#bot network

[heritageposts]

An Israeli influence campaign is using hundreds of online avatars and fake social media accounts to attack Democratic lawmakers critical of Israel and promote news articles disapproving of the United Nations Palestine refugee agency (Unrwa), according to a report by the Israeli online watchdog, Fake Reporter. According to the report, the targeted campaign has used more than 600 avatars, sending out 58,000 tweets and social media posts to circulate articles published by The Guardian, CNN and Wall Street Journal, among other major news outlets that amplify Israel’s position on the war. The campaign relies on three major social networks, UnFold Magazine, Non-Agenda and The Moral Alliance, which were created prior to the war in Gaza. But the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel sent the accounts into round-the-clock posting. The sites, according to Fake Reporter, are geared specifically to a “progressive audience”, publishing content on climate change, AI regulation, and human rights, in addition to the war in Gaza. They have more than 43,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The avatars promoting the content talk up their identity with lines like, “As a middle-aged African American woman” and use hashtags like #FaithJourney and #AfricanAmericanSpirituality.

Some examples from the report:

And continuing,

The avatars were all created on the same day and their profiles were written with the same formula, subbing out just a few words. The declared gender and ethnicity of the avatars don’t match the profile photos, which have been taken from websites selling headshots. The campaign works to amplify news stories published by major media outlets. First, the fake news sites share the reports. Then, the avatars share them across social media, including on the official accounts of Democratic lawmakers. Avatars also shared social media posts showing video clips of what appeared to be Pro-Palestinian protestors calling for "massacres to be normalised" and calling for the US to "go to hell", contrasting that with peaceful protests of pro-Israel protestors.   In other cases, Avatars simply reshared widely published video clips of US lawmakers questioning the heads of Ivy League schools about antisemitism on campus.  [...] According to the report, around 85 percent of all the US politicians targeted by the campaign were Democrats, and 90 percent of them were African Americans. Ritchie Torres, a black Democratic Congressman with generally pro-Israel views, garnered the most social media engagement from the avatars. Other lawmakers targeted included Cori Bush; Lucy McBath; House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries; and Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. Israeli news site Haaretz reported in January that the Israeli government had launched an online influence campaign to respond to pro-Palestinian content and reports about Hamas.  It’s unclear whether the campaign revealed by Fake Reporter is part of that initiative.

. . . continues at MME (20 Mar 2024)

[whatudottu]

Introducing to you - made over the course of a few months - a visual guide to cybertronian pedipalps and proboscis!

The general gist and inspiration for such being of course the episode Thirst and the fact that, up until that point, dark energon did not have any mutagenic properties only (in the show) being utilitised to revive the dead. What if, instead of being a side effect of dark synth energon, dark energon just... reactivated dormant pedipalps (remnants of a more buggy pre-metamorphosis sparkling/protoform lifestage)?

A more comprehensive look is down below- and don't mind how it's exclusively 'Cons lmao :P

Starting off, I referenced CYLAS' canonical pedipalps to try and understand the shapes being used which resembles a lapping type mouth that bees have (so considering there is a tranformers character named Bumblebee it feels appropriate but he ISN'T HERE), let alone the flexible proboscis which I just made as a siphoning type from butterflies which; this is the wikipedia image I used to understand mouth parts :P

Breakdown himself wouldn't need to open his whole face in order to consume energon, given that he has an opening and closing jaw in addition to having the dexterity and power of limbs and a neck to not require lapping, but energon is still drunk through the proboscis like a straw.

Continuing onto characters that would NEED their pedipalps, vehicons and other faceless cold constructs (whether you have the belief every cold construct is faceless or they recently shifted to facelessness to save on costs) by technically did not metamorphose like forged mecha and thus their mouth parts have not gone dormant. Instead, their construction means they have not known anything other than pedipalps and proboscis, having no experience at all with facial expressions and thus not susceptible to phantom sensations.

Though their jaws do not have joints or at least do not have an opening to function like an enclosed mouth, vehicons still do have one on the basis of having a neck and a location to store their coiled proboscis when not in use.

Unlike other cybertronians - forged or constructed - empurata survivors have their heads and/or faces completely remolded and restructured where they do not have a functioning jaw. They have in it's stead a reconstruction of the original pedipalps formatted appropriately to the new head mould.

Monoptics like Shockwave do not have enough room in their helms to have a mouth-like structure at all, instead the neck is reconstructed to open with the pedipalps; the proboscis when fully extended appears longer in monoptics but that is due to the fact the opening is lower and closer to it's base. Nulloptics like Soundwave have their entire face replaced by their mouth, often covered up in seamless panels that give the appearance of a screen, up until the nulloptic actually replaces the panels to include the electronics necessary to protect and display visuals.

