Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images Mike ChiappettaFeatured Columnist IIFebruary 12, 2017

The thing about new is that it is supposed to be fresh, unblemished, perfect. And easy. New is supposed to be carefree and undemanding of its owners.

If only the UFC matchmakers had it that good.

After years of hemming on the idea of a womens featherweight division, the promotion finally caved and established a belt, but only after it was left in a lurch and with few other options. It was a reluctant undertaking, and the bungling of the booking left long-term ramifications that are still resounding.

At Saturday nights UFC 208 in Brooklyn, New York, the echo continued to reverberate.

Sure, the UFC finally crowned a champion when Germaine de Randamie defeated Holly Holm in a unanimous decision, but it was a moment that wasnt close to the positive it should have been. Instead, the organization was left with a controversial outcome, a falling star, a champion ready to sidestep her first challenger and a top contender still facing a potential performance-enhancing drug violation.

These three women are the entirety of a division, meaning the division is in total and complete disarray.

First things first.

Holm may end up being the biggest story of the night after suffering her third straight defeat. Once a clear golden girl heir to Ronda Rousey, Holm has lost every bit of momentum she earned on that legendary night in Melbourne, Australia.

One year ago at this time, Holm was on top of the world. A few months removed from that shocking knockout over Rousey, she had upped her profile with a series of appearances on major media shows. She was on the verge of following Rousey into superstardom.

Better yet, she assured the fight world that fighting was her life, that nothing would distract her from her focus.

But then she faced a stunner of her own, submitting to Miesha Tate late in a fight she had been handily winning, before losing an uninspired decision to Valentina Shevchenko last July. The stretch marked the first two-fight losing streak of her combat sports career.

On Saturday, she wasnt completely outclassed by De Randamieand in fact, she had the fights most significant strike, a straight left that dropped De Randamie to her knees in the fifth. But for at least the early part of the five-rounder, Holm had trouble finding her opponent and ate stiff counter strikes for her trouble.

Time after time, Holm failed in her takedown triesshe went a woeful 0-of-9, according to FightMetricand the inability to meaningfully threaten De Randamie there limited her offense.

The decision was controversial, but that it ends like this, at the hands (and feet) of De Randamie, is as big a surprise. As a UFC entity, the Dutch fighter wasnt anonymous, but she wasnt far off. Despite a stunningly successful kickboxing career, her time as a mixed martial artist had been mostly inconsistent.

Until now, she had been unable to translate her mythical 37-0 kickboxing background to the cage in any kind of reliable manner, particularly against fighters who would not be scared off by what she had accomplished in the past. Most times she had stepped up to experienced competition she either struggled (split-decision win over Julie Kedzie) or lost (Amanda Nunes).

As a result, she had never even established herself as a serious title threat as a bantamweight.

Even Saturday, she needed a bit of help. At the end of the second round, De Randamie and Holm were exchanging, and a moment after the horn sounded to signify the close of action, she fired off a right hand that wobbled Holm.

Incensed, Holms corner called for a point deduction, but referee Todd Anderson took no action. The next round, the same situation, another De Randamie right hand after the bell.

Again, Holms corner demanded a point be taken away, but Anderson instead issuing a warning.

Had he followed through on a deduction, the fightwhich all three judges scored 48-47would have been ruled a draw.

It was in [the] heat of [the] moment, I apologize, De Randamie said. The first time [the ref] said it was on the buzzer, it wasnt late. It was in the heat of [the] moment. I apologize. Im not like that.

That was certainly of little comfort to Holm.

You look at the scoring, and you look at what the ref has to do, and yes, that could have changed the whole way the fight went, Holm said. But I look at what I could have done differently, and it could have changed the fight, too.

The matchup was a strange one from the get-go. After years of flirting with longtime featherweight queen Cris Cyborg Justino, the UFC signed her and asked her to go through multiple weight cuts in trying to push her toward 135. Justino never made it all the way down to the bantamweight limit, but her efforts went in vain after the UFC booked a featherweight title fight without her.

To be fair, the promotion did try to include Justino in the inaugural pairing, but after she asked for an extra month to recover from her difficult September 2016 weight cut, the UFC balked and quickly moved on without her.

For those that pay attention to such developments, it immediately put a fugazi stamp on the UFC 208 proceedings.

Now, De Randamie is the champion, but what does it mean? There may not be a single MMA fan alive who thinks she is the best womens featherweight on earth. Not one. Even if Justino comes with a caveat, and even if its a huge one, she has been too good for too long to ignore.

So the UFC is effectively asking fans to live in a world of make believe where this belt isnt just a place-holder.

Adding a degree of difficulty to that is De Randamie herself. Just seconds after winning, UFCannouncer JoeRogan asked herabout the possibility of facing Cyborg, who happened to be in attendance.

You know, I want to fight everybody, the Dutch fighter said. If shes the one I have to fight, Ill fight her. Right now I need surgery on my hand, so Ill get surgery.

She went on to say that this surgery was something she really needed, saying she had broken her hand. That sounded reasonable until she explained that shed injured it against Larissa Pacheco. Two years ago.

And so, while the UFC would like to say the stage is set for what comes next, thats not even close to the case. Its bad enough that Cyborg has to address her problems with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to get eligible again, and that she could be facing a suspension; now, suddenly, De Randamie is ready to disappear for a while. And Holm? Shes not completely out of the mix, but shes fading fast.

It's rare that something so new is so problematic, but for the UFC, the start of the featherweight division was a nightmare kind of night.

Excerpt from:

Holly Holm Loses, De Randamie Sidesteps Cyborg and Featherweights in Disarray - Bleacher Report

The Russians hacked the Super Bowl last Sunday.

Thats right, you read it here first. I have long maintained that Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, is a cyborg. Now, I believe he is a cyborg built in a secret underground KGB lab in Siberia. It should be obvious to everyone by now that Tom Brady is not a normal human being. An unimpressive sixth-round draft pick in 2000, he somehow became the starting quarterback for the Patriots his second year and immediately led them to a Super Bowl victory. He has been the starter ever since and is now 39 years old. The average career length for quarterbacks is less than four and a half years. Brady has been playing for seventeen which proves he is not completely human. Yes, I know George Blanda and Brett Favre played longer, but they didnt play as well at age 39 and, of course, Blanda and Favre may have been cyborgs also. Quarterbacks that are actually human start to decline in throwing ability in their later year s witness Peyton Manning. Not cyborg Brady. He just finished the 2016 season with a pass completion rate of 67.4 percent. Only once in his career did he do better and that was in 2007. Like any well-built cyborg, he does not age. It was recently revealed that he wears special pajamas at night that supposedly rejuvenates his body more quickly while he sleeps. I suspect that, in reality, these pajamas are designed to recharge his cyborg batteries while he sleeps at night.

Last Sunday, Brady the Cyborg, led his team to a victory after being down by an insurmountable 25 points midway through the third quarter. No team had overcome a score deficit of more than 10 points in a Super Bowl and still won the game.

