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It has long been suspected that the Chinese government, as part of its effort to control the Internet within its borders, surreptitiously floods social media with fake posts written by a vast army of hired promoters posing as ordinary people. The 50-cent party, its called, because each fake post supposedly earns its author 50 cents.

The phenomenon has been talked and written about widely by journalists, academics, activists, other social-media users, but evidence for these claims has been hard to finduntil recently. In a study (to be published this year in the American Political Science Review) that has already prompted a startled response from Beijing, Weatherhead University Professor Gary King, the director of Harvards Institute for Quantitative Social Science, confirmed the suspicion: the 50-cent party, he says, is real, although much of the rest of what everyone believed about it is wrong. For one thing, the fake posters likely arent paid 50 cents. Most arent independent contractors: theyre government employees writing online comments on their off time, and theres no evidence they earn extra money for it.

More surprising, the purpose of these fabricated posts is not to argue with other social-media users, but to distract them. To perform the study, King and his two coauthorsJennifer Pan, Ph.D. 15, and Margaret Roberts, Ph.D. 14analyzed a trove of leaked emails sent between local government offices and the propaganda department in one county in southeastern China. A big giant mess of a dataset, King recalls, from which the researchers harvested nearly 44,000 fabricated social-media posts from 2013 and 2014. Across all of China, they calculated, that suggests about 450 million posts per year. In those King and his team read, 50-cent party members are not arguing with anybody at all, he says. They dont jump into fights when other users complain about the regimes repressions or corruption among local officials.

Instead, they change the subject. Theyll say, I woke up this morning and thought about how important our martyrs were to the history of China, King says. Or, What a beautiful day it is today. Lots and lots of theseand not just randomly. Theyll post them in big bursts when they need them. Kings team found large batches of fake posts turning up around the same time as crises, holidays, and other events that might stir up public action: the Shanshan riots in June 2013, the Urumqi Railway explosion in April 2014, Martyrs Day, Tomb Sweeping Day, Communist Party meetings to discuss national policies. Its almost like when youre having an all-out fight about something with your spouse or your kids, King points out, and you want to end the argument, and so you say, Hey, why dont we go get ice cream?

This findingthat 50-cent party members are less interested in controversy than in cheerleadingfits with Kings previous research on Chinas social-media control (see harvardmag.com/china-censors-13), in which he found that the government would ignore comments disparaging the regime or local leaders, while posts about organizing protests, or even pro-government rallies, were invariably censored. They dont care what you say or what you think, King says. They only care what you can do. They dont want people in the streets.

Last spring came an unexpected twist, when a Western reporter got hold of an unfinished draft of the 50-cent party research paper and called King with some questions for an article. King answered them and then, realizing that his research would be going public ahead of schedule, posted the paper on his website. The reporter published his article, and about an hour and a half later, another publication picked up the story; 72 hours after that, some 5,000 articles had appeared worldwide.

Thats when the Chinese government responded. In an editorial in the pro-government Global Times, the regime for the first time admitted the existence of the 50-cent party, King says, and attempted to explain to its citizens the reason for this public opinion guidance, which is their term of art for information control. Basically, the government argued that without such control, the country would fall into strife and chaos. And, King adds, they said that the Chinese people are in agreement about the necessity of this public opinion guidance.

As it happens, that was an assertion King could check. After the international blizzard of attention, there was enormous discussion on Chinese social media about the paper and the governments answer to it. So we downloaded all the posts commenting on it, King says. The finding? He smiles. Well, it turns out that the Chinese governments claim in their editorial is incorrect. Eighty percent of the people, at least on social media, think its not a good idea to be censoring and fabricating posts.

Read the original post:
China's Social-Media Smoke Screen - Harvard Magazine

Prudhoe Bay. (Photo courtesy of BP)

UPDATE Saturday, April 15, 5:30 p.m.:

BP is still struggling to contain anout-of-control productionwell on the North Slope, after a failed attempt to shut it downFriday night.Thewell continuedto vent natural gas Saturday evening, more than a day and a half afterBP first reporteda gas release and spray of crude oil.

Thearea near the well remained too unsafe forworkers to approach Saturday.But BP said flights over the areasuggestedthat oil from the well waslikely contained to the drill pad, and may not havereachedthe surrounding tundra. The companyconfirmed there havebeen no injuries, and no reports of impacts to wildlife.

