Our picksFrom Anti-Vax to Anti-Mask | Natural Disasters & COVID-19 | SF Nuclear Time Bomb, and more

Extremists Are Using Facebook to Organize for Civil War Amid Coronavirus (Tech Transparency Project)
Online extremists are using Facebook to plan and organize for a militant uprising in the United States as they cast coronavirus lockdowns as a sign of rising government suppression, according to a Tech Transparency Project investigation. A review by TTP found 125 Facebook groups devoted to the “boogaloo,” the term that far-right extremists use to describe a coming civil war. More than 60% of the groups were created in the last three months, as Covid-19 quarantines took hold in the U.S., and they’ve attracted tens of thousands of members. As of April 2020, the more than 100 “boogaloo” groups on Facebook had a total of more 72,000 members.

How Facebook Let the “Boogaloo” Movement Grow (Lois Beckett, Guardian)
Facebook on Tuesday removed extremist ‘boogaloo’ groups, but experts say the move is ‘too little, too late’

Google is Profiting from Coronavirus Conspiracy Sites (Tech Transparency Project)
Google promised to combat misinformation about Covid-19. But the company is making money off coronavirus hoax sites that use its ad tools.

From Anti-Vax to Anti-Mask: School Districts Brace for Parent Resistance (McKenzie Mays, Politico)
California’s anti-vaccine movement has a new target: masks. The same parents who loudly opposed school vaccine requirements in Sacramento last year are turning their attention to mask recommendations that districts are considering as they figure out how to send kids back to the classroom in the middle of a pandemic. The anti-vaccine movement has seized on mask orders and stay-at-home restrictions as similar infringements on their bodily autonomy and constitutional rights. Those arguments could complicate matters when school returns in the fall, as activists become a vocal force in opposing new mandates on student facial coverings and other preventative efforts.

British Judge Denies Venezuela Access to Gold in Bank Vault (AP)
A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela control of over $1 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault, ruling that it is unlawful to give it to the President Nicolás Maduro since Britain does not recognize him as the president.

When Natural Disasters Cross the Path of COVID-19 (T. V. Padma, Eos)
Natural hazards are intersecting with the coronavirus pandemic in India, and researchers will need to model both to inform the public health response.

The Bay Area Is Sitting on a Nuclear Time Bomb (Alan Kuperman, San Francisco Chronicle)
Quiet as it’s kept, close to San Francisco sits a commercial facility with enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon — on the scale of the bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. General Electric Hitachi owns the Nuclear Test Reactor in Sunol, between Fremont and Pleasanton. Like facilities at some universities, the reactor’s main activity is neutron radiography, which enables clients to look inside objects without destroying them. But this reactor contains at least 7 pounds of highly enriched uranium, the same material used in the Hiroshima bomb.

Connection Discovered Between Chinese Hacker Group APT15 and Defense Contractor (Catalin Cimpanu, ZDNet)
Lookout said it linked APT15 malware to Xi’an Tianhe Defense Technology, a Chinese defense contractor.