Indy Digest: July 17, 2023
Good news: You live in an amazing age of information! Literally, almost everything imaginable—books, news, data, everything—is at your fingertips, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and much of it is free.
Bad news: You live in a terrifying age of information! It’s easier for bad actors—or, well, ignorant actors—to spread damaging falsehoods. And it’s getting more and more difficult for even the most discerning people to know for sure what’s real, and what’s not.
The Conversation today published a piece called “Events that never happened could influence the 2024 presidential election—a cybersecurity researcher explains situation deepfakes,” by researcher Christopher Schwartz. His lede:
Imagine an October surprise like no other: Only a week before Nov. 5, 2024, a video recording reveals a secret meeting between Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The American and Ukrainian presidents agree to immediately initiate Ukraine into NATO under “the special emergency membership protocol” and prepare for a nuclear weapons strike against Russia. Suddenly, the world is on the cusp of Armageddon.
While journalists could point out that no such protocol exists and social media users might notice odd video-gamelike qualities of the video, others might feel that their worst fears have been confirmed. When Election Day comes, these concerned citizens may let the video sway their votes, unaware that they have just been manipulated by a situation deepfake – an event that never actually happened.
While the scenario Schwartz discusses above is a hypothetical, deep fakes have already been used in scary ways in the real world. He writes: “In June 2023, Russia’s television and radio stations were hacked and broadcast a full mobilization order by a deepfake of Russian President Vladimir Putin. While this would be more difficult to do in a U.S. election, in principle any news outlet could be hacked to broadcast deepfakes of their anchors announcing the wrong results or a candidate conceding.”
Yikes.
It’s our collective responsibility to make sure that if we’re spreading information, especially on social media, we’re as sure as we possibly can be that the information is legit and accurate. Technology truly can be a blessing—and a frightening curse.
—Jimmy Boegle
Scheduling Note
Later this week, I’ll be in Dallas for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s annual conference. (The weather forecast: high temperatures around 105 with humidity! Ew!) As a result, the next Indy Digest will likely arrive in your inbox on Friday or Saturday. It’ll be a little late, but it’ll be there. Thanks for understanding!
From the Independent
Tools to Save Lives: A Disproportionally High Number of Riverside County’s Overdose Deaths Happen in the Coachella Valley—and DAP Health Is Working to Change That
By Jimmy Boegle
July 15th, 2023
While syringe-service programs and similar efforts were once denounced as enabling bad and dangerous behavior, the science is in—and the programs work.
No Hot Water: A Problem at a North Palm Springs Condo Building Sheds Light on a Lack of Protections for Residents
By Kevin Fitzgerald
July 17th, 2023
On May 16, the hot water stopped flowing through the pipes in Building L of the Palm Springs Villas 2 complex. What happened next illustrates how ill-prepared the system is to deal with disputes between residents and condo managers when something goes wrong.
Disco With House: Three Local DJs Work to Make Reforma’s Saturday Nights Pleasing to Any Dance-Music Fan
By Matt King
July 15th, 2023
Disco Inferno, at Reforma Palm Springs, features DJs Alex Harrington, Millionsworld (Mill Essex) and Sebas (Sebastian Lopez) blasting a mix of jams with a heavy focus on disco classics and remixes every Saturday.
The Girl Club: Meet Lynda Reid, a Teacher, Traveler and Life Coach Who’s Always Accepted Obstacles as Life Lessons
By Kay Kudukis
July 16th, 2023
Lynda Reid has achieved the highest degree possible from a prestigious university, sailed the Caribbean, never gave up on love, found it, and instinctively turned “failures” into learning experiences.
Behind Closed Doors? The Drag-Queen ‘Culture Wars’ Come to a La Quinta Neighborhood—and Bring up Questions About Transparency
By Cat Makino
July 16th, 2023
After Trilogy at La Quinta postponed an event hosted by a drag queen, a resident accused the HOA of inappropriately making the decision behind closed doors.
That Crazy Cruise: The New ‘Mission: Impossible’ Is a Blast That Deserves to Be Seen on the Big Screen
By Bob Grimm
July 17th, 2023
We now have a movie in which a major movie star jumps a motorcycle off of a freaking cliff, and parachutes on to safety afterwards like it’s no big thing. That’s worth the price of two admissions.