The last one to do that was, of course, Brady. I predicted last month that during the Super Bowl, Atlanta Falcons edge rusher Dwight Freeney would sack Brady, causing his head to come off, and proving Brady was a cyborg. Well, Freeney did sack Brady, but his head didnt come off--at least not right away. After the epic overtime win by the Patriots, you may have seen Brady hunched over on the field, seemingly overcome with emotion, while a protective mob surrounded and screened him from onlookers. He wasnt overcome with emotion. His head, loosened by Freeney, had fallen off as he walked off the field and the Brady-cyborg was on his hands and knees trying to find it. Thus, I think I have fairly well proven that Brady is a cyborg. What we didnt know, until now, is the Russian connection. Using my unique investigative journalistic skills, I began to connect the dots on the Russian deal when it was revealed after the game that someone had stolen Tom Bradys game jersey. There can be only one explanation. The jersey was stolen for Vladimir Putin the Russian president with the KGB eyes. Way back in 2005, after the Patriots had just defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, Patriots owner Robert Kraft was in Russian on a business trip with a friend. Krafts friend urged him to show his Super Bowl ring to Putin. Putin put the ring on and weirdly remarked that he could kill someone with it. When Kraft asked for the ring back, Putin put it in his pocket and walked out of the room surrounded by a KGB escort. Kraft was afterwards strongly urged by the White House to say it was a gift to the Russian president.Krafts Super Bowl ring wasnt a gift, it was part of a payment. The New England Patriots needed a way to pay the Russians for the Brady-cyborg that wouldnt be detected by congress. Clearly, the ring and the jersey were the cost of creating the Brady-cyborg. We already know about the friendship between President Trump and the KGB cyborg Tom Brady. Although President Trump was not at the Super Bowl, Vice President, Mike Pence was. I suspect Pence managed to steal Bradys jersey and give it to President Trump so he could complete the payment and buy Putins silence about Brady being a KGB cyborg. Well know its all true when Putin wears the jersey and the ring the next time he poses for some of his macho-man photos while riding a bear or a lion or something. At least he wont be bare-chested this time. You are probably pretty amazed by now that I was able to put all this together. But, really, how else can you explain what happened last Sunday? Nobody comes back from a 25-point deficit in a Super Bowl. Nobody human, that is. Just because Im crazy doesnt mean KGB cyborgs arent stealing our Super Bowls.

Excerpt from:

Russian cyborg stole the Super Bowl - Sierra Vista Herald

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is evaluating a retroactive therapeutic-use exemption requested by Cristiane Justino, and both her attorney and UFC President Dana White are optimistic about a positive resolution.

Justinos legal rep, prominent anti-doping attorney Howard Jacobs, said today theres no concrete timeline for a decision from the UFCs anti-doping partner. But he was encouraged by a recent request for additional information on the TUE application, which would allow Cyborg to avoid a one-year suspension and resume fighting.

Usually when you submit a TUE, its either granted, or its denied, or its denied and incomplete, Jacobs told MMAjunkie. In this case, the specifics of the questions they asked was a little out of the ordinary, and were cautiously optimistic by the types of questions they asked.

According to UFC anti-doping rules, Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) and her team will need to prove she needed the medical treatment and that there was insufficient time to submit a TUE due to exceptional circumstances, or if USADA determines fairness requires the grant of a retroactive TUE.

Justino was placed on temporary suspension after an out-of-competition drug test conducted Dec. 22, 2016, revealed the presence of spironolactone, a diuretic that has legitimate medical uses as well as being a banned substance that could potentially mask performance-enhancing drugs.

Then the Invicta FC featherweight champ and a catchweight UFC fighter, Justino denied PED use after news of her positive test, and her reps claimed she took the drug was prescribed to her by her personal doctor to treat complications from a severe weight cut she undertook to fight Lina Lansberg this past September at UFC Fight Night 95.

After the positive test, White implied Justinos refusal of three separate offers to fight for the inaugural UFC womens featherweight title could be linked to the positive test. But speaking today to ESPN.com, he expressed full support for the fearsome Brazilian fighter.

The drug that she had taken, she should have immediately let USADA know about it, he said. But its legit. She legitimately has these three separate issues, and thats what that drug is used for. The doctors are saying it, and its looking good for her. I like it a lot.

With ex-bantamweight champ Holly Holm (10-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) and Germaine de Randamie (7-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC) fighting Saturday at UFC 208 for the inaugural featherweight title, White said he could see Justino returning to challenge for the belt in the summer.

And you have (womens bantamweight champ) Amanda Nunes obviously, shes got to defend her title a few times, at least and shes saying shed like to move up and fight for that title, too, he said. Its getting interesting, and its all a work in progress.

Jacobs declined to speculate on the outcome of the application, noting it is generally harder to obtain a retroactive TUE than a regular one. But he said Justinos team has provided as much information as possible to prove she needed the former.

For more on the UFCs upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

Here is the original post:

UFC president hopeful of 'Cyborg' Justino return while USADA ... - MMAjunkie.com

by Danny Zepeda | February 11, 2017

Other than a few rumors about thepossible villain, we dont really know too much about Justice League. But in the slow build up to the movies release this November, were getting more information, and the latest bit of news comes from director Zack Snyder. He confirmed in the latest issue of Total Film that Cyborg is indeed a Mother Box.

The Mother Boxes are mysterious artifacts that are essentially powerful supercomputers and posses incredible powers. From comic book lore, there are three that are used in conjunction to draw their mystical powers.

You might remember in the scene from Batman v. Superman that reveals a few of the meta-humans, including Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman. In the Cyborg scene, you can see his father give Ray Fishera strange morphing box that brings him to life and builds his cyborg suit. Apparently, this is one of the three Mother Boxes.

You might also remember in the deleted scene featuring Steppenwolf, he is holding three mysterious boxes. Those are the three Mother Boxes together.

This isnt completely breaking news. Snyder revealed in the past that the Cyborg scene in Batman v. Superman was the first sighting of a Mother Box.

Cyborg will be one of the Mother Boxes, but what about the other two? No word on the fate of those boxes, but we might learn more once Wonder Woman and Justice Leaguehits theaters later this year.

Rumors of Steppenwolf playing the villain in Justice Leagueconnects nicely with the Mother Boxes. These may very well be the driving force for his arrivalon Earth. There have also been rumors of a possible flashback scene in Justice League showing Darkseids defeat 30,000 years ago, which might allude to why humans are in possession of one of the boxes.

See the rest here:

Justice League director confirms major Cyborg secret - TechnoBuffalo

NEW YORK -- UFC president Dana White on Friday told ESPN he's encouraged that female mixed martial artist Cris "Cyborg" Justino, who faces a one-year suspension, will be granted a retroactive therapeutic-use exemption for using a banned substance.

The future has been uncertain for Justino (17-1) after she tested positive for spironolactone, a banned substance, in December. However, Justino has claimed innocence under the UFC's antidoping program, stating a doctor had prescribed the medication, and she has applied for the exemption.

"It's actually looking really good now," White said. "Apparently, the three [medical conditions] she has is what this medicine is used for. It's looking really good. It was looking bad for a minute, but now it's looking better. We're in a good place."

Justino's attorney Howard Jacobs, who has represented the UFC's Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar in failed drug tests, confirmed the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has requested additional information regarding Justino's case, which, Jacobs said, suggests the exemption is being considered.

"Just yesterday we submitted further details in response to the questions that were posed to us, and Cris appreciates they are giving her case a thorough review," Jacobs said. "We're hoping to have a resolution soon.

"We're encouraged by the questions they've asked. If these requests are not granted, you typically get a generic denial. This response was very focused on specific things they were asking for. So, it's encouraging."

Any positive news for Justino would be a lift for the UFC, as it would clear her path for an obvious 145-pound title fight against the winner of Saturday's first-ever female featherweight championship bout between Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208 in New York.

