Factual Dispatch

While we may not be able to trust the administration when they say that ISIS has been destroyed on the ground, the West has been more successful destroying the social media wing of Daesh, Boko Haram, and other radical terror groups. This progress is striking given that in 2016, Wired was saying that we'd need to fight a totally new kind of war, with the MIT Technology Review agreeing wholeheartedly. There was a true feeling among researchers, even only a couple of years ago, that we could maybe lose the war of hearts and minds to devious social engineers working for terrorist groups. Fast forward a few years, with academic studies, tactical bombardments from the Air Force, and a campaign waged by all social media platforms and victory seems within our reach. It's very difficult to find ISIS, Boko Haram, or other Islamofascist content on the internet unless you know where to look for it and you can stay ahead of the bots. With the rise of networked international fascism, will the platforms engage in a similar targeted campaign to eradicate their content? Only time will tell.

In lighter news, I spoke about the Chinese "Study The Great Country" App in a previous Dispatch, and I'm happy to report that the kids are alright. While China has been known for its soul-crushingly brutal standardized examinations, it is also a recognized innovator in shockingly advanced cheating systems to get ahead on those exams. In the case of the Big Brother app, the optimizing has evolved hilariously quickly. Not only is the app being gamed hard, Gen Z & Millennial Chinese kids had to help their parents power-level on the app when they went home for the New Year holiday. Helping our parents figure out nebulous & garbage technology may truly connect us all.

Eye-Watering Data Visualization of the Week: Someone set up a dozen honeypot/fake trap things that hackers tried to log into, in an attempt to log the most common guesses. The top 100 usernames & passwords you shouldn't be using are:

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: Instagram made the "Super Bloom" of poppies in SoCal go viral, and the stampede of people trying to get a picture in the iconic wildflowers has consumed all available public resources of the city that administers Walker Canyon where they're growing. But then people just parked on the freeway after sneaking in. Because we're like locusts."Huh, Interesting" Read of the Week: There's a park in Siberia that's attempting to restore the tundra steppe ecosystem by reintroducing large animals and grazing patterns. If Putin gets a Wooly Mammoth before Trump gets his wall I think he wins the bet they made.Annoying-But-Correct Take of the Week: Without spending vastly more on moderators and community managers (which they could do, but probably won't do), Facebook, Google, and Twitter, are actually less able than we'd like to think to handle the 1million+ people attempting to upload copies of the white supremacist terrorist's video on social media they were forced to deal with last week.Dunk of the Week:

If you had one shot, one opportunity, would you grab it? Or just fumble the quote.T