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The Gruppetto indicated that Per Strand Hagenes, a 23-year-old rider from Visma-Lease a Bike, had won Paris-Tours, marking what the media described as his greatest victory. Just before the red flame, the Norwegian outran Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step), while his teammate Christophe Laporte completed the podium. https://t.co/QYHjgcpsCV #ParisTours #Cyclisme #Victoire (translated)

The author warned that Saudi Arabia could be nearing a major economic crisis, which they said could quickly spill over into the US Treasury market and potentially trigger a financial crisis in the United States and elsewhere. https://t.co/orYcFFrmcc #اقتصاد #أزمة_مالية #السعودية #SA #US

The author said Russia’s business offer to Donald Trump had produced its first effect, claiming Trump had agreed with Vladimir Putin to deliveries of 0.8 million tons of Russian diesel to the United States. The author described the deal as a propaganda win for Russia and said it brought no real result for the US. https://t.co/B1O6sHAuox #Trump #Russia #Politics #RU #US

Oliver Glasner said he hoped the verdict in Manchester City’s case would come quickly. Speaking to The Times, he said the league’s integrity was paramount and warned that fans might stop watching if they could no longer trust it. https://t.co/WwG5Q5ZatS #ManchesterCity #FootballIntegrity #PremierLeague #GB

The Gruppetto indicated that Paul Magnier, a 22-year-old Frenchman from the Soudal Quick-Step team, won Binche-Chimay-Binche ahead of the Belgians Jenno Berckmoes and Lionel Taminiaux from Lotto-Intermarché. According to the account, it was his 12th victory of the season. https://t.co/GUTjhFK706 #Cyclisme #Sport #SoudalQuickStep (translated)

Arthur Schopenhauer: Knowing too many truths about man, I cannot expect anything good from him. Absolute proof of the truth of this statement is the contemplation and possibility of realizing the greatest crime of the destruction of the Earth and all humanity by the ruling global elite, as well as the endless wars and genocides committed by it. What negative qualities in humans did Schopenhauer discover that deeply disappointed him? A blind, irrational, and insatiable drive that governs all people and pushes them towards selfishness and suffering. Inherent selfishness and malice Selfishness is the main driving force of man. It is the desire for one's own well-being, which is often limitless. A person is willing to sacrifice the happiness of others to satisfy even the smallest whims. Malice (malevolence): The desire to cause harm or suffering to another without any personal gain, simply out of envy or sheer cruelty. Schopenhauer believes that humans are the only beings that take pleasure in the suffering of their kind. Lack of true morality. Most people do not possess true compassion. They behave "morally" or "civilized" only out of fear of the law, public opinion, or loss of reputation. If these external constraints are removed, a person quickly reveals their true, savage nature. Intellectual superficiality and stupidity. Schopenhauer was deeply disappointed by the low intellectual level of the majority. According to him, most people are: Herd animals: Prone to blindly follow fashion, authorities, and public opinion rather than think critically. Incapable of higher spiritual pleasures: Satisfied only with material goods, sensory pleasures, and empty conversations. Hypocrisy and falseness The philosopher views social rituals and etiquettes as a mask behind which people hide their hostility and selfishness. Politeness is merely "artificial skin," protecting us from mutual harm with our true intentions. Insatiability and eternal dissatisfaction Humans are doomed to an eternal cycle between desire (which brings pain until fulfilled) and boredom, devaluation, and weariness (which occur immediately after the desire is satisfied). This psychological trap makes people eternally grumbling, ungrateful, and unhappy beings. (translated)

