The term "Orwellian" gets thrown around today like baby lotion at a Diddy party — overused and squeezed dry. But sometimes, it’s the only word that fits. Right now, as we look at the path the United States is heading down, "Orwellian" feels all too appropriate. Sen. Mark Warner's (D-Va.) recent call for the Biden-Harris administration to boost Big Tech collusion for the 2024 election isn't just a minor deviation from the democratic process.What we’re witnessing is a massive power grab that seeks to dictate what Americans can see, read, and ultimately think. It's censorship with a fresh coat of paint.If anything, it's an alarming leap toward corporate and government overreach that makes Orwell's darkest predictions look like a rough draft. And, of course, the administration jumped at the opportunity, announcing a new initiative focused on "AI" and "disinformation," pulling together a who's who of Big Tech: Meta, Anthropic, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI, all happily working alongside the U.S. State Department.What could go wrong?Obviously, this isn’t a coalition out to save democracy from the perils of misinformation. After all, it’s a lineup of some of the most politically biased, powerful corporations on the planet — most of whom are major donors to the left — conveniently gearing up for a big censorship push just in time for the next presidential election. What they call "disinformation" should worry every American. Who gets to decide what counts as truth? And with so much political clout behind this new coalition, as Election Day nears, it’s hard not to see this as yet another attempt by the powerful to tip the scales in their favor.Former President Donald Trump has already been sounding the alarm bells, recently calling for Google to be criminally prosecuted over what he calls bias toward Kamala Harris. His calls are warranted. According to conservative watchdog Media Research Center, Google’s search results prominently displayed Harris’ campaign website while burying Trump’s official site beneath articles from outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Politico, all glowing with praise for Harris. Obviously, this isn't an innocent algorithmic hiccup; it's the calculated use of Google's vast influence to shape what voters see and think.The power of GoogleDr. Robert Epstein, a former editor in chief of Psychology Today and an expert in Big Tech’s impact on public opinion, has been documenting Google's manipulative practices for years. In his aptly titled monograph "The Evidence," which he was kind enough to provide me with in advance, Epstein lays bare Google’s use of the Search Engine Manipulation Effect. This is a method by which the tech giant can sway undecided voters simply by altering the order of search results. His research reveals that Google’s influence over undecided voters can be as high as 80% in certain demographic groups — more than enough to sway an election. It doesn't stop there. With Google, it never does. Epstein also points to the Search Suggestion Effect, where Google uses autocomplete suggestions to shape public perception. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Epstein found that Google’s autocomplete consistently favored positive suggestions for Hillary Clinton while allowing both positive and negative suggestions for Donald Trump. His studies showed that users are much more likely to click on negative suggestions, meaning that Google's skewed suggestions had a profound effect on how voters viewed the candidates. The reality is, Google’s bias may not have been enough to get Clinton elected, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.The bigger pictureAnd now, this tech-government alliance is expanding internationally. Enter Melissa Fleming of the United Nations, who is now framing misinformation as a threat to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. It's important to remember that terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation,” in the parlance of the elites, simply mean information that doesn’t align with their narratives.As the investigative journalist Didi Rankovic points out, Fleming’s call for a crackdown on what she describes as "toxic information systems" coincides suspiciously with the upcoming U.S. election. It hints at a coordinated effort to control the narrative. Fleming’s background in state-sponsored propaganda, as Rankovic notes, is telling. Under her influence, the U.N. is moving away from its role in peacekeeping and toward becoming an international thought police, ready to label any inconvenient truth as dangerous misinformation.And right on cue, the Biden administration seems eager to participate. With government and Big Tech in lockstep under the guise of fighting "disinformation," what we’re witnessing is a massive power grab that seeks to dictate what Americans can see, read, and ultimately think. It's censorship with a fresh coat of paint.This is not hyperbolic fearmongering. Google and OpenAI, two of the biggest players in this new initiative, along with other Big Tech giants, recently held a fundraiser for Kamala Harris. They are not hiding who they want to see elected in November.Ominous timesFor conservatives, this represents nothing less than a crisis. The coalition between government, Big Tech, and now international organizations like the U.N. threatens not only the conservative movement but the very fabric of democracy itself. The fight against "disinformation" has morphed into a fight against dissent — a way to silence anyone who doesn’t align with the coalition's narrative. The consequences are as obvious as they are dire: an American electorate whose access to information is increasingly under the control of a small, ideologically homogeneous group of powerful elites.If we allow this coalition to go unchecked, it won't stop at censorship. It's about reshaping society, dictating which voices are amplified and which are silenced, influencing voting patterns, and ultimately deciding who gets elected.