Both Holm (10-2) and de Randamie (6-3) have expressed interest in eventually returning to the 135-pound weight class, but White said he's confident the winner will defend the title against Justino, who has won 15 consecutive fights via knockout.

"We'll have to see, but why would you not want to face Cris Cyborg?" White said. "Especially if you're Holly, you've already held that title. You had 18 titles in boxing. If she could go in and beat Cris Cyborg, you know?"

Read the original post:

Cris 'Cyborg' Justino 'looking really good' to get exemption for banned substance - ESPN (blog)

Toronto Sun

UFC 208 main event is good but should have featured Cyborg Toronto Sun If the UFC was finally going to add a 145-pound belt for women, Cris 'Cyborg' Justino sort of needed to be in the first title fight. She's only dominated all of her competition for the better part of a decade, after all. For some, Justino's absence has ... UFC fighter Cris 'Cyborg' Justino is a big draw, but is facing a possible drug suspensionLos Angeles Times Is 'Cyborg' Justino destined to be the Phantom of Brooklyn at UFC 208?MMAjunkie.com UFC 208: Cris Cyborg Justino's shadow looms over inaugural women's featherweight division fightNewsday Yahoo Sports -Bleacher Report all 591 news articles »

See more here:

UFC 208 main event is good but should have featured Cyborg - Toronto Sun

Forbes

Conor McGregor Vs Anderson Silva, Ronda Rousey Vs Cyborg & 5 MMA Super-Fights That Will Never Happen Forbes In the Wild West that is MMA matchmaking, never say never is typically the law of the land. Particularly in today's money-hungry climate, where the sport's most talked about matchup is one taking place in a boxing ring instead of a cage, ruling out ... UFC 209: Fired Up Tony Ferguson puts McGregor, Khabib and Aldo on Blast!YouTube all 114 news articles »

Go here to read the rest:

Conor McGregor Vs Anderson Silva, Ronda Rousey Vs Cyborg & 5 MMA Super-Fights That Will Never Happen - Forbes

RONDA ROUSEY will never do battle with Cristiane Justino, according to UFC commentator Joe Rogan.

GETTY

Rousey's mixed martial arts future is currently in major doubt following her devastating first-round TKO loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207, her second defeat on the bounce.

Many in the MMA world have speculated that the manner in which Rousey was so easily dispatched could send her into retirement.

RONDA ROUSEY was battered by Amanda Nunes in her long-awaited UFC comeback bout - here are some of the best pictures from the fight.

1 / 11

Ronda Rousey's defeat to Amanda Nunes: The best pictures

If so, that would leave fans wondering how a fight with her and Justino, who is more commonly referred to as 'Cyborg', would've played out.

Last week, Rogan was asked about the possibility of Rousey taking on the reigning Invicta FC featherweight champion in Japan and claimed there's no way in hell that fight would ever come to fruition.

I dont think Ronda would ever do that

"I dont think Ronda would ever do that," he said during a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast

"First of all, I dont think contractually fight outside of the UFC and I dont think she would fight outside of the UFC.

GETTY

"And I definitely dont think shed fight Cyborg. I dont think shed do that anyway.

"First of all, Cyborg is probably walking around north of of 190lbs. And Im not exaggerating."

JRE / YOUTUBE

Rousey has yet to make adecision on her fighting future, but UFC president Dana White believes the 30-year-old's fighting days are over.

Original post:

Ronda Rousey would never ever fight Cris Cyborg - UFC commentator Joe Rogan - Daily Star

Daniel John Sobieski, 68, climbed the stairs ofhis modest brick home in Chicago and settled into a worn leather chair for another busy day of tweeting. But he needn't have bothered. As one of the America's most prolific conservative voices on Twitter, he already had posted hundreds of times this morning as he ate breakfast, as he chatted with his wife, even as he slept and would post hundreds of times more before night fell.

The key to this frenetic pace was technology allowing Twitter users to post automatically from queues of pre-written tweets that can be delivered at a nearly constant, round-the-clock pace that no human alone could match. In this way, Sobieski a balding retiree with eyes so weak that he uses a magnifying glass to see his two computer screens has dramatically amplified his online reach despite lacking the celebrity or the institutional affiliations that long have helped elevate some voices over the crowd.

Play Video Don't Play

Play Video Don't Play

Previous slide Next slide

Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald says a malicious message sent by a Trump supporter on Twitter was designed to trigger an epileptic seizure.

Play Video Don't Play

US President Donald Trump said during a surprise visit with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Florida that he was considering "a brand new order" that could be issued as soon as Monday or Tuesday.

Play Video Don't Play

France's presidential election campaign lurched deeper into uncertainty on Tuesday after centrist Emmanuel Macron was forced to deny an extramarital affair while financial scandal continued to dog conservative rival Francois Fillon.

Play Video Don't Play

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he and President Donald Trump have confirmed their will to build a free and fair market based on rules, following Trump's decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Play Video Don't Play

Rescuers race to save hundreds of pilot whales at New Zealand's picturesque Golden Bay in one of the country's largest recorded mass strandings.

Play Video Don't Play

President Donald Trump was handed another legal defeat on Thursday when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to uphold a lower court's decision to block his controversial travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Play Video Don't Play

A federalappealscourt refused Thursday to reinstate President Donald Trump's ban on travellers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, dealing another legal setback to the new administration's immigration policy.

Play Video Don't Play

Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer referred to a mysterious Atlanta terrorist attack when justifying the travel ban, but the White House says he "clearly meant Orlando".

Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald says a malicious message sent by a Trump supporter on Twitter was designed to trigger an epileptic seizure.

"To me," Sobieski said, "it's kind of like a high-tech version of the old-fashioned soap box."

Today's digital soapboxes are little like the old-fashioned kind. Researchers have documented the power of automation technology to magnify some points of view while drowning out others.

Much of that research has focused on "bots," accounts programmed to follow instructions, such as automatically replying to tweets from other accounts. But Sobieski exemplifies the growing popularity of a variation, called "cyborgs," that mix human creativity and initiative with a computer's relentless speed, allowing their views to gain audience while sidestepping the traditional gatekeepers of news and commentary.

Sobieski's two accounts, for example, tweet more than 1000 times a day using "schedulers" that work through stacks of his own pre-written posts in repetitive loops. With retweets and other forms of sharing, these posts reach the feeds of millions of other accounts, including those of such conservative luminaries as Fox News's Sean Hannity, GOP strategist Karl Rove and republican SenatorTed Cruz, according to researcher Jonathan Albright.

"It's like a giant megaphone," said Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University, in North Carolina, whose research singled out Sobieski's accounts as having unusual reach.

When Albright studied the most prolific Twitter accounts during the final two weeks of the US election, he found that all of the top 20 appeared to support Trump. Among accounts using major pro-Trump hashtags such as "#MAGA," for "Make America Great Again," two of the top three belonged to Sobieski.

While there is no way to know how often Sobieski's tweets are read as they flit through busy feeds nor is it clear how they are influencing political debates researchers have found that automation allows users to exert an oversize influence on conversations on Twitter and beyond.

One research team found that "highly automated accounts" supporting President Trump a category that includes both bots and cyborgs out-tweeted those supporting Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of 5-to-1 in the final days before the vote.