Brazil’s synthetic voters – when AI manufactures public opinion They look like ordinary street interviews. A reporter approaches a passer-by in a Brazilian square and asks a simple question: who will you vote for? A young voter explains why Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva deserves another term. An elderly woman says Brazil needs Flávio Bolsonaro because he represents political renewal and greater security. The locations look plausible, the microphones are visible and the answers sound much like the brief political opinions heard in television vox pops around the world. None of the people are real. Ahead of Brazil’s presidential election on 4 October, fact-checking organisation Aos Fatos identified at least 50 TikTok videos in which artificial intelligence was used to manufacture voters, reporters and apparently spontaneous political interviews. Together, the videos had accumulated around 7.4 million views by mid-August. Some promoted Lula, others Flávio Bolsonaro, while another group used synthetic characters to ridicule or stereotype supporters of one side. Aos Fatos found no apparent evidence linking the accounts producing the videos to either presidential campaign. The opinion poll that never took place The format is important. These were not conventional deepfakes in which a recognisable politician is made to say something he never said. Instead, the creators reproduced the visual language of the vox pop – the short street interview used by broadcasters and social-media creators to illustrate what ordinary people supposedly think. In pro-Lula videos, synthetic voters described themselves as beneficiaries of social programmes or credited the president with improving their lives. In videos supporting Flávio Bolsonaro, artificial interviewees associated him with political renewal, public security and fighting corruption. Other clips were openly hostile: AI-generated characters presented as poor or living in parts of Brazil’s north-east were shown in dirty clothes or run-down surroundings, declaring support for Lula because they supposedly preferred welfare payments to work. The deception is therefore subtler than fabricating a candidate’s statement. It manufactures something that political communication normally treats as evidence of public sentiment. A real vox pop may be unscientific, but the people interviewed at least exist. These videos created the appearance that identifiable social groups – young people, pensioners, welfare recipients or residents of particular regions – were spontaneously expressing political preferences when no such encounters had taken place. An electoral-law specialist interviewed by Aos Fatos described the technique as the fabrication of a “social fact that never occurred”. That captures the central innovation: AI is being used not merely to falsify political speech, but to manufacture the impression of grassroots opinion. Fifty videos, but not one proven network The available evidence does not support describing the 50 posts as a centrally controlled influence operation. Aos Fatos located them through TikTok searches and recommendations produced by the platform itself, then examined the accounts responsible for publication. Most had relatively small individual audiences, although their combined reach was substantial. The first examples identified by the investigation appeared as early as March 2026. Activity increased in June and was concentrated particularly in July and the first half of August as Brazil’s election calendar intensified. Some accounts specialised in AI-generated videos generally, including fabricated podcast-style material. Others were explicitly political or supportive of a candidate, but Aos Fatos found no apparent links between those profiles and the official Lula or Bolsonaro campaigns. That distinction is essential. The evidence demonstrates a common technique and a shared political environment, not a single command structure. Some creators may have been motivated by ideology, others by engagement or monetisation. Publicly available evidence does not establish who commissioned the individual videos or whether any coordination existed between the accounts. This decentralised model also creates a different enforcement problem from a traditional bot network. There may be no headquarters to expose and no infrastructure whose removal disables the entire operation. The format itself can be copied by anyone with access to inexpensive generative-video tools. When the algorithm mixes real and synthetic citizens Aos Fatos documented another important feature of the phenomenon: TikTok’s recommendation system placed AI-generated interviews alongside genuine street interviews. For a user scrolling quickly through the platform, the transition between an authentic citizen and an entirely fabricated one could therefore be almost invisible. In 18 per cent of the 50 videos analysed, there was no indication that the people shown had been generated using AI. After Aos Fatos provided TikTok with the videos, the company said it had removed all of them for violating its rules on edited and AI-generated media. TikTok said its policies require creators to identify synthetic content and prohibit manipulated media capable of misleading users about matters of public importance or impersonating genuine journalistic material. The issue extends beyond one platform. Factchequeado’s review of Brazil’s 2026 election campaign found that synthetic endorsements and other deepfakes had become one of the most visible forms of AI-assisted electoral misinformation, alongside fabricated candidate statements and invented scenes. Brazil already had rules for synthetic politics Brazil entered the campaign with unusually detailed electoral rules governing artificial intelligence. The Superior Electoral Court, the TSE, requires electoral propaganda using synthetic multimedia to disclose clearly that AI was used. More importantly for the fake-voter videos, its rules prohibit synthetic audio or video used to favour or harm a candidacy when it creates or alters the image or voice of a living, deceased or fictitious person. The difficulty is attribution and enforcement. When a synthetic video is published by an official campaign, responsibility can be relatively straightforward to investigate. When it comes from an apparently independent account with no demonstrated relationship to a candidate, lawyers interviewed by Aos Fatos said responsibility is more likely to fall on the individual creator, while imposing electoral sanctions on a campaign would require evidence of a connection. For the final 72 hours before the election and the 24 hours following it, the TSE has imposed additional restrictions on newly published or republished synthetic material involving candidates or public figures, reflecting the particular difficulty of correcting fabricated content immediately before voting. From deepfake politicians to synthetic electorates The Brazilian case illustrates a broader change in political manipulation. The first generation of electoral deepfakes concentrated on famous people: make a politician appear to say something damaging, or fabricate an endorsement from a celebrity. Synthetic vox pops reverse the perspective. The politician can remain completely authentic; it is the electorate around the politician that is fabricated. That changes the psychological proposition of the message. Instead of saying the candidate believes this, the video suggests people like you believe this. Age, clothing, accent, neighbourhood and social class can all be generated to construct an artificial constituency around almost any political claim. There is no evidence that the 50 Brazilian videos identified by Aos Fatos constitute a single centrally directed campaign, nor evidence that they changed voting intentions. What they demonstrate is a technique whose barrier to entry has become extremely low. AI no longer needs to forge the politician. #DISINFORMED #Episode14 #Brazil #BrazilElection2026 #Elections #ElectionDisinformation #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #SyntheticVoters #SyntheticMedia #AIAvatars #AIGeneratedVideo #VoxPop #FakeInterviews #Astroturfing #AIPropaganda #PoliticalDisinformation #InfluenceOperations #InformationWarfare #SocialMediaManipulation #TikTok #PublicOpinion #ManufacturedConsent #SyntheticPublicOpinion #DigitalInfluence #Deepfakes #ElectionIntegrity #TSE #AosFatos #FactChecking #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD (translated)

