Don’t diss Fidel – Cuba has its own online army ready to defend la revoluçion. CC-licensed photo by Pedro Szekely on Flickr.
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It’s Friday, so there’s another post due at the Social Warming Substack at about 0845 UK time: it’s about an intersection of tennis and science.
A selection of 10 links for you. High Fidelity. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
White House fires CDC director who says RFK Jr. is “weaponizing public health” • The Washington Post
Lena Sun, Dan Diamond and Lauren Weber:
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The White House on Wednesday fired Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after she refused to resign amid pressure to change vaccine policy, which sparked the resignation of other senior CDC officials and a showdown over whether she could be removed.
Hours after the Department of Health and Human Services announced early Wednesday evening that Monarez was no longer the director, her lawyers responded with a fiery statement saying she had not resigned or been fired. They accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain” and “putting millions of American lives at risk” by purging health officials from government.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” the lawyers, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe Lowell, wrote in a statement. “For that reason, she has been targeted.”
Soon after their statement, the White House formally fired Monarez.
…Wednesday’s shake-ups — which include the resignation of the agency’s chief medical officer, the director of its infectious-disease center and other key officials — add to the tumult at the nation’s premier public health agency.
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We are now entering the Dark Ages in the US. The effects of this will filter down: the CDC may have needed shaking up, but this is the wrong way to do it and the wrong paradigm of thinking to replace what was there. The US now needs to hope that its individual states have more sense than its centre; but as that happens for more and more things, the “united” states become disunited. None of this ends well.
Monarez was told to rescind approval for Covid vaccines: she wouldn’t. Kennedy is going to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of children by reducing trust in vaccines for children.
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Google will now let everyone use its AI-powered video editor Vids • The Verge
Emma Roth:
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Google is rolling out a basic version of Vids to everyone. Until now, the AI-powered video editor has only been available to Google Workspace or AI plan subscribers, but now users can broadly access the app with templates, stock media, and a “subset of AI capabilities,” product director Vishnu Sivaji tells The Verge.
Launched last year, Vids is the newest addition to Google’s suite of Workspace tools. It’s geared toward helping you quickly pull together video presentations with a host of AI video editing and creation tools, including a feature to help you create a storyboard with suggested scenes, stock images, and background music.
Though Sivaji notes that the pared-down version of Vids will come with “pretty much all of the amazing capabilities” within the app, the free version doesn’t have any of the new AI-powered features rolling out today, including the ability to have an AI-generated avatar to deliver a message on your behalf.
With this update, you can select one of 12 pre-made avatars, each of which has a different appearance and voice, and then add your script. For now, you can’t use Vids to create an AI-generated avatar of yourself, which is a feature Zoom currently offers (and is apparently something tech CEOs are super into).
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Are AI-generated videos going to make us happy? Are they really? We can offer this to everyone, but will we truly benefit from it? I have my doubts.
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Blogging service TypePad is shutting down and taking all blog content with it • Ars Technica
Andrew Cunningham:
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In the olden days, publishing a site on the internet required that you figure out hosting and have at least some experience with HTML, CSS, and the other languages that make the Internet work. But the emergence of blogging and “Web 2.0” sites in the late ’90s and early 2000s gave rise to a constellation of services that would offer to host all of your thoughts without requiring you to build the website part of your website.
Many of those services are still around in some form—someone who really wanted to could still launch a new blog on LiveJournal, Xanga, Blogger, or WordPress.com. But one of the field’s former giants is shutting down—and taking all of those old posts with it. TypePad announced that the service would be shutting down on September 30 and that everything hosted on it would also be going away on that date. That gives current and former users just over a month to export anything they want to save.
TypePad had previously removed the ability to create new accounts at some point in 2020. It gave no specific rationale for the shutdown beyond calling it a “difficult decision.” As recently as March of this year, TypePad representatives were telling users there were “no plans” to shut down the service.
TypePad was a blogging service based on the Movable Type content management system but hosted on TypePad’s site and with other customizations. Both Movable Type and TypePad were originally created by Six Apart, with TypePad being the solution for less technical users who just wanted to create a site and Movable Type being the version you could download and host anywhere and customize to your liking—not unlike the relationship between WordPress.com (the site that hosts other sites) and WordPress.org (the site that hosts the open source software).
Movable Type and TypePad diverged in the early 2010s; Six Apart was bought by a company called VideoEgg in 2010, resulting in a merged company called Say Media.
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Pour yet another one out for yet another creation of the early internet, now vanishing into the ground as though a sinkhole had opened underneath it.
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Chemists create new high-energy compound to fuel space flight • Phys.org
Erin Frick, University of Albany:
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University at Albany chemists have created a new high-energy compound that could revolutionize rocket fuel and make space flights more efficient. Upon ignition, the compound releases more energy relative to its weight and volume compared to current fuels. In a rocket, this would mean less fuel required to power the same flight duration or payload and more room for mission-critical supplies. Their study is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“In rocket ships, space is at a premium,” said Assistant Professor of Chemistry Michael Yeung, whose lab led the work. “Every inch must be packed efficiently, and everything onboard needs to be as light as possible. Creating more efficient fuel using our new compound would mean less space is needed for fuel storage, freeing up room for equipment, including instruments used for research. On the return voyage, this could mean more space is available to bring samples home.”