This Twitter advantage had spillover effects, helping pro-Trump and anti-Clinton stories to trend online, making them more likely to find their way into Facebook feeds or Google's list of popular news stories, said Samuel Woolley, research director for the Computational Propaganda project at Oxford University and co-author of the study on the effectiveness of pro-Trump bots.

"The goal here is not to hack computational systems but to hack free speech and to hack public opinion," Woolley said.

For the first new tweet on this day, Sobieski wants to opine on the spiking murder rate in Chicago and the alleged failings of the city's Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel (or "Rahmbo" to Sobieski). He navigates to a conservative online magazine for which he occasionally writes, American Thinker, and copies a link to one of his articles about crime.

To reach beyond his own 78,900 followers, Sobieski adds a few more adornments, typing #MAGA to surface the tweet to the president's supporters online, and @realDonaldTrumpin hopes of getting the attention of Trump or those who track messages to him. The last six characters are #PJNET, for the Patriot Journalist Network, a coalition of conservative tweeters who amplify their messages through coordination, automation and other online tactics.

Last, Sobieski adds what he calls "the coup de grace," plucking an image from his ever-growing digital library of illustrations. For this tweet he chooses a photograph of bloodied Iraqi men carrying what appear to be clubs, along with the caption, "BAGHDAD IS SAFER THAN CHICAGO."

In the time it takes to compose this tweet, his schedulers have sent out several others. Some planes, meanwhile, have taken off from Chicago Midway Airport a few blocks away, sending muted roars through the house he shares with his wife, a Lebanese immigrant and fellow Catholic to whom Sobieski has been married for 39 years. He will stay in front of the computer for another two, maybe three hours before quitting for the day, but his Twitter accounts never stop working.

"Life isn't fair," Sobieski said with a smile. "Twitter in a way is like a meritocracy. You rise to the level of your ability ... People who succeed are just the people who work hard."

Twitter, which declined multiple requests for comment, is more easily manipulated than some other social media platforms, researchers say, because it allows anonymous users and tolerates some degree of automation of its accounts. Bots can be bought or sold online, and some are so sophisticated with profile pictures, plausible names and a capacity for chatter fuelled by artificial intelligence that they are difficult to detect, even for experts.

The company has policies to limit automation and the use of multiple accounts, and it has published guidelines and "best practices." Twitter sometimes shuts down violators when they are discovered, but it acknowledged in a 2014 securities filing that "up to approximately 8.5 per centof all active users" may have used third-party apps for automation. Independent researchers say the percentage could be twice as high, putting the numbers of automated accounts in the tens of millions.

Some of the most prolific political tweeters complain that the company doesn't have clear enough rules of the road. Lewis Shupe, a conservative Las Vegas-based retiree who runs @USFreedomArmy, a 61,000-follower account, said that he had received warnings from Twitter for posting too often. He now limits his scheduler to 150 tweets per hour, a number he thinks allows him to fly under the company's radar.

"If Twitter would publish rules, we would follow them," Shupe said.

Political activists have used automated Twitter accounts, including bots, in at least 17 nations, including Iran, Mexico, Russia and the United Kingdom. In the run-up to the June Brexit vote, "highly-automated accounts" favouring departure from the European Union were more prolific, by a ratio of 3 to 1, than automated accounts on the other side of the debate, according to research by Oxford Internet Institute professor PhilipHoward and a colleague.

"It makes public conversation a synthetic conversation," said Howard. "It makes it very difficult to know what consensus looks like."

In the United States, automation tools generally have been deployed more aggressively by conservatives, researchers say. Pro-Clinton hashtags, in some cases, got "colonised" by pro-Trump tweets during the election season, according to the paper by Howard and Woolley. And for the third presidential debate, Trump's supporters and in some cases, likely bots began tweeting the "#TrumpWon" hashtag a half-hour before the event began.

"Liberals are pretty far behind," Woolley said.

The impact on political debate is heavy but not widely understood. In the USpresidential election, 19 per cent of all tweets related to the campaign during one five-week stretch probably came from bots, according to University of Southern California researchers Alessandro Bessi and Emilio Ferrara.

Those who use automation to magnify their voices express little sympathy for those who don't.

"Anybody can be a Twitter rock star if you learn how to do it," said Florida-based conservative activist Mark Prasek, whose Twitter account describes him as a "Christian Technologist." The Patriot Journalist Network he founded in 2012 allows members to send off dozens of pre-written tweets on a range of a conservative issues with just a few clicks of a mouse.

"It's a level playing field," he said. "We're using tools. Is it fair that I can get downtown faster using a car than if you are using a bike?"

Before Sobieski discovered Twitter, he was a prolific writer of letters to the editor, penning thousands to Chicago-area newspapers while also crafting occasional on-air replies to liberal editorial positions of local television stations.

That probably would have been the peak of Sobieski's influence as a right-wing gadfly in an increasingly left-wing city had he not become a regular freelancer in 2004 for the editorial page of Investor's Business Daily, a Los Angeles-based publication with a national reach. He started tweeting out web links to his editorials in 2009, christening his account @gerfingerpoken.

(During Sobieski's decades writing letters to the editor, one of his day jobs was working as a programmer for a company that, in its computer room, featured a satiric German sign that translated as, roughly, "Warning: Don't touch the machine with the blinking lights!" Sobieski named his account for one of the words in that sign, "gefingerpoken," accidentally misspelling it with an extra "r," as "gerfingerpoken.")

Sobieski acknowledges that he may have been too aggressive in his hunt to add followers during his early years. Twitter, he said, temporarily shut down @gerfingerpoken several times for violating terms of service designed to limit unwanted contact between users. He started @gerfingerpoken2 in 2012 as a hedge against the possibility that Twitter might block the original account permanently.

But Sobieski eventually developed a finely honed ability to dodge what he called "the Twitter police" while steadily building his reach online.

"My accounts will be tweeting long after I'm gone," Sobieski joked. "Maybe in my last will and testament, I should say, 'Load up my recurring queue.' "

The Washington Post

See the original post here:

'Cyborg' Twitter accounts see conservative voices dominate around ... - The Age

Prepare for the coming robot apocalypse with a programmable cyborg arm.

Two crowdfunding projects launched this monththe MeArm Pi kit and uArm Swiftin hopes of spreading bionic love across the globe.

UK-based Mime Industries quickly surpassed its 10,000 Kickstarter goal, cementing production of its Raspberry Pi-controlled machine.

We believe in helping people understand how the world works, the MeArm Pi campaign page said. With so much development going on in robotics at the moment, now is the perfect time to get to know what it takes to build your own robot.

Mime Industries

Allegedly simple enough for a child to assemble, the kit includes a standard Pi HAT (also sold separately for 25 ($31)), which attaches to your Raspberry Pi computer for remote programming or direct control via built-in joysticks.

Early-bird buyers can snag a build-it-yourself robot arm for 50 ($63)10 off the standard Kickstarter price. The kit comes with everything you need to use it except the Raspberry Pi, which comes bundled with a power supply and 8GB SD card for 110 ($138).

The first 1,000 products are expected to begin shipping in July.

Cant wait that long for a personal robotic assistant? uArm Swiftfor all your 3D printing, laser engraving, writing, painting, and other creative needsis estimated to dispatch in May. From San Franciscos UFACTORY comes two plug-and-play, open-source, Arduino-based desktop robotic arms.