OFFICIAL: AI UPSCALING IS COMING TO THE BASE PS5! • Sony announced the QSSR — Quick Spectral Super Resolution • Technology comes from Project Amethyst, a partnership between PlayStation and AMD • Goal: to bring some of the benefits of the PS5 Pro's PSSR to the regular PS5 • QSSR uses a lighter and optimized neural network specifically for the PS5 • Promises sharper image and more stability than traditional methods • Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei are the first compatible games • Both receive support via an update today • QSSR will be made available to other PlayStation developers in the future • PSSR remains the most advanced and exclusive solution of the PS5 Pro In practice, the base PS5 now also features AI-assisted image reconstruction. #PS5 #IA #Jogos (translated)

Sony announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), a new AI upscaling technology for standard PS5, developed alongside AMD within Project Amethyst. ▫️ QSSR is a lighter version of PSSR, the exclusive technology for PS5 Pro. ▫️ It utilizes an optimized neural network to improve sharpness, detail, and image stability without requiring the power of PS5 Pro. ▫️ PSSR will continue to offer the best quality on PS5 Pro, while QSSR aims to bring part of that experience to PS5. ▫️ Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei are the first games compatible through new patches. ▫️ Sony will offer QSSR to all PlayStation developers so it can be implemented in more games in the future. #PlayStation #Sony #Videojuegos (translated)

The author said Romania needed a clear roadmap to euro membership and proposed an accelerated European programme to bring it into the euro as quickly as treaty conditions allowed. The proposal included fiscal credibility, political stability, preparation for ERM II and full convergence. https://t.co/Qo8a7Oa6Gp #Romania #Euro #EuropeanUnion #RO #EU

After Yabloko started polling at around 10%, Putin quickly banned it. It's incredibly funny (and sad) how the Kremlin still claims that they have free elections in Russia, when people are voting at gunpoint and election officials who report election scams die mysteriously. #Russia #FreeElections #Yabloko #RU