The focus today is on developing plans to fully and safely secure the well, BP said in a statement.

Representatives from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), U.S. EPA and the North Slope Borough had traveled to Prudhoe Bay to forma unified command with BP to manage the response.

In a situationreportreleased Saturday afternoon, ADEC said it wastoo soon to pinpoint why BP lost control of the well.Butthe reportidentified two separate leaks in the well, and noted that the well itself had jacked up, or risen several feet out of the ground.

This is a continuing story. Check back for updates.

ORIGINAL STORY Friday, April 14, 5 p.m.:

BP is working to contain an out-of-control production well at the Prudhoe Bay oil field on the North Slope. The well is currently venting natural gas and has released at least some crude oil into the environment.

Listen now

State regulators say they dont yet know how serious the incident is, or what amountof oil or gas has been released.

In an emailed statement, BP said nobody was near the well at the time of the release, and there have been no injuries.

Regulators were still waiting for details Friday afternoon.

Its been spewing gas and some amount of crude, and some of its getting onto the surrounding tundra, Dan Seamount said. Hes a commissioner with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.We dont have any volumes yet.

Seamount said its been years since an incident like this took place on the North Slope. The drill site, DS2, is about five miles from the industryhub of Deadhorse.

On Friday afternoon, BP wasworking to depressurize the drill site to reduce the amount of gas venting from the well. Regulators said no workers werebeing allowed near the welluntil that happened, because of the fire hazard.

When a well has lost control, it becomes unpredictable, and we want to make sure that the people that respond to the site do so in a safe way, Ashley Adamczak, with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) in Fairbanks, said.

Adamczak said once workers are able to approach the well, the company and regulators will be able to get a better sense of what caused the incident and how much oil and gas was released.

BPfirst noticed the release at about 7:30a.m. Friday, according to a situation report from ADEC. The report said representatives of ADEC, EPA and the North Slope Borough wouldestablish a unified command with BP to develop cleanup plans.

But asof 4 p.m. Friday, there was no word on when BP expected to have the well under control. Seamount said it could be hours, or days.The company hadnt yet submitted a plan for shutting in the well to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for approval.

It sounds like the problem is going to be taken care of,Seamount said, adding after a pause: Not sure when.

Visit link:
BP working to contain well on North Slope - Alaska Public Radio Network

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Moments before George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old had him pinned to the ground, was beating him and had threatened to kill him, his father told an Orlando television station.

Robert Zimmerman, 64, of Lake Mary, told WOFL-Channel 35 that his son shot Trayvon only after the Miami Gardens teenager knocked him down with a single punch that broke his nose, then got on top of him and kept punching.

Trayvon also pounded Zimmerman's head onto a concrete sidewalk, Robert Zimmerman said, opening two gashes on the back of his head.

His account is very similar to what the Orlando Sentinel reported Monday in a story about the evidence Sanford police collected in the case.

"After nearly a minute of being beaten, George was trying to get off the concrete, trying to move with Trayvon on top of him into the grass. In doing so, his firearm was shown. Trayvon Martin said something to the effect of, 'You're going to die now,' or, 'You're going to die tonight,' At some point, George pulled his pistol and did what he did," Robert Zimmerman said.

A security camera video released to ABC News shows Sanford police walking a handcuffed George Zimmerman into their headquarters, but there are no visible injuries on his head or face.

He had been tended to at the scene by paramedics.

Trayvon was killed Feb. 26 in Zimmerman's mixed-race gated community in Sanford. Local police handcuffed Zimmerman and took him to police headquarters that night but opted not to arrest him. That has led to civil rights rallies across the country and launched a federal civil rights investigation.

Sanford police said they could not arrest Zimmerman because he claimed self-defense, that witnesses corroborated much of his account and that they found no probable cause to justify a charge of manslaughter.

Last week, Gov. Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor, Angela Corey, state attorney in Duval, Clay and Nassau counties. The case is now in her hands. She has not spelled out what she will do but has indicated she may make a decision about whether to arrest Zimmerman without empaneling a grand jury.

Zimmerman's father said his son is not a racist and that he is stunned by the amount of hatred he's heard from critics, who accuse his son of racial profiling and pursuing and killing Trayvon.

Robert Zimmerman said he and his family have gone into hiding.