UFACTORY

Boasting the high precision needed for drawing, laser engraving, and light painting, the uArm Swift features offline learning mode, all-in-one software, and a mobile app for remote control.

For a discounted $289, the basic kit includes the uArm Swift, Bluetooth, Swift Universal Holder, and Swift Gripper; the pro basic kit upgrades to the uArm Swift Pro and adds a Swift 3D printer and Swift laser for $449. Other perks are also available at varying cost tiers.

It is not only a robotic arm that you can own but also a chance to decide how you want to involve robot technology in your life, UFACTORY said in its crowdfunding pitch.

With a month left, the Indiegogo project has raised $272,000 from 553 backerswell beyond the companys $10,000 fixed goal.

See the article here:

Prep for Robot Apocalypse with Programmable Cyborg Arms - Geek

Director Zack Snyder recently confirmed that the third Mother Box will be featured in Justice League, and that it will be none other than Victor Stone, a.k.a. Cyborg. There have been plenty of rumors swirling round the Mother Boxes and how they fit into the story, especially after the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice deleted scene that featured Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) using Kryptonian technology to create a vision of the villain Steppenwolf holding three Mother Boxes. Director Zack Snyder also offered more details about bringing this team together in Justice League.

Zack Snyder confirmed that Cyborg is the third mother box in the print issue of Total Film, but this isn't the first time he's mentioned that particular detail. The filmmaker revealed in a March interview that the Cyborg scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where Victor Stone's father Silas (Joe Morton) presents his son with a strange box that turns him into Cyborg, is the "first glimpse of the Mother Box there," adding that Ray Fisher's character, "plays such a strong part coming up."

Another rumor from May revealed that Justice League will open with a flashback scene from 30,000 years ago, featuring Darkseid's first defeat when the humans, Atlanteans and the Amazons all came together to beat him. These three civilizations are believed to have divided up an artifact into three parts, the Mother Boxes, which Steppenwolf is presumably coming for in Justice League. It has also been rumored that Steppenwolf will be the main Justice League villain, with Darkseid appearing at the end of the movie, leading into the currently untitled Justice League 2 sequel. While Zack Snyder wouldn't speak more about the Mother Boxes, he did discuss how bringing this team of DC heroes together was one of the most rewarding aspects of the film.

"One of the more rewarding aspects of creating Justice League was having fun exploring the dynamic between this diverse group of characters, inherently larger-than-life characters with disparate backgrounds, ethics and unique perspectives all trying to come together and work as a team. It not only offers an opportunity for great drama and complex relationships, but it also often results in great fun. It's an exciting concept to explore and it only gets better when you add the component of our incredibly talented cast, their chemistry really adds to that dynamic."

It's possible that one of the other Mother Boxes will be revealed in the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, which hits theaters June 2, just five months before Justice League arrives November 17. It's also possible that the remaining Mother Box will be featured in the stand alone Aquaman movie, which debuts October 5, 2018, before the Justice League sequel will hit theaters on June 14, 2019. Hopefully we'll find out more about these Mother Boxes as we get ready for Wonder Woman and Justice League to hit theaters this year.

Continue reading here:

Cyborg Confirmed as the Third Mother Box in Justice League - MovieWeb

MMAjunkie.com

'Cyborg' who? Germaine de Randamie says UFC 208 title-fight winner is No. 1 featherweight MMAjunkie.com No, that distinction goes to Cristiane Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC), who has been dominating the women's 145-pound division with iron fists for more than a decade. Cyborg is the current Invicta FC featherweight champion and has been waiting years for ... UFC fighter Cris 'Cyborg' Justino is a big draw, but is facing a possible drug suspensionLos Angeles Times Holly Holm on Potential Fight With Cris Cyborg: 'I'll Just Let That Pan Out'MMA News Holly Holm Addresses Cyborg's Situation With USADA411mania.com MMA Micks -MMAFrenzy.com -Eye on Gaming (press release) (blog) all 182 news articles »

Original post:

'Cyborg' who? Germaine de Randamie says UFC 208 title-fight winner is No. 1 featherweight - MMAjunkie.com

BJPenn.com (press release) (blog)

Germaine de Randamie talks Cris Cyborg's place in featherweight title picture BJPenn.com (press release) (blog) Cris got the offer to fight Holly, Cris got the offer to fight me, and she wasn't able to, de Randamie said. If you're a champion, you fight against everybody. Holly and I are going to fight, and one of us will decide who is the next No. 1. If one ...

Go here to read the rest:

Germaine de Randamie talks Cris Cyborg's place in featherweight title picture - BJPenn.com (press release) (blog)

LRM Online (press release) (blog)

New 'Justice League' Image: Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg Are Ready for Battle /FILM They've just unveiled a brand-new Justice League image that brings together Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) in an interesting and exotic location. Click through to see the latest Justice League image. Cyborg Lights Up In FULL New JUSTICE LEAGUE ImageLRM Online (press release) (blog) 'Justice League': New Image Finds Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Cyborg Ready for a FightCollider.com Cyborg's Got A Weird-Ass Hand In This New JUSTICE LEAGUE PhotoBirth.Movies.Death. (blog) UPROXX -MovieWeb -Comicbook.com -Batman-News all 44 news articles »

Go here to see the original:

New 'Justice League' Image: Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg Are Ready for Battle - /FILM

On Saturday night in Brooklyn, N.Y., the UFC will hold a womens featherweight title fight without the help of the worlds greatest female featherweight. Thats one way of explaining what the UFC 208 main event bout between Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie is all about.

Another way of putting it is, the UFC is putting on its very first womens featherweight fight, and its doing it without the person who is the sole reason for its reluctant embrace of the division in the first place.

What are we supposed to make of that as we sit down to watch Saturday nights headliner? Just as relevant a question, what is the UFC going to make of it on the pay-per-view broadcast?

Seems to me theres two ways the company can go: 1) Act like Cristiane Justino doesnt exist, or, if she does exist, shes no more important than any other potential special guest who, for reasons we wont bore you with, couldnt be with us tonight. 2) Confront the Cyborg situation head on, acknowledging her as the greatest fighter in this new division, and explaining why its mostly her doing that shed not a part of this historic title fight.

Of course, there are some shades of gray available here. If you recall, the way this all started was the UFC wanted to have its first womens featherweight title fight, and it already had a firm date in mind.

According to Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC), she couldnt make the date, not physically or psychologically, so she passed. Instead of working with her to find a date she could make, the UFC decided to plow ahead without her, which seemed like either a slavish devotion to the schedule or a spiteful way of reminding her that fighters are replaceable parts in the UFC machinery.

To twist the narrative even further, shortly after the UFC announced its intention to go ahead without Cyborg, it also announced her potential anti-doping policy violation. Justinos camp has since dismissed it as a medical issue, but that doesnt answer all our questions when youre already a terrifyingly powerful juggernaut with one positive steroid test on your record.

Enter Holm (10-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) and de Randamie (6-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC), two curious choices for this fight who remind us how shallow the pool is at 145 pounds.

Holm is a former UFC womens bantamweight champion whos now riding a two-fight losing skid. And while de Randamie has fought at featherweight in the past and has back-to-back wins at bantamweight coming into this fight, I doubt any of us saw her win over Anna Elmose last May and thought, yep, that ought to punch her ticket to a title fight in a division the UFC does not yet have.

