Overshadowed by the stream of caustic #gerrymandering and #voter #suppression bills nationwide, #Maryland #Governor Wes Moore #signed several #pro-voter #election #bills May 12th. One bill includes the state’s first #administrative #rules for municipalities using #ranked #choice #voting, and #protections from #election #AI deep #fakes.

https://www.americandemocracyminute.org/wethepeople/2026/05/18/amidst-caustic-anti-democracy-bills-nationwide-maryland-passes-positive-election-reforms-including-its-first-ranked-choice-voting-rules/

Revealed: the Facebook pages using AI to flood feeds with bizarre fake stories about UK politicians saving kennels, cafes and babies.

A Full Fact investigation has found pages which mainly appear to be run from Vietnam have gained hundreds of thousands of interactions publishing bogus tales, often about Nigel Farage.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20260518-revealed-the-facebook-pages-using-ai-to-flood-feeds-with-bizarre-fake-stories-about-uk-politicians-saving-kennels-cafes-and-babies?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#NigelFarage #AI #UK #Politics #Fakes #Tech #SocialMedia #Facebook

Why I Dislike the Royal Pop

(and it’s incestuous cousins)

Yes, this is a hater post. So what? I’m allowed to hate the Royal Pop, just like you are allowed to inexplicably love it.

Why do I hate it?

First off, it’s plastic. It’s designed to not be durable; to not last. In a world that is growing ever more lenient of the disposable and temporary (which apparently includes people), do we really need another god-damned knick knack destined to end up in a land fill?

Second, it’s an expensive piece of plastic shit. $400/$420 for these bag charms? You can find and buy multiple watches made out of actual metal for the same price. Actual metal watches that will potentially last decades and generations. But I guess the rich need something to waste all the money on that they refuse to pay employees or in taxes after already being able to actually afford a $20,000 Daytona they’ll rarely use to it’s full potential. Not fake afford, actually afford.

Third, last & most importantly, to me; Swatch seems to be going all in on the plastification (it is TOO a word! 😉) of their watches and brand, and even other brands! It feels like they don’t care that they are allowing Omega to rot faster than the organic material surrounding their disposable watches in the world’s landfills. By devoting money, design effort & resources to these bIOceRaMiC Happy Meal toy abominations of watches, they are just killing off an iconic brand. Is it any coincidence that Omega has slipped to third in the Morgan Stanley report behind Cartier after the introduction of the MoonSwatch & just before the Swatch x AP collab? I think not!

Comment or not. Makes no difference. Too many people are too distracted by the hype machine to actually think past the end of their fucking noses. Keep telling the Emperor his non-existent clothes are great, folks. Are watches THAT boring to you that you go ape shit over a little color? Or are people just that uneducated about watches to think these are worthy of the hype?

The Rise of Bullshittery

An excerpt from the piece:

"The unspoken contract behind most professional life used to be as simple as learning how to do something, doing it well and gradually developing a reputation among people who could tell the difference. Over time, that reputation would then translate into work, money, and a degree of stability. It was a slow process, that sometimes was unfair, and that was never as meritocratic as its proponents claimed, but at least the basic shape of it made sense. Doing a good job was, on average, an advantage."

"That contract, however, has been broken in ways that are hard to comprehend, let alone ignore these days. The dominant mechanism for distributing professional opportunity is no longer slow reputation, it is _algorithmic visibility_. The algorithm, howeveer, does not particularly care whether you are good at your job, it only cares whether your message is engaging enough to spread fast and far."

https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/the-rise-of-the-bullshittery/

(You can add this site to your RSS reader. The author writes things worth reading.)

#experts #fakes #polycrisis

#Reiche-Lüge verbreitet:

Warum ist die #Tagesschau so schlecht bei #Fakes der #Regierung? - #Volksverpetzer

Die #Bundeswirtschaftsministerin Katherina #Reiche sagte letzte Woche in der #Bundespressekonferenz die Unwahrheit, als sie leugnete, ihr Ex-Arbeitgeber #Westenergie sei nicht im Gasgeschäft. Die #Tagesschau hat diesen #Fake einfach geglaubt und weiterverbreitet. Und erst nach Nachfragen viele Tage gebraucht, um ihn zu korrigieren...

https://www.volksverpetzer.de/faktencheck/reiche-luege-tagesschau/