In average adult cybertronians however, the pedipalps remain dormant - at least in their use for eating - and are instead used to produce vocalisations alongside the proboscis (which still remains in use by function of the liquid energon diet), in addition to being used in expression in conjuction with the many servos operating within the faceplate. The reason why, despite the variety of things pedipalps can do now that they aren't being used to consume fuel, that empuratas and constructs cannot re/gain a face with the same ability and level of complexity of the average cybertronian is because of the hyperactive function of those very pedipalps.

Vehicons can - if they so choose - express visually through the exclusive use of their pedipalps, but factoring in a faceplate with all of it's own complicated servos intricately woven into each other, the faceplate lacks the ability to split along the seams of the pedipalps and would restrain their mobility and prevent the cold construct from refueling. Empurata have a similar issue with the addition of their lack of functioning jaws and their modified head structure preventing the synergy of a faceplate. Nulloptics' heads are functionally all mouth so the corresponding faceplate cannot have features for optics or ridges, and monoptics' pedipalp expression is on their neck and thus a faceplate that matches where the mouth in their case would be a very bizarre choker-

And that's all folks, hope you love my cybertronian pedipalps post :P

[freyadragonlord]

Every time I reread Network Effect I have to cackle for a good 5 minutes cause ART literally pulled a "I am SHER-Locked" with Murderbot's name and I CANT

[bookwyrmsbuttons]

https://bookwyrmsbuttons.etsy.com

[couldtheyescortelliewilliams]

Propaganda:

It’s literally designed to do stuff like this. Also it survived getting infected by a spore fungus thing before. Also it would totally get attached, despite how much it would claim otherwise.

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How would they have handled the Firefly hospital massacre:

Ngl probably the same way Joel did

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Do you want to submit a potential protector for Ellie? Click here if you do!

[charliebot-art]

>>SYSTEM COLLAPSE

photos taken moments before disaster, AdaCol1 is not having a good time!

[vikthetoonaddict]

Every Robot in CN City is too cheap to hire a babysitter, I guess. 😂

Poor Larry.

[elkian]

ALSO re: Network Effect, the bit where Murderbot realizes the thing sending a distress call almost certainly needs to be exploded with high ordinance and extreme prejudice,

and when that thing asks if it will help, it still says yes, with the narration reading "We were probably going to have to kill this thing, but that's no reason to be mean in the meantime."

AND THEN when shit starts going down and it's. It's upset. And you realize, like it says, that it considered these entities victims. Even the one in the process of trying to remove Murderbot's consciousness from its body and turn it into an eldritch horror. It's angry because it sympathizes with them and it can't not care about people and it knows what it's like, not having control over your own body or even mind while being told to kill people, maybe people you were trying to protect AUGH.....

[bean-8540]

She protec and attac-

[nixcraft]

The Dead Internet theory feels closer to reality with each passing day.

[nando161mando]

Either bots are taking on the identity of the fascist nazi elon musk or elon musk is butthurt about the amount of hatred we have for him on here, either way you aren't worth my time, efforts or insults, best to stay away you fuckwit!

[solosergiohd]

World's Evil Crossover

Zalgo trying releases all crossover villains like Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Tabuu, Galeem, Dharkon, Ansem: Seeker of Darkness, Xemnas, Master Xehanort, Glitch Darkness, Globulous Maximus, Announcer's Remote Control, Lord Fuse, Lord Vortec, Strike, Prometheus, Polygon Man, Cursa, and Space Bully Nebulax

[samuelyaboyy]

i made this one with just robots why tf not?? XD

crow t. robot gay bachelors! (JUST ROBOTS ONLY, I DON'T ADD HUMAN CHARACTERS)

who would you choose?

mine is bender from futurama

[bookwyrmsbuttons]

https://bookwyrmsbuttons.etsy.com

[puhpandas]

this is huge!!! the real gregory said he’d been trying to contact cassie all night, this is probably one of those times!!!!

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

your favorite of my favorites: A Book Poll

okay, i have now officially seen Just Enough open tags to override my vampiric need to be explicitly invited into things, so! here are my (current) Five Favorite Books for y'all to vote on, in order of Publication Date (and incidentally the order in which i read them)

shout out to @e-b-reads and @beardedbookdragon for the recent open tags! i am inflicting this on paying this forward to @asexualbookbird and @alloreli (who i warned), and to @sixofravens-reads (who i did not).