The newly synthesized compound, manganese diboride (MnB2), is over 20% more energetic by weight and about 150% more energetic by volume compared to the aluminum currently used in solid rocket boosters. Despite being highly energetic, it is also very safe and will only combust when it meets an ignition agent like kerosene.
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As it happens, I’m reading SF writer Andy Weir’s latest (Project Hail Mary), which includes a rocket fuel consisting of living things which do mass-energy conversion, which as you can imagine is pretty effective (also impossible, but: fiction). However this might do in the meantime.
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On the cyber soldiers defending the Cuban Revolution from internet slander • Literary Hub
Abraham Jiménez Enoa:
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Messi scores for Barcelona. Moments later, the table starts to dance. Rodríguez’s phone is vibrating, shaking the bottle and glasses, though the chicharrones don’t move. He grabs the phone and looks at the screen, and his face changes. He goes onto the balcony and, after a brief conversation, heads directly to his room and emerges in a shirt and trousers.
“Going somewhere?” his cousin asks.
“Work,” Rodríguez says. “Somebody wrote an article online that shit talks Fidel.”
Rodríguez is not his real name. Although he never wears a uniform, he works in a policing capacity in a department at the Ministry of the Interior that he prefers not to identify, though he will say it is “dedicated to monitoring Cuban cyberspace.” He explains further that, “we don’t attack or hack anyone’s site or account. Primarily, we keep an eye on what people say about Cuba online, gauge the consensus, and, if it’s overly negative, we strike back.”
Every day, Rodríguez and his fellow cyber soldiers search and scan the outlets that are most outspoken or “subversive” in their coverage of Cuba, checking a list that includes blogs; foreign media; the underground and opposition press; and people of interest on “insidious” social media platforms. Rodríguez has three Facebook accounts: a real one he uses to keep in touch with friends who’ve emigrated, and two fake ones “for defending Cuba from anyone who denigrates the Revolution.”
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(Thanks Gregory B for the link.)
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4Chan and Kiwi Farms file joint lawsuit against British Ofcom • The Verge
Tina Nguyen:
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In a filing submitted to the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, Preston Byrne and Ron Coleman, the team representing the two sites, said that their clients are being penalized by Ofcom, the agency that regulates online content in the United Kingdom, for “engaging in conduct which is perfectly lawful in the territories where their websites are based”.
…Both 4Chan and Kiwi Farms could face steep fines of up to £18m if they fail to comply with Ofcom’s requirement that they regularly submit “risk assessment” reports about their userbase, due to their sites being accessible in the U.K. Earlier in August, Ofcom issued a provisional decision stating that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe 4chan was in violation of the requirement. In the filing, their lawyers argue that Ofcom is overreaching its legal authority by trying to apply British law to companies based in the U.S., where their behavior is protected by the U.S. Constitution and the American legal code, and seek to have a U.S. federal judge declare that Ofcom has no jurisdiction in this matter.
“American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail,” Byrne said in a statement to reporters.
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I’m puzzled how Ofcom’s enforcement policy applies to companies with no presence in the UK. It can (S 9.2) ask a court to block a site – which seems the most likely outcome here, because why should an American company listen to a British regulator, and why should a British regulator listen to an American court?
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OpenAI will add parental controls for ChatGPT following teen’s death • The Verge
Hayden Field:
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After a 16-year-old took his own life following months of confiding in ChatGPT, OpenAI will be introducing parental controls and is considering additional safeguards, the company said in a Tuesday blog post.
OpenAI said it’s exploring features like setting an emergency contact who can be reached with “one-click messages or calls” within ChatGPT, as well as an opt-in feature allowing the chatbot itself to reach out to those contacts “in severe cases.”
When The New York Times published its story about the death of Adam Raine, OpenAI’s initial statement was simple — starting out with “our thoughts are with his family” — and didn’t seem to go into actionable details. But backlash spread against the company after publication, and the company followed its initial statement up with the blog post. The same day, the Raine family filed a lawsuit against both OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, containing a flood of additional details about Raine’s relationship with ChatGPT.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in California state court in San Francisco, alleges that ChatGPT provided the teen with instructions for how to die by suicide and drew him away from real-life support systems.
…OpenAI said in the Tuesday blog post that it’s learned that its existing safeguards “can sometimes be less reliable in long interactions: as the back-and-forth grows, parts of the model’s safety training may degrade. For example, ChatGPT may correctly point to a suicide hotline when someone first mentions intent, but after many messages over a long period of time, it might eventually offer an answer that goes against our safeguards.”
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Translated: it might encourage users to commit suicide.
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Anthropic’s auto-clicking AI Chrome extension raises browser-hijacking concerns • Ars Technica
Benj Edwards:
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As AI assistants become capable of controlling web browsers, a new security challenge has emerged: users must now trust that every website they visit won’t try to hijack their AI agent with hidden malicious instructions. Experts voiced concerns about this emerging threat this week after testing from a leading AI chatbot vendor revealed that AI browser agents can be successfully tricked into harmful actions nearly a quarter of the time.
