FRIDAY PDB – Millions of internet users flocked to X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to monitor Hamas's assault on Israel. However, social media failed to handle the flood of false news, fake photos and videos.
DON'T GET YOUR NEWS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA.
Sequences from video games, fireworks displays and clips posted months and years ago are among the misinformation and conspiracy theories seen and shared by millions of people. “It's unlike anything we've ever seen before,” Achiya Schatz, executive director of the Israeli fact-checking NGO Fake Reporter, told Sky News.
False online content is not a new problem, but sadly it has reached exceptional heights during this conflict on Elon Musk's X platform, formerly known as Twitter.
Since buying the platform he has gutted the teams that battle misinformation, many deserved to go since they were obsessed with partisan domestic politics and censoring conservatives.
But Musk also fired the content moderation employees and Twitter's Trust and Safety Team, which applied “visibility filtering rules” to accounts from Iran, Russia and China to restrict those governments' tweets. Without visibility filtering, these state media accounts are now waging a misinformation war on Israel.
War in a time of informational chaos. It is often impossible, in real time, for outsiders to know what is happening in the war between Israel and Palestinian terrorists. This was true even before social media. But today countless people are plugged into a frantically churning news cycle, with all the propaganda and mass panic that entails.
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – Here's a roundup of today's other top defense stories from conservative national security expert PAUL CRESPO.
Not the President's Daily Brief, but almost as good – PAUL'S DAILY BRIEFING – the PDB:
ISRAEL'S WAR AGAINST HAMAS TERROR
Israel pounds Gaza and evacuates town near Lebanon ahead of expected ground offensive against Hamas. Israel bombarded Gaza early Friday, hitting areas in the south and began evacuating a sizable Israeli town in the north near the Lebanese border, the latest sign of a potential ground invasion of Gaza that could trigger regional war.
ALL FIRED BY IRAN-BACKED TERRORISTS – US troops thwart multiple drone attacks in just days. Hours after two separate drone strikes on bases housing U.S. troops in Syria, the Pentagon confirmed that the destroyer Carney shot down multiple missiles fired by Houthi terrorists in the Red Sea. U.S. forces downed several more drones earlier this week, starting with three drones threatening forces in Iraq on Tuesday.
POLITICS
TOO BAD – Rep. Jim Jordan will try again for House gavel, but Republicans won't back the hardline Trump ally. Despite deepening opposition, Jordan is expected to try a third vote to become House speaker, even as his Republican colleagues are warning him that no more threats or promises can win over their support.
LEFT-WING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PLACEHOLDER – Newly appointed California Sen. Laphonza Butler says she won't run to keep the seat in 2024. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Butler after the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
PENTAGON WOKE WATCH
NO TAXPAYER-FUNDED ABORTIONS – VA says it performed 88 abortions in the past year, but Congress again threatens subpoenas in pursuit of more details. The Department of Veterans Affairs did these abortions in the first year that it offered the procedure.
NATIONAL SECURITY
IDIOTS! – White House removes photo that appears to show faces of US special operators in israel. The Defense Department typically does not publish photographs with the faces of special operators.
Biden asks Congress for Israel, Ukraine aid in giant defense package. Joe Biden intends to ask Congress for nearly $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine and Israel amid heightened tensions throughout the Middle East.
Behind the curtain: Rattled US government fears wars could spread. Never have we talked to so many top government officials who, in private, are so worried about so many overseas conflicts at once.
HOMELAND SECURITY
Thousands of remote IT workers sent wages to North Korea to help fund weapons program, FBI says. The workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program.
CHINA THREAT
China more than doubled its nuclear arsenal since 2020. China's nuclear arsenal has more than doubled in the last three years, amid what a senior Pentagon official calls a “major expansion of their nuclear forces.”
LYING CHICOMS – China says US Pentagon report on nuclear warheads distorts facts. The report saying China will probably have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 was filled with prejudice and distorts facts, and China had no intention of engaging in a nuclear arms race, its foreign ministry said.
US Army faces logistics, alliance hurdles in the Pacific. Many civilian logistics contractors in the Philippines, a key U.S. ally, are likely too close to China for the U.S. to work with.
RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 604. The commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces said troops faced a renewed Russian onslaught in the eastern city of Avdiivka.
Ukraine targets Russia's big guns to blast a path forward. Kyiv's military has honed its systems for finding and destroying Russian artillery. But Russia is also adapting.
NORTH KOREA
GOOD! – Army private who ran to North Korea charged with desertion. Pvt. Travis King is facing charges including desertion and possessing sexual images of a child.
B-52 squadron commander talks up joint training during bomber's rare stop in South Korea. Maintaining the U.S.-South Korea military alliance cannot be achieved unless troops are routinely training with their counterparts, said the squadron commander of an American bomber that made a rare landing on the Korean Peninsula this week.
SPACE THREAT
Space Force finalizes plan for commercial surge capacity during crisis. The service has a plan for harnessing commercial satellite capabilities in times of crisis through a Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Russia's foreign minister offers security talks with North Korea and China as he visits Pyongyang. Russia's foreign minister proposed regular security talks with North Korea and China to deal with what he described as increasing U.S.-led regional military threats.
Carrier USS Ronald Reagan, Japanese warships drill in East China Sea. The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group conducted drills with a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force frigate in the East China Sea from earlier this week, and Russian bombers flew off the coast of Japan on Tuesday.
The US-Japanese-Philippine trilateral is off-balance. As geopolitical tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S.-Japanese-Philippine security trilateral is rapidly emerging as a potentially pivotal defense arrangement.
END of PDB
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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