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- Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
If you’re short on cash, there is someone in Riga, Latvia, who can help. “You can literally make 100k a month with this campaign,” a young man with blond curls and a thick accent says into a camera. All you have to do is post on social media video clips of “anything that supports Republican.” Unfamiliar with U.S. politics? No problem: “If you’re not from the USA, like, What the fuck is even Republicans? like me,” then simply go to Gemini or ChatGPT, he suggests, “and be like ‘Yo, Gemini, I want some videos promoting Republican values. Give me ideas.’ Go to Gemini. Get ideas. Boom.”The man, who goes by Serviuos, is promoting a campaign called Elephant Clipping, run by his company, ClipIt. The company pays subcontractors, many from poorer countries in Eastern Europe and the global South, to chop up videos the company provides into bite-size pieces in the hope that the clips will go viral online.Such “clipping” operations have become a popular means of manipulating people’s attention. Brands, influencers, musical artists, and others spend six-figure sums on such promotional campaigns. Perhaps inevitably, the practice is now moving into politics, often without the transparency required to know exactly what is being served up and by whom. Five months before the midterms, though, Serviuos is up-front about the goal of the Elephant Clipping campaign: “So that republican win in USA,” he writes in one message. I sent Serviuos a list of questions about his work in American right-wing politics. He wrote back, “Seems very out of context,” but didn’t comment further.Many video-clipping services operate in relative secrecy so that the public isn’t aware of the manipulation of their social-media feeds. But the services also need to attract potential clippers. They typically rely on chat servers on Discord—an internet messaging app that was initially developed for gamers.After an anonymous tipster flagged Elephant Clipping to me, I was able to access its Discord server and other related political-clipping campaign chats just by clicking “Join,” noting on a form that I was based in the United States, and answering some questions about my availability and desire to clip. Once I was in, I could see the mechanics of the campaign, which pays huge sums of money to people—many of whom appeared to be outside the U.S.—to push video clips from accounts designed to look like those of ordinary Americans spontaneously touting reasons to… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - The Guard That Won’t Be Changing
Many Democrats of a certain age took the same message from the party’s 2024 debacle: Voters are sick of the old guard and craving younger, more aggressive leaders. Better to retire on your own terms than suffer the fate of Joe Biden, forced to stand down from his reelection campaign after a public humiliation. Nancy Pelosi, the 86-year-old former speaker, announced her exit from the House, as did her longtime lieutenant, 87-year-old Steny Hoyer. Senators Dick Durbin (81) and Jeanne Shaheen (79) passed up reelection bids this year, and so, too, did two senators merely in their late 60s.Senator Ed Markey, 80, heeded no such warning, and evidently, he didn’t need to. The Massachusetts Democrat is one of just two current senators whose tenures in Congress date to the presidency of Gerald Ford. But tonight, the oldest Democratic senator on the ballot this year trounced his much younger primary opponent, Representative Seth Moulton. The AP called the race a half hour after polls closed, with Markey leading by nearly 50 points.In a race that pitted ideology against age, Massachusetts Democrats opted for a progressive stalwart who will be 86 at the end of another six-year term over a more moderate 47-year-old challenger. Moulton, an Iraq War veteran who is concluding his sixth term in the House, moved left to appeal to a statewide primary electorate. But he could not hope to outflank Markey, who won support from Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Instead, Moulton urged voters to embrace “a new generation of leadership” and argued that he could more effectively fight for liberal causes than an incumbent in the twilight of his career.Markey had already faced that kind of challenge before, and won. Six years ago, he handily defeated then-Representative Joe Kennedy III, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy who contended that the incumbent, after so many decades in office, was no longer up to the task. Young progressives, unimpressed with what remained of the Kennedy aura and appreciative of Markey’s record championing the Green New Deal, rallied to Markey’s side. But that race preceded Biden’s flameout in 2024 and the reckoning over the Democratic Party’s gerontocracy.Some Massachusetts Democrats believed that Markey could be newly vulnerable, especially if a popular progressive such as Representative Ayanna Pressley, who is 52, decided to challenge him. Mary Anne Marsh, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state, told me that after seeing… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Shein Makes Lackluster Hong Kong Debut As Investors Fret About Growth And Regula...
Shein has been humbled by tariff and duty changes in the U.S. and Europe that have contributed to a dramatic decline in valuation for the company. [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Trump inks deal with 9 pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs
The White House said the agreements will reduce costs to treat Parkinson's disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease and other illnesses. [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - How the Right Could Actually End Birthright CitizenshipEarly last year, a woman named Liza and her husband were busy preparing for the birth of their child. On top of the normal stresses of pregnancy, they faced another, less typical concern: that their baby would be stateless. The couple had left Russia for the United States. Liza is legally in the U.S. on a temporary status, and her husband is seeking asylum. They could in theory have applied for Russian citizenship for the baby at the consulate, though Liza told me that would have been risky, in light of her husband’s asylum application.Before January 20, 2025, this would not have been a concern: Although Liza and her husband are Russian citizens, their baby, born on American soil, would have automatically received U.S. citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. But an executive order signed by Donald Trump on the day of his second inauguration had called that guarantee into question. After February 19, according to the order, only children with at least one biological parent who was either a U.S. citizen or a green-card holder could be legally considered American. That would have left Liza’s baby without U.S. citizenship—or citizenship anywhere at all. Liza, who asked that I withhold her last name out of concern for her family’s safety, worried that her child would be entirely without legal protection if she and her husband were deported.“I was really, really anxious,” she said. “I was even blaming myself, like, Why didn’t I have the baby sooner? ” On January 21, Liza and four other expectant mothers joined a lawsuit against the order—one of several challenges to Trump’s decree. (The plaintiffs sued using pseudonyms or only their first names, to protect their identities.) Within days, federal courts blocked the policy from going into effect.[Quinta Jurecic: Trump’s absurd citizenship arguments went nowhere]At the end of June, a year and a half after Trump issued the order, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Barbara that the policy violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Civil-liberties groups and immigration advocates cheered the ruling. Headlines declared it a major loss for Trump. Anna O. Law, a political scientist who studies constitutional law and immigration at CUNY, told me she had been scheduled to join two news broadcasts to discuss the ruling. Once the Court decided against Trump, both canceled because, as one put it, “the danger has passed.”But the Court made its decision by a far… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago
- Juul can sell updated e-cigarette with age-verification system, FDA saysJuul plans to market the new device under the brand name Juul2, along with updated versions of its tobacco- and menthol-flavored cartridges. [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago
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