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The introduction of multichannel soundbars in the late 1990s was a seismic shift in the

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, handing a win to GOP states in a lawsuit accusing the government of going too far in its effort to combat Covid-19 disinformation.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino on Tuesday tweeted a defense of the temporary cap announced July 1 on the

A popular left-wing Twitter account with thousands of followers, which often went viral and provoked the outrage of leading conservatives, may have been a fake all along, according to online researchers, using a provocative posts to generation attention in a tactic known as “rage-baiting.” Erica Marsh, a self-proclaimed “proud Democrat” from Washington, started her Twitter account in September of 2022, and quickly gained more than 130,000 followers, sometimes netting over 1,000 followers a day posting her quick-twitch takes on the day’s main political news. Her messages often read like a near-parody of an over-the-top, out-of-touch progressive. In a 29 June post, reacting to the recent Supreme Court decision striking down race-based affirmative action in college admissions, she wrote, “Today’s Supreme Court decision is a direct attack on Black people. No Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system which is exactly why affirmative-action based programs were needed. Today’s decision is a TRAVESTY!!!” The tweet quickly caught fire online, provoking the ire of leaders like Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who told his followers, “I strongly disagree with this racist allegation.” However, despite her ability to win followers and stir the pot and attract online attention, Ms Marsh may never have been real, according to an analysis from The Washington Post. Ms Marsh doesn’t appear in phone or voting records, and past employers she claimed like the Biden campaign say they have no record of her. “I strongly suspect that this person doesn’t exist,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, told the paper. “It’s as if she dropped from the moon and arrived fully formed with this narrative that makes liberals look like idiots.” Twitter officially does not comment on press requests, and Ms Marsh’s account has been suspended. Before buying the social media site last year, Elon Musk argued fake accounts were a serious problem on Twitter, at one point threatening not to carry out his acquisition over the matter. Twitter said last July it removes over 1 million fake accounts per day. Fakes have been a persistent issue. In November, the company temporarily suspended its Twitter Blue subscription service, after users bought Twitter verification status and used it to impersonate celebrities, politicians and brands. Read More ‘Rate limits’ and Twitter chaos: What exactly is Elon Musk doing? Elon Musk supports eliminating voting rights for people without children Greg Abbott mocked after falling for hoax story about Garth Brooks being booed off stage Judge blocks Biden agencies from communicating with social media platforms Elon Musk supports eliminating voting rights for people without children Outrage erupts in South Africa over video of deputy president's security officers stomping on man

Global temperatures hit a record on Monday, underscoring the dangers of ever-increasing carbon emissions generated from burning fossil

By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday restricted some agencies and officials of the administration of

A federal judge has blocked key agencies within President Joe Biden’s administration from communicating with social media companies about certain online speech in an extraordinary ruling as part of an ongoing case that could have profound impacts on the First Amendment. The preliminary injunction granted by Donald Trump-appointed US District Judge Terry A Doughty in Louisiana on 4 July prohibits the FBI and the US Department of Health and Human Services, among others, from speaking with platforms for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” The ruling – which could obstruct the administration’s attempts to combat false and potentially dangerous claims about vaccines and elections – is a victory for Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri who have alleged that the federal government was overreaching in its attempts to combat Covid-19 disinformation and baseless election fraud narratives. Judge Doughty, who has yet to issue a final ruling, stated in his injunction that the Republican plaintiffs “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.” He did make some exceptions that would allow the government to warn platforms about national security threats, criminal activity or voter suppression. The legal challenge follows ongoing allegations from right-wing officials and Republican lawmakers that the federal government – specifically, Democratic officials – have conspired with “Big Tech” to silence conservative voices, a long-running conspiracy theory that proponents will argue is substantiated by the latest decision. GOP attorneys general in the case have accused government agencies of a “systemic and systematic campaign” to control speech on social media platforms that accelerated during the Trump administration and experienced a “quantum leap” under President Biden. Attorneys for the Biden administration have disputed such claims and warned that an injunction could undermine national security efforts, pointing to the programs developed among government agencies to combat disinformation in the aftermath of the 2016 election. The Independent has requested comment from the White House. Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who originally filed the lawsuit with Louisiana’s Attorney General Jeff Landry, called the ruling a “big win for the First Amendment on this Independence Day.” Though the case originated with those Republican officials, several additional plaintiffs added their name to the case, arguing that they also were unfairly targeted after spreading disinformation online. Plaintiffs also include vaccine conspiracy theorist and presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr and Jim Hoft, the founder of the far-right conspiracy theory-fuelled website The Gateway Pundit and a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by election workers who faced death threats over false reporting about them in the 2020 presidential election. This is a developing story Read More Twitter applies temporary reading limits amid ongoing problems with platform Biden renews call for assault weapons ban after ‘tragic and senseless’ spate of July 4 shootings Ex-New York congressman pardoned by Trump is planning to run again in Florida Suspicious powder found at the White House when Biden was gone was cocaine, AP sources say Biden renews call for assault weapons ban after spate of July 4 shootings Watch live: Joe Biden addresses National Education Association

Twitter said its temporary cap on the number of tweets that accounts can see each day has had

Facebook has lost a legal challenge at the European Union’s top court over a groundbreaking German antitrust decision that limited the way the company uses data for advertising

New findings have revealed that time ran five times slower in the early universe, after scientists published new research into quasars. A quasar is a luminous active galactic nucleus and studying them has allowed scientists to measure time. The variation in brightness of quasars from the early universe has been measured to determine time dilation back to a billion years after the Big Bang. Experts have found that there was an era in which clocks moved five times slower than they do in the present day. The findings come as a relief to many cosmologists who have been perplexed by previous results that have come from studying quasars. The discovery that the universe is expanding led to the theorisation of “time dilation” – the idea that time moved slower the smaller the universe was. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Professor Geraint Lewis of the University of Sydney, the lead author of a new study, said in a statement: “Looking back to a time when the universe was just over a billion years old, we see time appearing to flow five times slower.” He continued, explaining: “If you were there, in this infant universe, one second would seem like one second – but from our position, more than 12 billion years into the future, that early time appears to drag.” To measure the extent of time dilation, scientists turned to quasars, as they are able to measure their change in brightness over a period they can estimate. The most distant quasar that is visible is 13 billion back in time and can still be seen despite its far distance. Their brightness varies due to turbulence and lumpiness in their accretion disks. Lewis explained the phenomenon as being “a bit like the stock market”. He said: “Over the last couple of decades, we’ve seen there is a statistical pattern to the variation, with timescales related to how bright a quasar is and the wavelength of its light.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Gloria Dickie Monday, July 3, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National

The Android gaming market features outstanding gems that deserve a home on your Android phone