the company’s Global Threat Intelligence Lead for Influence Operations, noted that the activity “coincided roughly with times when regulators and some of the target countries were discussing emergency authorization for each vaccine.”

Ultimately, the campaign was “sloppy” with “quite low” engagement, according to Nimmo. The exception was the paid posts from legitimate influencers who got caught up in the campaign, as those posts “attracted some limited attention.” However, it was influencers who exposed the campaign, after a handful publicly disclosed that Fazze had offered to pay them to “claim that Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine is deadly,” according to The New York Times.

While Facebook regularly publishes details around inauthentic behavior and foreign interference on its platform, this is one of the first that centered around COVID-19 vaccines. The topic has become a thorny issue for Facebook, as officials have blamed social media for not doing enough to prevent vaccine disinformation from spreading.

In a call with reporters, Facebook’s Head of Security Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher. said that the effort, though unsuccessful, highlights how disinformation campaigns are evolving. “Influence operations increasingly span many platforms and target influential voices because running successful campaigns with large numbers of fake accounts on a single network has become harder and harder,” he said.

The Green Knight, one of the best movies of the year, is currently only available to watch in theaters. However, there’s some good news if you can’t make it out to your local cinema. Distributor A24 plans to stream the film for one night only on August 18th, and you can purchase the $20 ticket to see The Green Knight starting today through the company’s Screening Room website.

Once you buy a ticket, you’ll have three ways to stream the movie. You can watch it on a web browser, via A24’s Apple TV app or through the Roku app. Starting at 9PM, you’ll have four hours to finish the film. We will also note that A24 only plans to stream The Green Knight on the 18th in the US.

The topic of simultaneous theatrical and online releases has been a complicated subject in Hollywood recently, with Disney’s Black Window generating $60 million in streaming revenue for the company while at the same time leading to a legal spat with star Scarlett Johansson. With no foreseeable conclusion to the pandemic, we’re likely to see more companies like A24 try out different distribution strategies.

Have you ever been turned on by someone—or something—you knew was trash? Reading the news today, you’d think that was happening to crabs. A number of media outlets have reported that crabs are horny for plastic pollution. While I love a horny crab as much as the next person, I have some bad news: New research…

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Carlson claimed that the major U.S. spy agency targeted him, but he has provided no evidence.