Tag: ‘we’re
Facebook ‘influence operations’ run by Russia and China were shut down by Meta
![Meta](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/07F6E52UcFMGngb7nGHSuG9/hero-image.jpg)
As midterm season ramps up in the U.S., so does the online activity surrounding these elections. And according to Meta, it just shut down campaigns to influence them.
In a post published on Tuesday, Meta announced it had removed two unconnected networks tied to China and Russia for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” This behavior includes efforts to manipulate the platforms’ users, and attempts to obscure who is behind the Facebook pages by utilizing both real and fake user accounts. Such activity is prohibited by Meta on its platforms.
While the social media giant has removed similar influence campaigns before, these two specific networks seem especially notable. According to Meta, the China-based network was the first it had come across that targeted U.S. domestic politics. The campaign also targeted the Czech Republic for its support of Ukraine in Russia’s war in the country.
Ben Nimmo, Meta’s Global Threat Intelligence Lead, explained in a tweet thread that the network “played both sides of U.S. debates.” Nimmo explained that the accounts and pages that were part of this network would present themselves as conservatives by posting pro-gun and anti-abortion content. Then this same network would post content calling for gun laws and pro-choice policies.
Meta says the Chinese network failed to build an audience and of the few users who did engage with its content, some even called it out as “fake.” The network ran across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even two Czech platforms.
As for the Russian network, Meta says it was the largest influence operation it had discovered from the country since its February invasion of Ukraine. That campaign mainly focused on topics surrounding the ongoing war. It targeted users in Germany, as well as Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine.
According to Meta’s Director of Threat Disruption David Agranovich, the Russian operation used a combination of “sophistication (language skills, investment in spoof websites) and smash-and-grab social media tactics based on volume.” The campaign included more than 60 fake websites that attempted to impersonate some large European news outlets like The Guardian and Spiegel. These fake posts criticized Ukraine and supported Russia in the war. The network also utilized original memes and YouTube videos and posted across social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Telegram. The Russian campaign even posted links from LiveJournal, the blogging platform that was popular in the U.S. in the 90s. (LiveJournal was sold to a Russian media company in 2007.) It also shared links from petition websites such as Change.org and Avaaz.
While none of the social media accounts in the Russian campaign amassed more than a few thousand followers, Meta explained it was the “largest and most complex” known operation originating in Russia this year.
While neither the Chinese nor the Russian campaign seemed very successful, these influence operations are a look into what might be coming in the future. Meta has been removing Inauthentic Coordinated Behavior networks in Russia, for example, for years. Clearly, the bad actors behind these campaigns find them to be worthwhile.
RAF admits for first time ‘mistakes were made’ over hiring practices
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We’re getting more and more “short” games on Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus – and I couldn’t be happier
![](https://asset.vg247.com/Plague_Tale-Short-game.jpg/BROK/resize/1920x1920%3E/format/jpg/quality/80/Plague_Tale-Short-game.jpg)
I have just finished Deathloop on Xbox Game Pass. You may have already seen that I quite liked it – it’s stylish, sassy, compelling, and brings you into its world with little faff. It’s a lean experience; nowhere near as complex and unwieldy as the Dishonored series. And it takes you nowhere near long to complete, either. I think I wrapped up the Colt/Julianna storyline in a nice, easy 20 hours. Time enough to chew on it, digest the bits I enjoyed, and move on (Beacon Pines, I’m coming for you next).
As I downloaded this next quick completion, I read in Play Magazine that the upcoming alternate history jaunt of A Plague Tale: Requiem will clock in at under 20 hours, with Asobo Studio’s lead level designer Kevin Pinson noting that the game will run about 15-18 hours, depending on how you play, with ‘no filler content’ padding it out. As I read this, my internal monologue provokes that timeless Gordon Ramsey quote: “Finally, some good fucking food.”
I played A Plague Tale: Requiem at Gamescom, and I loved it. The way it combines stealth with tactical movement, light puzzling with the grim reality of surviving in a world inundated with the plague (oh, wait) all comes together in this tight, intentional game that knows exactly where it’s going. And how it wants to get there.
Harry and Meghan wanted Windsor Castle but were given Frogmore instead, new book claims
‘We’re making four Star Wars films’: The ‘Andor’ master plan
![Cassian Andor with two characters from his show and Tony Gilroy, inset](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/01Tiq0CDH94evanYC085MrJ/hero-image.jpg)
Charles Dickens may not be the first writer that comes to mind when you think of Star Wars. But that’s kind of what Tony Gilroy aims to change with Andor.
