Kristina Collins didn’t know her photo was being used on Telegram. Over the past few months, an Instagram picture of Collins, a Texas-based doctor and dermatologist, has been used by scammers on the chat app to try to persuade people to buy false proof that they have been vaccinated against …
Read More »Taylor Swift, QAnon, and the Political Weaponization of Fandom
Taylor Swift remains inescapable. Tales of her reign are legion, as are her fans. Next to Beyoncé, her power and influence have reached heights so unbridled it’s almost unfathomable. Her Eras Tour made nearly a billion dollars in 2023, and the concert film of that tour has brought in nearly …
Read More »The Bin Laden Letter Is Being Weaponized by the Far Right
A number of users have posted TikToks in recent days that share parts of Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America,” where the deceased al Qaeda leader said the attacks on September 11, 2001, were justified. Posters used it to critique US foreign policy and have claimed that the letter …
Read More »Elon Musk May Have Just Signed X’s Death Warrant
Elon Musk may have put the final nail in X’s coffin. On Wednesday, Musk appeared to endorse an antisemitic post by user @breakingbaht alleging that “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” In …
Read More »The Truth About the Taylor Swift, Jets Game, Google Search Conspiracy Theory
Taylor Swift, as WIRED has reported in the past, rules the internet. She’s one of the most Googled celebrities in the world. Her search engine optimization, or SEO, in industry parlance, is on fire. She’s a Tumblr kid turned titan of industry (her Eras Tour, after it broke Ticketmaster, made …
Read More »The 15-Minute City Conspiracy Theory Goes Mainstream
Back in February, when a Conservative Party lawmaker in the UK’s House of Commons voiced support for the 15-minute city conspiracy, he was laughed at by his fellow members of Parliament. Now, eight months later, the British government is fully embracing the fringe conspiracy and placing it at the heart …
Read More »The Dark Economics of Russell Brand
There was a brief, strange moment in 2015 when Russell Brand mattered in mainstream British politics. With an election looming, the opposition Labour Party was trailing in the polls against a coalition government that was the very definition of establishment—led by an Eton- and Oxford-educated prime minister in David Cameron …
Read More »Unhinged Conspiracies, AI Doppelgangers, and the Fractured Reality of Naomi Klein
I was grabbing a drink with an old friend when it happened. I told her I was excited about an upcoming reporting trip to Vancouver, to interview Naomi Klein. My friend wrinkled her nose, as if the bartender had just farted. Then she asked why I’d give my time to …
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