Point is, its weird. These two fighters were chosen not quite at random, but also not as the result of an exhaustive search for the worlds best female featherweights. They are both a species of stand-in. Their fight feels like a contest to see who gets to hand the belt over to Cyborg at a ceremony to be scheduled later.

Seems to me that there has to be a way to acknowledge this fact without completely sucking the air out of what is still a technically historic title fight. Also seems like the alternative not mentioning Justinos place in this story at all asks us for such an extreme suspension of disbelief that its bound to backfire.

Anyone who knows enough about the goings on in MMA to think UFC 208 is worth paying for probably also knows enough to appreciate the fact that this is as much about whos not there as who is.

The shadow of Cyborg is bound to loom over this headliner, possibly lurking in the rafters like an uncommonly jacked version of the Phantom of the Opera. Pretending shes not there only heightens the sense of distraction rather than diminishing it. Because its not like anyone whos been paying attention wont already know.

For more on UFC 208, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

See the article here:

Is 'Cyborg' Justino destined to be the Phantom of Brooklyn at UFC 208? - MMAjunkie.com

The UFC created a special event in New York onSaturday night just for Cris Cyborg Justino.

Instead of being celebrated and favored to be fitted for a new gold title band around her waist, however, Brazils powerful and vicious fighter is expected to be back near her Southland training home when the fight begins.

Justino(16-1) twice balked at proposed title bouts to start the UFCs newly created 145-pound womens featherweight division, according to UFC President Dana White.

Then, by submitting a positive test for what Justino identified as the banned diuretic spironolactone on Dec. 5, she was replaced in Saturdays UFC 208 main event at Brooklyns Barclays Center.

Former 135-pound bantamweight champion Holly Holm (10-2), best known for vanquishing then-bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey by second-round head kick in 2015, will now meet former kick-boxing champion Germaine De Randamie (6-3) of the Netherlands in Saturdays main event.

Justinois appealing to the UFCs drug-testing authority, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, for a retroactive therapeutic-use exemption for the diuretic, explaining thata doctor in Brazil prescribed her the substance for high-blood pressure.

Her challenge, according to an official familiar with the case who is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, will be proving to USADA that no other prescribed drug could have been used to treat her condition.

A decision on the matter could come later this week, the official said.

Should her appeal be denied, Justinocould be subject to either a one-year ban dating to the time she submitted the sample, or for two years should her prior positive test for a steroid in 2011 be considered.

Justinodeclined to comment.

When I first got into the UFC, everyone was asking me about fighting Ronda, Holm said in a conference call last week. I know Cris Cyborg is the big name in the 145-pound division, but right now, with her situation, Ill just let that pan out. I dont want to just obsess about one fighter.

I still have so much to do Germaine is right in front of me. There has to be a lot to happen before our fight. [Cyborg] has to deal with whatevers going on with USADA who knows whats going on with that. And Ive got to get through this fight.

One reason Justino, 31, is so popular is that she hasnt lost a fight since her 2005 mixed martial arts debut.

By 2009, she joined the now-defunct Strikeforce organization, won its featherweight belt that year and successfully defended it three times before the California State Athletic Commission nabbed her for a positive test for the steroid stanozolol aftera 2011 title win in San Diego.

In the Invicta Fight Club, she won its featherweight belt in 2013 and defended that belt three times including a watershed first-round knockout win in Costa Mesa in January 2016.

White and then-UFC Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta attended the 2016 bout, watched Justinohammer challenger Daria Ibragimova with punches and finish her before the first round was complete.

The UFC bosses had seen all they needed, and while Justinoraised Whites ire by previously complaining shed risk death if forced to cut weight and fight Rousey at 135 pounds, she was signed for two 140-pound catch-weight fights in Brazil.

Justino needed just 81 seconds to finish Leslie Smith by punches, and after subjecting Lina Lansberg to severe first-round punishment in a Sept. 24 main event, she ended that bout halfway through the second.

It was at that event in the Brazilian capital ofBrasilia, said a UFC official, thatJustinos apparent leveraging for the creation of the new 145-pound division began to raise internal suspicions.

While she was meeting fight-week weight thresholds suggested by the organization Justinoweighed 156 pounds fully clothed at the beginning of fight week, according to a UFC official she was complaining publicly about being nearly 20 pounds overweight and describing her weight cut as excruciating.

After Justinostriumph, Holm said she was summoned to a meeting with White.

Before the 145-pound division [was formed], he said, Were offering a fight with Cyborg at 140, what do you think? I said, Im open to that, but then [Cyborg] said she wasnt ready, that she didnt want to go to that weight, Holm said.

De Randamie said she was told that Justinoturned down a 145-pound title fight against her.

On Dec. 14, the UFC announced the formation of the new womens featherweight division with the Holm-De Randamie bout, and eight days later, Justinos positive sample was revealed.

I respect everybodys opinion, about Justinobeing the best 145-pound fighter in the world, but Cris got the offer to fight Holly and Cris got the offer to fight me. She wasnt able to fight, De Randamie said.

Then Holly and I got the exact same offer and we said yes. If youre a champion, you fight the best. Holly and I are going to fight and well decide wholl be the next No. 1. If one of us has to defend the title against Cris Cyborg, it will be against Cris Cyborg.

If you look at Hollys credentials and my credentials, weve both accomplished a lot for the sport, so we absolutely belong at the top. One of us will be the 145 champion.

UFC 208

Who: Holly Holm (10-2) vs. Germaine De Randamie (6-3) for new womens featherweight belt

When: Saturday, 7 p.m. PST

Where: Barclays Center, Brooklyn

Television: Pay-per-view, $59.95

Undercard: No. 7 Anderson Silva (33-8) vs. No. 8 Derek Brunson (16-4), middleweights; No. 3 Ronaldo Jacare Souza (23-4) vs. No. 13 Tim Boetsch (20-10), middleweights; No. 3 Glover Teixeira (25-5) vs. No. 15 Jared Cannonier (9-1), light-heavyweights

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter:@latimespugmire

See the original post here:

UFC fighter Cris 'Cyborg' Justino is a big draw, but is facing a possible drug suspension - Los Angeles Times

Images courtesy of the artist

Pop art andacid-washed colors cyber-psychedelia in the works of Californian artist Nick Giasullo, whocreates furious post-cyberpunk characterswearing futuristic uniforms.

His works focus on technology and feminism, exploring the effects that machinery has on the body.Since his childhood, Giasullo was influenced by Heavy Metal Magazine, which featuredstories that combined science fiction, horror, and erotica with dimension-bending Moebius-esque fantasy worlds, and the Ghost in the Shell-styled transgressive ideologies. These days Im getting pretty hands on, drawing and painting things Ive been wanting to do since I was a kid, which is pretty rewarding in itself, Giasullo tells The Creators Project.

The choice of drawing women is also not spontaneous. Motivated by the strength and hardships of his family, in particular the women in his life, Giasullo says that reflection has helped to better understand the larger societal struggles people have to face. These social and internal struggles are pretty big motivators, Giasullo says, I tend to get up most days and do something creative, especially with the way the world is right now.

In order to translate his dystopian vision into the visual symbolism, Giasullo works in Daz3D. Once he creates his models and compositions, he pulls the files into Photoshop to do line detailing, coloring, and post-image work. By going back and forth between hand drawing and computer editing, he takes as much advantage of technologythe entire spectrum of itas he can.

See more of Nick Giasullos work here.