"It's just amazing. Some people are being so hateful, and the people who are being so hateful know nothing about what happened," Robert Zimmerman said.

The screams for help heard in the background of one 911 tape, he said, are his son. Critics have said they were the cries of Trayvon, begging for his life.

Robert Zimmerman, a retired magistrate from Virginia, told WOFL that based on the evidence that he knows about, a judge would not sign an arrest warrantfor his son.

"If a law enforcement officer presented these facts to me and requested a warrant, it would absolutely be denied," he said.

The rest is here:
George Zimmerman's dad: My son fired only after Trayvon Martin th - Palm Beach Post

Today is Saturday, April 22, the 112th day of 2017. There are 253 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 22, 1864, Congress authorized the use of the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins.

In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.

In 1930, the United States, Britain and Japan signed the London Naval Treaty, which regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding.

In 1937, thousands of college students in New York City staged a "peace strike" opposing American entry into another possible world conflict.

In 1946, Harlan F. Stone, chief justice of the United States, died in Washington, D.C., at age 73.

In 1952, an atomic test in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television as a 31-kiloton bomb was dropped from a B-50 Superfortress.

In 1954, the publicly televised sessions of the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson opened the New York World's Fair.

In 1970, millions of Americans concerned about the environment observed the first "Earth Day."

In 1987, Joe Hunt, leader of a social and investment group called the "Billionaire Boys Club," was convicted by a jury in Santa Monica, California, of murdering Ron Levin, a con man whose body was never found. (Hunt was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 1994, Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at a New York hospital four days after suffering a stroke; he was 81.

In 1997, in Lima, Peru, government commandos stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence where Tupac Amaru rebels were holding 72 hostages, ending a 126-day crisis; two commandos, one hostage and all 14 rebels were killed in the dramatic rescue.

In 2000, in a dramatic predawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a custody dispute, from his relatives' home in Miami; Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.

Ten years ago: In the first round of the French presidential election, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Segolene Royal received enough votes to advance to a runoff, which Sarkozy won.

Five years ago: George Zimmerman was quietly released from a Florida jail on $150,000 bail to await his second-degree murder trial in the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. (Zimmerman was acquitted.)

One year ago: Leaders from 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change at the United Nations as the landmark deal took a key step toward entering into force years ahead of schedule.

Thought for Today: "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach." Aldous Huxley, English author (1894-1963).

More:
Today in History - Albany Democrat Herald

Sydney Shelton was horrified when her co-worker, Gerod Roth, posted a picture of her African-American son on Facebook with racist comments, and now RadarOnline.com has learned she is getting her day in court.

Judge Jeanine Pirros new legal show, You The Jury, is taking on the case in the second week.

You knew it was going to be a daunting task, attorney Benjamin Crump told Radar. (Crump represented Trayvon Martins family after he was killed by George Zimmerman.) If you dont stand up and speak for your children then no one else is going to do it.

PHOTOS: Tears & Tantrums! 9 Shocking Moments From Jenelles Jury Trial

When Roth posted little Caydens picture on Facebook in 2015 without his mothers permission or knowledge and called him feral, his group of friends chimed in with their own racist comments, including one writing, I didnt know you were a slave owner.

Crump is representing Shelton against infamous Casey Anthony attorney Baez. He told Radar that her emotions were real, fear for her child was real.

She sat face to face with the person who caused so much pain and it was very emotional. The emotions over took her. It was like real-life court.

You The Jury allows American viewers the opportunity to decide the verdict with a five-minute voting window and results aired live. Crump says that he plans to watch the show in his office with family, friends and co-workers and hopes for the best outcome.

PHOTOS: No Shame! Hot Car Dad Justin Ross Harris Laughs In Court As Jury Deliberates

I would tell you this: As a civil rights lawyer, it was interesting to me how authentic it was, going through the process, he said. It was very real.

As for why Shelton decided to take her case to reality TV, Crump said, If she doesnt stand up right now and try to tell her son its not ok to let people make you a victim of racism then no one will.

You The Jury airs at 9 p.m. EST on FOX.

We pay for juicy info! Do you have a story for RadarOnline.com? Email us at tips@radaronline.com, or call us at (866) ON-RADAR (667-2327) any time, day or night.

Continued here:
'You The Jury' Show With Jose Baez Benjamin Crump -- Fox News ... - Radar Online