OUR PICKSNormalizing Hate | Weapons Deliveries to the Cyber Domain | Did al-Qaeda Die with Ayman al-Zawahiri?, and more

Published 5 December 2022

··‘Targeted’ N.C. Substation Gun Attack Comes Amid Escalating Critical Infrastructure Threats

Attacks resulted in multiple equipment failures

··Antisemitic Celebrities Stoke Fears of Normalizing Hate
A surge of anti-Jewish vitriolis stoking fears that public figures are normalizing hate

··Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find
Conversations on Twitter have changed since Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the company

··TamTam Deletes Channels Promoting Neo-Nazi Accelerationism and Terror
Russia-based messenger platform trying to clean up its act

··Cyber and Physical Threats Illuminate Need for Security Convergence in Energy Sector
Energy providers deal in the dynamic world of dispersed generation, distribution, and transmission operations

··The Benefits and Risks of Extending Weapons Deliveries to the Cyber Domain
Cyber weapons supplies could already be occurring in secret

··Did al-Qaeda Die with Ayman al-Zawahiri?
They failure of ai-Qaeda to chooses a successor to Ayman al-Zawahiri  suggests that the organizations is weak

‘Targeted’ N.C. Substation Gun Attack Comes Amid Escalating Critical Infrastructure Threats  (Brifget Johnson, HSToday)
Attacks resulted in “multiple equipment failures leaving about 45,000 customers without power” in Moore County; sheriff says attacker(s) “knew exactly what they were doing.”

Antisemitic Celebrities Stoke Fears of Normalizing Hate  (Michel Kunzelman, AP)
A surge of anti-Jewish vitriol, spread by a world-famous rapper, an NBA star and other prominent people, is stoking fears that public figures are normalizing hate and ramping up the risk of violence in a country already experiencing a sharp increase in antisemitism. Leaders of the Jewish community in the U.S. and extremism experts have been alarmed to see celebrities with massive followings spew antisemitic tropes in a way that has been taboo for decades. Some said it harkens back to a darker time in America when powerful people routinely spread conspiracy theories about Jews with impunity. Former President Donald Trump hosted a Holocaust-denying white supremacist at Mar-a-Lago. The rapper Ye expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving appeared to promote an antisemitic film on social media. Neo-Nazi trolls are clamoring to return to Twitter as new CEO Elon Musk grants “amnesty” to suspended accounts. “These are not fringe outliers sending emails from their parents garage or idiots no one has ever heard of. When influential mainstream cultural, political and even sports icons normalize hate speech, everyone needs to be very concerned,” said Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, a leader in South Florida’s Jewish community.

Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find  (Sheera Frenkel and Kate Conger, New York Times)
Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day. Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day. And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site. (Cont.)