I originally used this account to do some informal data analysis of Christian Twitter. I stopped when the API got expensive. Now I mainly use it to doom scroll.
Thread on defining "Christian Twitter." 🧵
As stated in the profile description, my plan is to apply a bit of (non-scientific) data analysis to "Christian Twitter." How am I determining what constitutes "Christian Twitter"?
Anthropic now upset that the government took them seriously on pausing their AI. My guess is that they’ll see this as a big PR win in the long run: “Don’t you want the model the government thought was too powerful for you?!”
@SpencerKlavan What? You don’t see an alien strapped to a chair, being tortured by evil humans and immediately think to yourself “Hey this is a supremely being that rivals God!”?
The same Anthropic that recently decided it couldn’t trust the government with its models? Don’t fall for the Anthropic schtick, which is to sensationalize and scare its way into public consciousness. It’s marketing.
@Osint613 The same Anthropic that recently decided it couldn’t trust the government with its models? Don’t fall for the Anthropic schtick, which is to sensationalize and scare its way into public consciousness. It’s marketing.
@tedsbestblogs@ToCelestialCity@WVPitt@DrInquisitivus As I pointed out in an earlier comment, for the false positive score to truly be meaningful the report needs to fall closely in the domain for which they claim the score (academic essays). A quick test might be passing in other church reports like this one, written before AI.
@ToCelestialCity@WVPitt@DrInquisitivus For example, how many past documents in this more “ecclesiastical report” type of domain, written before modern LLMs, also trigger the detector?
@ToCelestialCity@WVPitt@DrInquisitivus I’m just illustrating how a low false positive rate can not be reflective of reliable methods at a more general level. For this particular case, we would need some measure of how closely this type of report actually overlaps with the domain in which they claim the false positive.
@ToCelestialCity@WVPitt@DrInquisitivus How Pangram achieves its low false positive score matters. For example the Bible is notorious for setting off AI detectors. Well, if they simply manage to fix that by adding the Bible to its database of known non-AI texts, that’s not meaningfully proving their methods.
@ToCelestialCity@WVPitt@DrInquisitivus If you want to say it’s likely that they used AI based on things like fabricated quotes or URLs, that’s fine. I’m just saying AI detectors aren’t reliable.
Lots of people posting about this one. I want to draw your attention to one part of the paper: the argument that among other channels, the iPhone reduces fertility by increasing the availability of pornography as a substitute for sex.
"The Google Trends annual index for the literal search query porn more than doubles over our study period, rising from 40 in 2007 to 86 in 2011. The share of GSS respondents 18–44 reporting they watched an X-rated movie in the past year rises at every age 25 and above between 2000 and 2018, by 22 percentage points at 30–34 (30% to 52%) and 13 points at 40–44 (21% to 34%); the 18–24 cells are too small to read trends reliably. The iPhone made on-demand pornography always-available and private; if the device displaces partnered sex by providing a substitute, the substitution should show up in series like these."
So there is suggestive evidence here that ⬆️pornography = ⬇️fertility.
A careless code blunder just blew the lid off Beijing’s multi-million dollar AI propaganda operation targeting the West. France's digital interference watchdog, Viginum, has officially exposed "Fawn Mianju," a covert network of 13 multilingual fake news sites running on advanced automation and generative AI. The sophisticated network was completely compromised after a computer engineer working as a Senior Project Manager at China's state-run CGTN Digital accidentally left his login credentials exposed in the code.
This operation, which expanded on findings first uncovered by U.S. cybersecurity firm Graphika in 2025, operated with deep financial backing. The domains were registered in Beijing, hosted on Alibaba Cloud, and utilized expensive infrastructure alongside paid plugins to artificially manipulate search engine rankings. Using digital keys linked directly to AI language models, the network automatically scraped CGTN articles, lightly rewrote them, and republished over 2,300 articles, often within less than an hour of the original state media broadcast.
Sites like the French-language "Actu Méridien" were weaponized to manipulate public opinion across 89 countries, heavily targeting Western audiences and Francophone African youth. The articles aggressively peddled pro-Beijing narratives, painting China as the undisputed leader of the Global South and green energy transition while explicitly telling Western readers that aligning with Chinese interests would bring them massive benefits.
Despite the cutting-edge tech and heavy state funding, the operation was an organic flop. The articles struggled to breach 15,000 views, with nearly 40 percent of its top social media engagement traced back to fake accounts in Burundi whose sole purpose was to artificially inflate the content. While the reach was limited, French authorities warn that the operation exposes Beijing’s rapidly escalating capability to launch fully automated, stealth disinformation campaigns designed to quietly erode Western democratic alignment.
#Disinformation #CyberSecurity #France #China #AIPropaganda #Geopolitics #Viginum #NationalSecurity
@michaeljguest@Osinttechnical Trump decided, foolishly, to let up pressure on Iran long before that. And current reports suggest Trump is now trying to pressure Israel to not respond. Thus, clearly, Trump is the problem.
This is Anthropic’s schtick that I’ve been pointing out for over a year, before they became popular. Anthropic knows there’s no realistic chance of this happening. They say it to get headlines & name recognition. Anthropic’s MO is scare & sensationalize their way to notoriety.
Anthropic is calling for a global pause on development of the most powerful AI systems, saying current models are beginning to show signs of escaping human control.
@NeilShenvi “Supporting a candidate” should never involve some kind of maximalist commitment that overrides other commitments to truth. So I don’t see why it requires what you claim it does. And claims about long term consequences are often more speculative than short term stakes.
@NerdHerder9001@Not_the_Bee Michael Phelps doping is going to look a lot different than some random guy doping and trying to swim. This competition, by its very nature, is not going to attract top athletes who have real chances at medals.