Like the famed Victorian author, Gilroy (of Bourne franchise fame) is splitting his narrative into chapters (in Andor‘s case, 24 of them) for wide distribution – but says he intends a novel-like narrative that will one day be ripe for viewing as one whole.
Dickens stories feels stuffed with characters, with roughly 40 major and minor ones in Great Expectations; Andor has 200 speaking roles in the 12-episode first season alone. Dickens deliberately drew his characters from all walks of life, high and low, and usually opened with his protagonist at the bottom of the heap; so too does Andor.
“It really is Dickensian,” Gilroy says. “Multiple characters, multiple plots, multiple intrigues; everybody’s adventure stories colliding with one another. The idea is to start extremely small, and we are going to get huge … you have a long way to go.”
Andor, Gilroy explains, “endeavors to be a 1,500-page novel by the time it’s done.” When Gilroy’s star and co-producer Diego Luna called Andor “different” and “smart” Star Wars, this is what he was talking about. But what he didn’t talk about was the sheer Death-Star size of the thing now emerging from hyperspace.
![Mon Mothma addresses the Galactic Senate.](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/01Tiq0CDH94evanYC085MrJ/images-2.fill.size_2000x835.v1663964331.jpg)
Credit: Lucasfilm
“We essentially made four new Star Wars films,” Gilroy says of the epic 12-hour Season 1. “And we’re gonna make four more.” Memo to every director attached to a potential Star Wars trilogy that hasn’t seen the light of day for years: Gilroy just casually leapfrogged you and will likely lap you.
He had toyed with the idea of doing five seasons, Gilroy confirms: one for every year between the start of the show and Rogue One. But that would be too much scale, even for him.
“At the end, you’re gonna go ‘wow, they would die before they could do this five more times,'” he says. Besides, “Diego would be in his 60s by the time we finished them” — somewhat older than he’s supposed to be in Rogue One.
Galactic scale
You can get a sense of the Andor scope widening in the first three episodes that Disney+ made available in the show’s first week, as the plot builds from Cassian’s family background and personal problems to (mild spoiler alert, but why haven’t you watched yet?) tense scenes of workers rebelling against corporate cops, who are as humorless, hapless, and brutal as any official in Dickens’ workhouses.
Luther Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) arrives in transit literally next to a classic cockney character, and becomes a very Dickensian kind of mentor to Cassian — mysterious, morally ambiguous — replacing his stepmother Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw). Maarva — controlling, stuck in a room — is an archetypal Dickens stepmom.
![Cassian Andor crouches behind boxes while his stepmom looks at him.](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/01Tiq0CDH94evanYC085MrJ/images-1.fill.size_2000x870.v1663964331.jpg)
Credit: Lucasfilm
As reviewers who have already seen episode 4 can confirm, next week’s Andor widens the scope even further. It’s no spoiler for anyone who’s studied the trailers that one of the intrigues to come involves Galactic Senator and future rebel leader Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly).
“And by the time we get to [episodes] 5 and 6,” Gilroy says, “it’s just like a full orchestra playing at that point.”
“To make it about Trump would be trivial”
Gilroy started writing Andor in 2018, slap bang in the middle of what we can now look back on (knock on wood) as the Trump era.
His is a story of struggle against a growing dictatorship — one that is being embraced by petty officials in the Corporate Tactical Forces (tagline: “the Empire’s First Line of Defense”) who dream of imposing law and order by rescinding rights and cracking skulls. Fiona Shaw has called it a “great, scurrilous take on the Trumpian world.”
But Gilroy straight-up denies that he was thinking about The Former Guy when he wrote Andor. Why? Because again, that would make his scope too small.
“To make the show about Trump would be trivial,” Gilroy says. “It’s not about politics at all. It’s about history. Nothing to do with the specifics of what’s going on now.”
Indeed, Andor never feels like it’s preaching, even in those “cops vs. workers” scenes. Like Dickens, who exposed the workhouses by showing not telling, Gilroy is an entertainer first. He’s simply showing us a parade of “real people” that feel universal, no matter what galaxy or historical age you’re in.
The corporate cops are surprisingly three-dimensional: Note how, for all their big talk, they freak out when they actually shoot a worker. Stormtroopers, these are not.