More News
• Scorching temps. Wildfires. Smoke. Welcome to our new summer normal. The Los Angeles Times notes that Death Valley recorded a record high for the date (128 degrees), and says: “And the hots will keep getting hotter as the burning of fossil fuels continues to heat the planet. Seven of Death Valley’s hottest summers on record have occurred in the last 10 years. … Several wildfires have broken out across California during the ongoing heat wave. … The Rabbit fire, which ignited Friday in Lakeview south of Moreno Valley, has burned 7,950 acres and was 35% contained Monday morning, according to authorities. Fire crews worked overnight to build containment lines but are still battling extreme heat, low humidity and steep terrain. The blaze is expected to be fully contained by Friday.”
• Related: The East Coast is again getting polluted by smoke from Canadian wildfires. The Washington Post says: “On Monday afternoon, Washington ranked among the most polluted cities on Earth, because of smoke sweeping over the Appalachians toward the East Coast. The Canadian armed forces and coast guard will head to British Columbia in the west after the Canadian government approved the province’s request for federal assistance, the government said Sunday. Canadian provinces submit formal requests for federal assistance when an emergency ‘overwhelms or threatens to overwhelm’ them, the government said, adding that British Columbia is ‘currently experiencing a challenging wildfire season.’”
• Our partners at Calmatters look at how social-media pressure revived a bill that would stiffen penalties for child-trafficking: “Lawmakers from both parties had made numerous previous attempts to reclassify human trafficking of a minor for purposes of a commercial sex act as a ‘serious felony,’ which would be treated as a strike under California’s Three Strikes law. … But then something strange happened after the latest effort went down. A backlash swiftly took shape on social media. Comments ranged from ‘What on earth were these Democrats thinking?’ to accusations that they were siding with pedophiles—and at least one Democratic member of the Assembly Public Safety Committee that quashed the bill reported receiving death threats. … So on Thursday the Assembly Public Safety Committee took it up again. And on the second go-around, it passed. Some progressive lawmakers have opposed toughening penalties for sex trafficking because they were persuaded that it would contribute to the over-incarceration of Black people, and needlessly extend already-significant prison sentences—costing taxpayers more money while demonstrating little public benefit. Opponents also have contended that harsher sentences may end up being applied to people at the lowest rungs of trafficking, who may be trafficked themselves.”
• A new prototype device detects the presence of the virus that causes COVID-19 in the air, in real time. Time magazine reports: “Researchers at Washington University St. Louis report in Nature Communications that they have (developed) a prototype device about the size of a microwave that can pick up signs of SARS-CoV-2 in about five minutes. Led by Rajan Chakrabarty, associate professor of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering, the team wanted to improve on the cumbersome process of relying on commercial air detectors that can only sample air and require additional PCR testing of the samples that can take as long as 24 hours to return results. The devices are also costly, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per unit. After three years, they have developed a device that they say performs even better than the commercial methods in lab testing, and could be scaled to cost a few cents per test.”
• RSV made the news over the winter when it ran amok and made a lot of people sick—and it’s the leading cause of hospitalization among children under a year old. Good news: There’s now a RSV vaccine for all infants. CNBC says: “Nirsevimab is the first shot approved by the FDA to protect all infants against RSV regardless of whether they are healthy or have a medical condition. The FDA approval of nirsevimab, sold under the brand name Beyfortus, comes ahead of RSV season this fall. … Another shot called palivizumab is already on the market, but it is given mainly to infants who are preterm or who have lung and congenital heart conditions that put them at high risk of severe disease. Nirsevimab is also administered as a single injection. This is a major advantage over palivizumab, which is administered monthly throughout RSV season.”
• And finally … the newest invasive species in Florida is … bunny rabbits!? Specifically, lionhead rabbits. The Associated Press reports: “(Alicia) Griggs is spearheading efforts to raise the $20,000 to $40,000 it would cost for a rescue group to capture, neuter, vaccinate, shelter and then give away the estimated 60 to 100 lionheads now populating Jenada Isles, an 81-home community in Wilton Manors. They are descendants of a group a backyard breeder illegally let loose when she moved away two years ago. ‘They really need to be rescued. So we’ve tried to get the city to do it, but they’re just dragging their feet,’ Griggs said. ‘They think that if they do that, then they’ll have to get rid of iguanas and everything else that people don’t want around.’”
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