On Tuesday, Anthropic announced the launch of Claude for Chrome, a web browser-based AI agent that can take actions on behalf of users. Due to security concerns, the extension is only rolling out as a research preview to 1,000 subscribers on Anthropic’s Max plan, which costs between $100 and $200 per month, with a waitlist available for other users.
The Claude for Chrome extension allows users to chat with the Claude AI model in a sidebar window that maintains the context of everything happening in their browser. Users can grant Claude permission to perform tasks like managing calendars, scheduling meetings, drafting email responses, handling expense reports, and testing website features.
The browser extension builds on Anthropic’s Computer Use capability, which the company released in October 2024. Computer Use is an experimental feature that allows Claude to take screenshots and control a user’s mouse cursor to perform tasks, but the new Chrome extension provides more direct browser integration.
Zooming out, it appears Anthropic’s browser extension reflects a new phase of AI lab competition. In July, Perplexity launched its own browser, Comet, which features an AI agent that attempts to offload tasks for users. OpenAI recently released ChatGPT Agent, a bot that uses its own sandboxed browser to take actions on the web. Google has also launched Gemini integrations with Chrome in recent months.
But this rush to integrate AI into browsers has exposed a fundamental security flaw that could put users at serious risk.
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Lads, I’ve got a brilliant idea – let’s not use AI browser agents.
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Apple to secure nearly half of TSMC’s 2nm production, report says • 9to5Mac
Marcus Mendes:
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According to the latest rumors, Apple is slated to use TSMC’s 2nm process for its upcoming A20 chip, expected to power the iPhone 18 series. Now, a new report details the chipmaker’s roadmap for bringing the chip into mass production, and the industry-wide rush to secure an early supply.
As reported by DigiTimes, citing supply chain sources, TSMC is set to ramp up its 2nm process in the next quarter, and has been charging up to $30,000 per wafer, a record high. Still, demand has never been higher, with Apple alone securing “nearly half” of production.
In order to meet this demand, DigiTimes says that TSMC has raised the planned monthly production capacity at its Baoshan and Kaohsiung fabs. Furthermore, with 4nm and 3nm production already fully booked through the end of 2026, the company’s profitability is expected to exceed prior expectations, even in the face of trade challenges such as tariffs, exchange-rate swings, and rising costs.
The report says that while Apple is slated to snatch nearly half of TSMC’s 2nm chips, Qualcomm comes in second, followed by AMD, MediaTek, Broadcom, and even Intel, in no particular order. It also says that by 2027, “in addition to NVIDIA, customers entering mass production will include Amazon’s Annapurna, Google, Marvell, Bitmain, and more than 10 other major players.”
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So, not Intel?
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AI ‘slop’ websites are publishing climate science denial • DeSmog
Joey Grostern:
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At the start of June, MSN, the world’s fourth-largest news aggregator, posted an article from a new climate-focused publication, Climate Cosmos, entitled: “Why Top Experts Are Rethinking Climate Alarmism”.
The article – by “Kathleen Westbrook M.Sc Climate Science” – cited a finding from the “Global Climate Research Institute” that “65% of surveyed climate professionals advocate for pragmatic, solution-focused messaging over fear-driven warnings.”
But there were a couple of major problems: the Global Climate Research Institute doesn’t exist, and nor does Kathleen Westbrook, whose profile on Climate Cosmos has now been renamed to ‘Henrieke Otte’.
The article accused those who advocate for climate action of overstating the harms caused by burning fossil fuels. It also promoted the work of Bjorn Lomborg, who has repeatedly called on governments to halt spending on climate action.
This piece was seemingly a breach of MSN’s “prohibited content” rules for posting false information, which MSN partners must abide by to access the aggregator’s huge reach of around 200 million monthly visitors. It was also posted on another U.S. news aggregator, Newsbreak.
Climate Cosmos only has a small pool of contributors, according to its website, yet pumps out multiple stories a day. To do this, it appears to be relying on the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
The first line of another piece, “What the Climate Movement Isn’t Telling You”, appeared to include a prompt – an instruction given to an AI platform.
It read: “I’ll help you write an article about ‘What the Climate Movement Isn’t Telling You’ with current facts and data. Let me search for the latest information first.”
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As much as anything, it’s the news aggregators which are the problem here. They aren’t careful about what they allow in, and there isn’t any sensible monitoring once sites do become part of the aggregate. (Thanks Ray L for the link.)
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 
I think it’s hard to underestimate the damage that making fake photos and video so easy to produce is going to have on society.
Once we can’t believe what we are seeing we will stop looking as what’s the point? The reporting with visual evidence of disasters and criminal actions by people or governments loses its weight and becomes easier to dismiss.
In decades to come, will Google, ArseBook et al be seen as companies that ushered in a new era of ‘Unbelieving’ and helped undermine civil discourse and democracy itself?
Might seem hyperbolic but I’m not so sure.