![An officer talks to his soldiers, who are unenthusiastic.](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/01Tiq0CDH94evanYC085MrJ/images-3.fill.size_2000x838.v1663964331.jpg)
Credit: Lucasfilm
“The five years we’re curating here are when the Empire is consolidating its power,” Gilroy notes. “We’re going to see that oppression and that squeeze come down in every variation, everywhere. The first one is on a corporate planet; [the Empire] will take the excuse of what happens and say ‘We’re nationalizing all the companies.’ They’re tightening up their supply lines. They’re passing all their versions of the Patriot Act in the [Galactic] Senate.”
By comparison to what the Empire is doing, Gilroy says, this corporate tactical force of meek little wannabe fascists will “look kind of sad at the end of days.”
Unusual characters abound at ground level in Gilroy’s galaxy. Some are figures of fun, but Andor is in deadly earnest. “We don’t ever stop and wink at the audience,” Gilroy says. “It’s a real, serious story about people under pressure as a revolution is fomenting.”
That’s a story many of us can get behind for many different reasons. Whether distracted modern audiences have the patience for 24 chapters of it, let alone a 1,500-page novel, remains to be seen.
But if Gilroy can successfully keep our interest through this parade of 200 characters? Well, that’s a top-notch entertainment outcome to please the Force Ghost of Charles Dickens.
The New York Post: Lawsuit claims women at Goldman Sachs were harassed, assaulted for years
Strictly Come Dancing’s Shirley Ballas reveals her favourite ever celebrity contestants – and they were not winners
THEY are the fab four who have the power to turn household names into dancefloor superstars.
Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke have their scoring paddles poised, ready to welcome the Class of 2022 to Strictly.
![](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/NINTCHDBPICT000761024926.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke have their scoring paddles poised[/caption]
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BBC One is preparing to launch the 20th series tomorrow[/caption]
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Felicity Cross asks the judges to reveal their favourite contestants, most memorable performances and dream dance partner[/caption]
As BBC One prepares to launch the 20th series tomorrow, Felicity Cross asks the judges to reveal their favourite contestants, most memorable performances and dream dance partner.
Shirley: ‘it’s not always the best dancer that delivers the entertainment factor’
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The fun-loving queen of Latin dance has a soft spot for comedy acts[/caption]
YOU would think that head judge Shirley Ballas’s favourite contestants are those with stunning choreography or impeccable footwork.
But the fun-loving queen of Latin dance has a soft spot for comedy acts such as clumsy MPs Ann Widdecombe and Ed Balls.
Shirley, 62, joked: “Anton Du Beke and Ann Widdecombe’s samba was just iconic. I also loved Ed Balls when he did Gangnam Style.
“I want people to understand that it’s not always the best dancer that delivers the entertainment factor, which is extremely important in this show.
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“Yes, it’s great to have talent and be co-ordinated, but I love the journey for those who cannot dance.
“I loved Ann and Ed for their banter, and they gave it 100 per cent even when they were scoring low scores.”
Shirley replaced Len Goodman on the panel in 2017 and swiftly won over the passionate fans of Strictly Come Dancing. But even decades of dance did not prepare her for the nerves.
She said: “I will go to my grave remembering that first day.
“The zip on my dress broke and I was perspiring profusely. I was more nervous for that than any World Championship I’ve ever danced in, because when you dance in a World Championship you are familiar with your audience.
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“Fortunately I was accepted and welcomed so warmly by the British public.
“I love having Anton, who this season I will be able to have a little waltz with, to my left.
“I have Motsi to my right and she has more energy than the rest of us put together. And on the end is Craig, who I adore.
“Strictly is a bit of Vegas, Hollywood glitz and glamour, glitterballs, bangles and beads.
“It’s just a thrilling show.”
Anton: ‘performing with Brucie was a real career highlight, I’m so grateful for that’
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Anton Du Beke is back on the judging panel for a second year[/caption]
HE’S back on the judging panel for a second year — but Anton Du Beke has revealed he is already suffering with “dance envy”.
The former New Zealand Championships winner, 56, is the only pro dancer to have featured on every series of Strictly since its launch in 2004.
But moving behind the judges’ desk last year brought new challenges.
Anton said: “I feel honoured to have been on the show since the beginning, and to now be on the judging panel.
“I do watch some of the pros do the numbers and get a bit of dance envy, thinking I wish I could have been a part of that. But judging is so much easier on the knees.”
Anton was a sprightly 37-year-old when the show began and now he is a married dad of twins.
