The Facebook/WhatsApp stuff has me feeling like I'm stuck in an insanely boring Groundhog Day.

(short thread)

Me and @inigo_av interviewed Carlos Merlo, a fake news producer in Mexico, the week before their election in June. Not only had his operation been running for years. Merlo had been doing interviews bragging about it!

https://t.co/NuJmMTT1G7
Here's Merlo in the NY Times in May bragging about his bot armies and spoofed local news pages. He saw himself as a local Cambridge analytica.

https://t.co/tqSOypkMj2
On June 28th, TWO DAYS before the Mexican election, DFR Lab releases a report about Merlo. Within a few hours of DFR Lab's research and our story going live, Facebook effectively wipes Merlo off their platform. They ban a huge chunk of his network.

https://t.co/JJY26N0IBn
Except Facebook knew about Merlo for 6 months. DFR Lab is part of The Atlantic Council, who are partnered with Facebook. Facebook told me that Merlo had been in their own internal election report and they knew DFR Lab had isolated him as a problem too.

https://t.co/TO9t8FM0yF
So here we are now in Brazil. WhatsApp has been a massive problem for local factcheckers. Researchers built a public WhatsApp monitor. Only 8 percent of the 50 most widely shared images scraped by the monitor were truthful. It's a fake news swamp.

https://t.co/PO7568ZleI
The researchers behind the monitor pen an Op-Ed in the New York Times this week, essentially declaring WhatsApp misinformation a public crisis.

https://t.co/71c7fCipP4
What happens the next morning? Brazil's biggest newspaper releases a bombshell report alleging local marketing firms have been buying bundles of phone numbers and using them to mass-WhatsApp voters anti-leftist propaganda. Maybe for months.

https://t.co/IFdecTEdPu
That same morning WhatsApp's new CEO, Chris Daniels publishes a piece in the same newspaper, writing, "We have a responsibility to amplify the good and mitigate the bad."

https://t.co/mlJ3shXdC8
But what has Facebook been doing? They've been getting even tech outlet in America onboard with an embargo to publish tours of their "election war room"
Obviously, here in Brazil, the War Room tours mean nothing. The country just learned that marketing firms have been using encrypted messages to manipulate the electorate for god knows how long.

And what does WhatsApp say this morning?
https://t.co/gLQX0zHTpA
It's been almost two years since the US election, almost three since Brexit, and the only thing that seems to be changing with Facebook and their "family of apps" is the PR strategy.

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🌺श्री गरुड़ पुराण - संक्षिप्त वर्णन🌺

हिन्दु धर्म के 18 पुराणों में से एक गरुड़ पुराण का हिन्दु धर्म में बड़ा महत्व है। गरुड़ पुराण में मृत्यु के बाद सद्गती की व्याख्या मिलती है। इस पुराण के अधिष्ठातृ देव भगवान विष्णु हैं, इसलिए ये वैष्णव पुराण है।


गरुड़ पुराण के अनुसार हमारे कर्मों का फल हमें हमारे जीवन-काल में तो मिलता ही है परंतु मृत्यु के बाद भी अच्छे बुरे कार्यों का उनके अनुसार फल मिलता है। इस कारण इस पुराण में निहित ज्ञान को प्राप्त करने के लिए घर के किसी सदस्य की मृत्यु के बाद का समय निर्धारित किया गया है...

..ताकि उस समय हम जीवन-मरण से जुड़े सभी सत्य जान सकें और मृत्यु के कारण बिछडने वाले सदस्य का दुख कम हो सके।
गरुड़ पुराण में विष्णु की भक्ति व अवतारों का विस्तार से उसी प्रकार वर्णन मिलता है जिस प्रकार भगवत पुराण में।आरम्भ में मनु से सृष्टि की उत्पत्ति,ध्रुव चरित्र की कथा मिलती है।


तदुपरांत सुर्य व चंद्र ग्रहों के मंत्र, शिव-पार्वती मंत्र,इन्द्र सम्बंधित मंत्र,सरस्वती मंत्र और नौ शक्तियों के बारे में विस्तार से बताया गया है।
इस पुराण में उन्नीस हज़ार श्लोक बताए जाते हैं और इसे दो भागों में कहा जाता है।
प्रथम भाग में विष्णुभक्ति और पूजा विधियों का उल्लेख है।

मृत्यु के उपरांत गरुड़ पुराण के श्रवण का प्रावधान है ।
पुराण के द्वितीय भाग में 'प्रेतकल्प' का विस्तार से वर्णन और नरकों में जीव के पड़ने का वृत्तांत मिलता है। मरने के बाद मनुष्य की क्या गति होती है, उसका किस प्रकार की योनियों में जन्म होता है, प्रेत योनि से मुक्ति के उपाय...
The best morning routine?

Starts the night before.

9 evening habits that make all the difference:

1. Write down tomorrow's 3:3:3 plan

• 3 hours on your most important project
• 3 shorter tasks
• 3 maintenance activities

Defining a "productive day" is crucial.

Or else you'll never be at peace (even with excellent output).

Learn more


2. End the workday with a shutdown ritual

Create a short shutdown ritual (hat-tip to Cal Newport). Close your laptop, plug in the charger, spend 2 minutes tidying your desk. Then say, "shutdown."

Separating your life and work is key.

3. Journal 1 beautiful life moment

Delicious tacos, presentation you crushed, a moment of inner peace. Write it down.

Gratitude programs a mindset of abundance.

4. Lay out clothes

Get exercise clothes ready for tomorrow. Upon waking up, jump rope for 2 mins. It will activate your mind + body.

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I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991."
https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.