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We all struggle to keep track of our seemingly endless and growing list of passwords. Trying to follow the so-called rules makes an overwhelming task all but impossible, which is why you'll be pleased to learn that complexity isn't guaranteed to make your online accounts safer. As spotted by Forbes, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released new guidelines for keeping government information systems secure, and they made some significant changes to long-standing password best practices. If you've ever used Google Chrome's password generator to create a password for one of your accounts, you must have noticed how ridiculously obtuse it was, loaded with countless random letters, numbers, and symbols you could never hope to memorize. In its guidelines, NIST makes it clear that the benefit of complexity is usually outweighed by the downsides. You're likely never going to memorize a password that consists of a random jumble of numbers, letters, and symbols. As a result, you'll probably end up writing it down or storing it somewhere that a hacker could potentially access in the future. Therefore, length has become an easier metric than complexity by which to judge an effective password. As the guidelines note, online services require users to create passwords that use a mix of character types, but multiple "analyses of breached password databases reveal that the benefit of such rules is less significant than initially thought." You're much better off using a lengthy string of words that you can actually remember. That way, you are less likely to have to store the password in a note on your phone or reuse it ad nauseam and risk having all of your online accounts breached at once. Keep in mind that these aren't actually meant to be guidelines for everyone, but they're still worth considering. If you reuse the same overly complex password on every website, you're now at far greater risk than if you used numerous long, memorable passwords. Don't Miss: 10 billion stolen passwords shared online in record-breaking leak The post Your complicated password might be doing more harm than good appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $2.75 smart plugs, $79 Ninja air fryer, $6.49 Anker USB-C chargers, $219 Dreo ChefMaker, more Today’s deals: $60 Insignia smart TV, $735 black Apple Watch Ultra 2, $120 Ninja food processor, more Best Echo Dot deals for Fall Prime Day 2024 Today’s deals: Early Prime Day sales, $189 Apple Watch SE, Philips OneBlade 360, Crest 3D Whitestrips, more

Excavations conducted over the month of September at Castro de San Vicenzo in Plane, Ourense, Spain, has led the uncovering of several well-preserved artifacts connected to the Castro culture from the Iberian Iron Age. These finds include a triskele, a swab, and other symbols that have deep ties to this ancient society, some of the best that have ever been found in this region. Celtic Symbols, Heavy Fortification: A Castro Way of Life The triskele, a Celtic symbol made up of spirals, and often found in Celtic decorative art, was the first artifact found, buried in the rubble of a collapsed circular structure. These symbols were commonly associated with ritual saunas in Castro communities in religious and purification ceremonies, dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries BC. Irish and Celtic Symbols: The True Meanings Behind Signs of Pride and Power The Restless Peninsula: The Proud and Colorful History of Iberia Read moreSection: ArtifactsAncient WritingsNewsHistory & ArchaeologyAncient PlacesEuropeRead Later 

The scope of the recovery efforts in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene is "more like Katrina" and demands a coordinated response, including efforts between the U.S. military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Sen. Thom Tillis said Sunday.

A group of nearly two dozen squatters terrorized a Brooklyn neighborhood after taking control of a vacant $4 million brownstone, The New York Post reports.