![](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/99682387-4f1c-4145-90e8-cc41982dc505.jpg?strip=all&w=643)
Anton added: “I can’t believe, well I can really, that it has been going for so long and still we have a new audience coming to it every year, a new generation growing up with Strictly.
“I remember the first day I worked on the show, I was dancing with Lesley Garrett and nobody really knew what to expect.
“The most exciting thing for me was to be working with Bruce Forsyth, he was my absolute hero.”
In 2008, Anton performed a song and dance routine with Brucie, who presented Strictly until 2014 and died three years later aged 89.
It remains a favourite for Anton, who said: “We did Me And My Shadow together. That was a real career highlight and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.
“And the dance Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice won the Bafta for was extraordinary.”
Motsi: ‘I will never forget Rose and Giovanni’s amazing silent dance to Symphony’
![](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/NINTCHDBPICT000761024911.jpg?strip=all&w=686)
Motsi Mabuse’s dream dance partner is the late Nelson Mandela[/caption]
BOSSES might have a job on their hands recruiting Motsi Mabuse’s dream dance partner — because it is the late Nelson Mandela.
The former president of South Africa, where pro dancer Motsi hails from, died in 2013.
Returning as a judge for the fourth year running, Motsi said: “I would dance with Nelson Mandela if I could and I would have so many questions for him.
“I think because of him, we are able to realise our dreams today.
“I’ve fallen in love with musical theatre because of Strictly and that’s very special for me. As a child I wanted to be in the musicals, but I couldn’t have that opportunity in South Africa.”
Motsi, 41, replaced Darcey Bussell in 2019 after leaving Let’s Dance, the German version of Strictly.
![](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/guy-levy-bbc-pa-wire-697995132-1.jpg?strip=all&w=640)
Motsi will never forget when Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice danced to Symphony[/caption]
In her second year on the panel — as the nation struggled through a second lockdown — Motsi watched her pro dancer sister Oti, 32, win the Glitterball trophy with comic Bill Bailey, who is her favourite contestant.
Motsi said: “I remain and will always be a fan of Bill. Because of the timing, with the pandemic, and what he provided.
“I will never forget the time Rose did her dance with Giovanni to Symphony. That was unbelievable, just amazing, out of this world, moving and touching.”
Strictly’s return to Blackpool after a two-year absence due to Covid restrictions will be a big deal for Motsi, too, as she has only visited its iconic Tower Ballroom once before.
She said: “It’s so difficult to describe the magic of Blackpool, I think you have to be there to feel the atmosphere and see it.”
Craig: ‘I thought the show would last 3 weeks but it’s won the hearts of the nation’
![](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/NINTCHDBPICT000761024917.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Craig Revel Horwood has established himself as the sharp-tongued straight talker on Strictly[/caption]
DURING his 19 series on the panel, Craig Revel Horwood has established himself as the sharp-tongued straight talker.
So it is unsurprising his opinions can be biting.
The show veteran reckons the first series lacked talent — but that former Corrie and EastEnders actress Jill Halfpenny raised standards when she partnered professional Darren Bennett the next year.
Thinking about how Strictly has evolved, Craig, 57, said: “It’s got more spectacular, the sets have become extraordinary and the quality of dancing has gone up.
“Also, the contestants themselves treat it really seriously now, rather than it being a little bit jokey like it was in the first series.
“As soon as Jill Halfpenny danced, she set the bar for amazing dancing.
“Jill’s jive in the final stood out because she was incredible, it was the first ten that I ever gave.
“Rose and Giovanni and the moment of silence was just brilliant because she let everyone into her world so we could all understand it.”
![](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/contestants-jill-halfpenny-darren-bennet-3368364.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Craig reckons actress Jill Halfpenny raised standards when she partnered professional Darren Bennett in the second series of the show[/caption]
He added: “I thought Strictly would last three weeks but I was totally wrong about that. And it’s gone on and won the hearts and minds of the nation.”
During his time on the judges’ panel, Craig has sat alongside dance greats such as Arlene Phillips and Darcey Bussell.
But for him, there can only be one winner in a dance-off between judges: “Me. Obvs!
“I’m the only judge that has been there all 20 series, which is pretty amazing.
“I’m very much looking forward to it, I think it’s a fantastic line-up.
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“The pros are always amazing, they bring energy, they bring excitement, they bring knowledge.
“The four new pros will bring things that we’ve never seen before — something new.”