Related:

Cyberpunk Illustrations of a Dystopian Future

Sorayamas Sexy Cyborg Pin-Ups Do Vegas

"Cyborg Lolita" Julie Watai's Uncanny Valley of Kawaii

Neil Harbisson Is A Cyborg Who Can Hear Colors

Go here to read the rest:

Female Cyborg Illustrations Illuminate with Acid Colors - The Creators Project (blog)

In the comics, the modern age Cyborg has been able to create fantastic weapons out of his hands, and many have wondered how it would translate to the big screen. It appears it will be some type of electrical, light, or laser array; and it looks pretty cool. My guess is that whatever he has going on in this image will be able to shoot some type of beam that could kill or render enemies unconscious. Another noticeable item is his mechanical left leg. In looking over the entire body of Cyborg, one should be quite pleased as it appears they did not try to "future" him up too much, and chose to go with gadgets maybe only 20 years in the future. Normally, he would have some gigantic cannon here, based on nanotechnology, and it could appear gaudy or out of place.

Wonder Woman is in her typical pose, and while we have seen a similar pose quite a bit now, it does seem to be her calling card. The Wonder Woman movie will give us our biggest indication of her powerset, and as I have said before, she is likely the strongest member of the Justice League. Batman, in the books, could never find her weakness. In fact, her only flaw may be her love for humanity.

Aquaman looks like Khal Drogo in a different costume, and I am sorry, but I will need to see major greatness out of Momoa to ever get past his similarity in the roles he has played. Here is the synopsis from the film:

Justice League will feature Ben Affleck as Batman (we think), Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ray Fisher s Cyborg, Ezra Miller as The Flash, and Henry Cavill as Superman. The fim drops on November 17th of this year!

Source: GamesRadar(via Universo DC)

Excerpt from:

Cyborg Lights Up In FULL New JUSTICE LEAGUE Image - LRM Online (press release) (blog)

Daniel John Sobieski, 68, climbed the stairs ofhis modest brick home in Chicago and settled into a worn leather chair for another busy day of tweeting. But he needn't have bothered. As one of the America's most prolific conservative voices on Twitter, he already had posted hundreds of times this morning as he ate breakfast, as he chatted with his wife, even as he slept and would post hundreds of times more before night fell.

The key to this frenetic pace was technology allowing Twitter users to post automatically from queues of pre-written tweets that can be delivered at a nearly constant, round-the-clock pace that no human alone could match. In this way, Sobieski a balding retiree with eyes so weak that he uses a magnifying glass to see his two computer screens has dramatically amplified his online reach despite lacking the celebrity or the institutional affiliations that long have helped elevate some voices over the crowd.

Play Video Don't Play

Play Video Don't Play

Previous slide Next slide

Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald says a malicious message sent by a Trump supporter on Twitter was designed to trigger an epileptic seizure.

Play Video Don't Play

Tennis star Eugenie Bouchard thought the Atlanta Falcons were clear Super Bowl winners but Twitter user punslayintwoods wasnt so sure so he proposed a bet.

Play Video Don't Play

Footage captures the moment a skiff packed with explosives rams a Saudi warship in the Mandeb Strait last week, killing two sailors and injuring several others.

Play Video Don't Play

Dashcam video from police cruisers in Illinois and Wisconsin capture a fireball streaking through the night in the early hours of Monday, with the American Meteor Society reporting hundreds of sightings across the region.

Play Video Don't Play

Top technology companies, including Apple, Google, and Microsoft are banding together and have filed a legal brief opposing US President Donald Trump's immigration ban.

Play Video Don't Play

Raw vision: Queen Elizabeth II marks her Sapphire Jubilee with a gun salute, becoming the first British monarch to reign for 65 years.

Play Video Don't Play

The British parliament's Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow makes a passionate statement arguing why US President Donald Trump should not be allowed to address from Westminister Hall.

Play Video Don't Play

Thomas Keating, the partner of Victorian woman Emily Collie, who was killed when two jet skis crashed in waters off Phuket, will be charged with reckless driving causing death. Vision courtesy: Channel Seven

Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald says a malicious message sent by a Trump supporter on Twitter was designed to trigger an epileptic seizure.

"To me," Sobieski said, "it's kind of like a high-tech version of the old-fashioned soap box."

Today's digital soapboxes are little like the old-fashioned kind. Researchers have documented the power of automation technology to magnify some points of view while drowning out others.

Much of that research has focused on "bots," accounts programmed to follow instructions, such as automatically replying to tweets from other accounts. But Sobieski exemplifies the growing popularity of a variation, called "cyborgs," that mix human creativity and initiative with a computer's relentless speed, allowing their views to gain audience while sidestepping the traditional gatekeepers of news and commentary.

Sobieski's two accounts, for example, tweet more than 1000 times a day using "schedulers" that work through stacks of his own pre-written posts in repetitive loops. With retweets and other forms of sharing, these posts reach the feeds of millions of other accounts, including those of such conservative luminaries as Fox News's Sean Hannity, GOP strategist Karl Rove and republican SenatorTed Cruz, according to researcher Jonathan Albright.

"It's like a giant megaphone," said Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University, in North Carolina, whose research singled out Sobieski's accounts as having unusual reach.

When Albright studied the most prolific Twitter accounts during the final two weeks of the US election, he found that all of the top 20 appeared to support Trump. Among accounts using major pro-Trump hashtags such as "#MAGA," for "Make America Great Again," two of the top three belonged to Sobieski.

While there is no way to know how often Sobieski's tweets are read as they flit through busy feeds nor is it clear how they are influencing political debates researchers have found that automation allows users to exert an oversize influence on conversations on Twitter and beyond.

One research team found that "highly automated accounts" supporting President Trump a category that includes both bots and cyborgs out-tweeted those supporting Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of 5-to-1 in the final days before the vote.

This Twitter advantage had spillover effects, helping pro-Trump and anti-Clinton stories to trend online, making them more likely to find their way into Facebook feeds or Google's list of popular news stories, said Samuel Woolley, research director for the Computational Propaganda project at Oxford University and co-author of the study on the effectiveness of pro-Trump bots.

"The goal here is not to hack computational systems but to hack free speech and to hack public opinion," Woolley said.

For the first new tweet on this day, Sobieski wants to opine on the spiking murder rate in Chicago and the alleged failings of the city's Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel (or "Rahmbo" to Sobieski). He navigates to a conservative online magazine for which he occasionally writes, American Thinker, and copies a link to one of his articles about crime.

To reach beyond his own 78,900 followers, Sobieski adds a few more adornments, typing #MAGA to surface the tweet to the president's supporters online, and @realDonaldTrumpin hopes of getting the attention of Trump or those who track messages to him. The last six characters are #PJNET, for the Patriot Journalist Network, a coalition of conservative tweeters who amplify their messages through coordination, automation and other online tactics.

Last, Sobieski adds what he calls "the coup de grace," plucking an image from his ever-growing digital library of illustrations. For this tweet he chooses a photograph of bloodied Iraqi men carrying what appear to be clubs, along with the caption, "BAGHDAD IS SAFER THAN CHICAGO."

In the time it takes to compose this tweet, his schedulers have sent out several others. Some planes, meanwhile, have taken off from Chicago Midway Airport a few blocks away, sending muted roars through the house he shares with his wife, a Lebanese immigrant and fellow Catholic to whom Sobieski has been married for 39 years. He will stay in front of the computer for another two, maybe three hours before quitting for the day, but his Twitter accounts never stop working.

"Life isn't fair," Sobieski said with a smile. "Twitter in a way is like a meritocracy. You rise to the level of your ability ... People who succeed are just the people who work hard."

Twitter, which declined multiple requests for comment, is more easily manipulated than some other social media platforms, researchers say, because it allows anonymous users and tolerates some degree of automation of its accounts. Bots can be bought or sold online, and some are so sophisticated with profile pictures, plausible names and a capacity for chatter fuelled by artificial intelligence that they are difficult to detect, even for experts.

The company has policies to limit automation and the use of multiple accounts, and it has published guidelines and "best practices." Twitter sometimes shuts down violators when they are discovered, but it acknowledged in a 2014 securities filing that "up to approximately 8.5 per centof all active users" may have used third-party apps for automation. Independent researchers say the percentage could be twice as high, putting the numbers of automated accounts in the tens of millions.

Some of the most prolific political tweeters complain that the company doesn't have clear enough rules of the road. Lewis Shupe, a conservative Las Vegas-based retiree who runs @USFreedomArmy, a 61,000-follower account, said that he had received warnings from Twitter for posting too often. He now limits his scheduler to 150 tweets per hour, a number he thinks allows him to fly under the company's radar.

"If Twitter would publish rules, we would follow them," Shupe said.

Political activists have used automated Twitter accounts, including bots, in at least 17 nations, including Iran, Mexico, Russia and the United Kingdom. In the run-up to the June Brexit vote, "highly-automated accounts" favouring departure from the European Union were more prolific, by a ratio of 3 to 1, than automated accounts on the other side of the debate, according to research by Oxford Internet Institute professor PhilipHoward and a colleague.

"It makes public conversation a synthetic conversation," said Howard. "It makes it very difficult to know what consensus looks like."

In the United States, automation tools generally have been deployed more aggressively by conservatives, researchers say. Pro-Clinton hashtags, in some cases, got "colonised" by pro-Trump tweets during the election season, according to the paper by Howard and Woolley. And for the third presidential debate, Trump's supporters and in some cases, likely bots began tweeting the "#TrumpWon" hashtag a half-hour before the event began.

"Liberals are pretty far behind," Woolley said.

The impact on political debate is heavy but not widely understood. In the USpresidential election, 19 per cent of all tweets related to the campaign during one five-week stretch probably came from bots, according to University of Southern California researchers Alessandro Bessi and Emilio Ferrara.

Those who use automation to magnify their voices express little sympathy for those who don't.

"Anybody can be a Twitter rock star if you learn how to do it," said Florida-based conservative activist Mark Prasek, whose Twitter account describes him as a "Christian Technologist." The Patriot Journalist Network he founded in 2012 allows members to send off dozens of pre-written tweets on a range of a conservative issues with just a few clicks of a mouse.

"It's a level playing field," he said. "We're using tools. Is it fair that I can get downtown faster using a car than if you are using a bike?"

Before Sobieski discovered Twitter, he was a prolific writer of letters to the editor, penning thousands to Chicago-area newspapers while also crafting occasional on-air replies to liberal editorial positions of local television stations.

That probably would have been the peak of Sobieski's influence as a right-wing gadfly in an increasingly left-wing city had he not become a regular freelancer in 2004 for the editorial page of Investor's Business Daily, a Los Angeles-based publication with a national reach. He started tweeting out web links to his editorials in 2009, christening his account @gerfingerpoken.

(During Sobieski's decades writing letters to the editor, one of his day jobs was working as a programmer for a company that, in its computer room, featured a satiric German sign that translated as, roughly, "Warning: Don't touch the machine with the blinking lights!" Sobieski named his account for one of the words in that sign, "gefingerpoken," accidentally misspelling it with an extra "r," as "gerfingerpoken.")

Sobieski acknowledges that he may have been too aggressive in his hunt to add followers during his early years. Twitter, he said, temporarily shut down @gerfingerpoken several times for violating terms of service designed to limit unwanted contact between users. He started @gerfingerpoken2 in 2012 as a hedge against the possibility that Twitter might block the original account permanently.

But Sobieski eventually developed a finely honed ability to dodge what he called "the Twitter police" while steadily building his reach online.

"My accounts will be tweeting long after I'm gone," Sobieski joked. "Maybe in my last will and testament, I should say, 'Load up my recurring queue.' "

The Washington Post

Originally posted here:

'Cyborg' Twitter accounts see conservative voices dominate around the clock - The Sydney Morning Herald

A fight between Holly Holm and Cristiane Justino has been historically difficult for UFC officials to put together. And it doesnt seem that trend is going to change going forward.

Since Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) officially joined the UFC roster this past year, the organization has made multiple attempts to book a fight with Holm (10-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC). The most recent effort came for Saturdays UFC 208 event, which sees Holm face Germaine de Randamie (6-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC) for the inaugural UFC womens featherweight title.

Before Holm vs.de Randamie was booked for the pay-per-view headlinerat Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., UFC officials intended to pitHolm against Cyborg.The timing didnt work, though, and the Brazilian received notice of a potential U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) violation thathas put her career on ice.

Depending how Justinos USADA case unfolds, she could be sidelined for more than a year with asuspension. Holm said shes not ready to rule out the potential showdown entirely, but she saidthe ball is currently in Justinos court.

Im just going to wait and see what happens with that (USADA situation), Holm told MMAjunkie. There has to be a lot that happens for that fight to happen. Shes got to deal with whatever is going on with USADA. Who knows whats really happening with that? Obviously something.

The UFCs decision to add a womens featherweight division revolved largely around Justino. Cyborg, whos the current Invicta FC 145-pound champ, has dominated the weight class for more than a decade, but UFC officials havebeen reluctant to give her fights at her desired weight, and they required Justino to cut to 140 pounds for her first two UFC appearances.

After a long wait, UFC officials finally added theweight class, but the timing couldnt have been worse; it happened just as Justinos potential anti-doping violation came to light. If and when she does return, she would seemingly fight the Holm-de Randamie winner, but much can change during that time.

Holm, aformer UFC womens bantamweight champion, has said she might opt for a return to 135 pounds if she can win at UFC 208 in hopes of winning back that belt and achieving her goal of holding two titles simultaneously.

Holm said shes aware the fight most fans want to see her in is against Justino, but numerous hurdles remain. She said its a similar situation aswhen she entered the UFC and fight fanswere clamoring to see her fight then-UFC champ Ronda Rousey. She was patient, and the fight eventually materialized under terms she was satisfied with. She said shes going to use the same approach for Cyborg.

In order to even think about that potential fight, I have to get through this fight, Holm said. When I first signed with the UFC, I had two fights, one fight being Raquel Pennington and then Marion Reneau. In both of those fights, people kept asking me, How long do you think until you fight Ronda? I said, Well I have these fights in front of me first, so I have to get through them. I know Cris Cyborg is definitely the big name for the 145-pound division, but right now with this situation she has going on, I think Ill just let that pan out.

Who knows whats really going on? I dont want to put all my eggs in one basket. I dont want my career to be defined over one fighter. I still have so much to do. Ive got Germaine de Randamie right in front of me. If I dont get by her, there probably wont even be talk of a Cris Cyborg fight.

For more on UFC 208, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

Originally posted here:

Ex-UFC champ Holly Holm: 'There has to be a lot that happens' before fighting 'Cyborg' - MMAjunkie.com