“What Others Dare Not Say”: An Antisemitic Conspiracy Fantasy and its YouTube Audience

The YouTube video-sharing platform is one of the most important sites for the dissemination of conspiracy theory, or—to give it a more accurately descriptive term—conspiracy fantasy. After surveying the historical and contemporary evidence for the role of conspiracy fantasy in right-wing violent extremism, this article turns its focus to a YouTube video excerpted from a public lecture in which professional conspiracy theorist David Icke purports to expose members of a “Rothschild Zionist” secret society. First, historical discourse analysis is used to situate Icke’s fantasy within the antisemitic tradition of the extreme right. Then, the reception of Icke’s fantasy is studied through quantitative content analysis of YouTube user comments (n = 1123). Comments supportive of the video and its creator are found to outnumber comments that challenge them, as are comments expressing hostility to Jews or extending the video’s accusations against “Rothschild Zionists” to real-world Jewish collectivities. Moreover, the most popular comments are found to be disproportionately likely to be supportive of Icke or his video or otherwise anti-Jewish. These findings provide evidence that at least the active portion of the video’s YouTube audience may have had a tendency not only towards support of Icke’s ideas but also towards linkage of those ideas with an overtly antisemitic worldview. It is argued that YouTube’s ranking of comments by popularity may be serving to insulate harmful fantasies such as Icke’s from rational challenge by rendering genuinely critical responses invisible. This illustrates the dangers of outsourcing the evaluation of content to an online user community. But it also suggests that YouTube’s user interface design may be actively contributing to the spread of misinformation and bigotry by placing those who try to oppose them at a disadvantage. Keywords: antizionism, audience, conspiracism, conspiracy fantasy, conspiracy theory, content analysis, David Icke, discourse analysis, reception, right-wing extremism, YouTube

“What Others Dare Not Say”: An Antisemitic Conspiracy Fantasy and its YouTube Audience

The YouTube video-sharing platform is one of the most important sites for the dissemination of conspiracy theory, or—to give it a more accurately descriptive term—conspiracy fantasy. After surveying the historical and contemporary evidence for the role of conspiracy fantasy in right-wing violent extremism, this article turns its focus to a YouTube video excerpted from a public lecture in which professional conspiracy theorist David Icke purports to expose members of a “Rothschild Zionist” secret society. First, historical discourse analysis is used to situate Icke’s fantasy within the antisemitic tradition of the extreme right. Then, the reception of Icke’s fantasy is studied through quantitative content analysis of YouTube user comments (n = 1123). Comments supportive of the video and its creator are found to outnumber comments that challenge them, as are comments expressing hostility to Jews or extending the video’s accusations against “Rothschild Zionists” to real-world Jewish collectivities. Moreover, the most popular comments are found to be disproportionately likely to be supportive of Icke or his video or otherwise anti-Jewish. These findings provide evidence that at least the active portion of the video’s YouTube audience may have had a tendency not only towards support of Icke’s ideas but also towards linkage of those ideas with an overtly antisemitic worldview. It is argued that YouTube’s ranking of comments by popularity may be serving to insulate harmful fantasies such as Icke’s from rational challenge by rendering genuinely critical responses invisible. This illustrates the dangers of outsourcing the evaluation of content to an online user community. But it also suggests that YouTube’s user interface design may be actively contributing to the spread of misinformation and bigotry by placing those who try to oppose them at a disadvantage. Keywords: antizionism, audience, conspiracism, conspiracy fantasy, conspiracy theory, content analysis, David Icke, discourse analysis, reception, right-wing extremism, YouTube

Monitoring of a landslide through the use of UAV survey

<p>The monitoring of landslides using UAVs is particularly convenient as these are dangerous areas that present access difficulties. This study aims to integrate monitoring carried out via traditional techniques (GNSS and total station surveys of benchmarks) with UAV photogrammetric survey, as the latter allows for a precise assessment of the volumes affected by movement. The Masarach landslide, located in Friuli Venezia Giulia (north east Italy), covers an area of approximately 200 ha. Two surveys were carried out two years apart in order to measure displacements of much greater magnitude than instrumental errors. In the first survey, restricted to the most active area, a six rotor UAV was used, with a maximum take-off mass of 4 kg, which carried a 20 Mpixel APS-C camera. 243 high resolution images were captured and 27 GCPs (Ground Control Point) were surveyed with a GNSS RTK reciever. In the second survey a DJI Phantom 4 Pro UAV was used, carrying a 20 Mpixel 1“ sensor camera. 978 high resolution images were captured and 40 GCPs (Ground Control Point) were surveyed with a GNSS RTK reciever. Data were analyzed using Agisoft Metashape Professional to produce an orthophoto and a DSM (Digital Surface Model) with a ground resolution of 0.02 m and 0.04 m respectively. The DSMs were compared in ArcGIS to calculate the moving masses and highlight the areas of greatest instability. It emerged that approximately 10,000 cubic meters of landslide material were transported to the Arzino stream below, with verified displacements on the control point ranging from meters to centimeters. This work made it possible to accurately define the most active portion of the landslide.</p>

Dormancy dampens the microbial distance-decay relationship

ABSTRACTMuch of Earth’s biodiversity has the capacity to engage in dormancy whereby individuals enter a reversible state of reduced metabolic activity. By increasing resilience to unfavorable conditions, dormancy leads to the accumulation of “seed banks” that should diminish the influence of environmental filtering, while allowing passive dispersers to colonize new habitats. Although prevalent among single-celled organisms, evidence that dormancy influences patterns of microbial biodiversity and biogeography is lacking. We constructed geographical and environmental distance-decay relationships (DDRs) using 16S rRNA sequencing to characterize the total (DNA) and the active (RNA) bacterial communities in a regional survey of 49 forested ponds. As expected, the total community harbored greater diversity and exhibited weaker DDRs than the active portion of the community. These empirical observations were robust to different measures of community similarity and random resampling tests. Furthermore, findings from the field survey were reproduced by models that included aspects of dormancy along with the geographical coordinates and environmental characteristics of our study system. In addition to maintaining local diversity, our results support recent theoretical predictions that dormancy shapes geographical patterns of biodiversity.

High-Resolution Spaceborne, Airborne and In Situ Landslide Kinematic Measurements of the Slumgullion Landslide in Southwest Colorado

The Slumgullion landslide, located in southwestern Colorado, has been active since the early 1700s and current data suggests that the most active portion of the slide creeps at a rate of ~1.5–2.0 cm/day. Accurate deformation measurement techniques are vital to the understanding of persistent, yet slow-moving landslides like the Slumgullion. The factors that affect slope movements at the Slumgullion are on-time scales that are well suited towards a remotely sensed approach to constrain the 12 different kinematic units that make up the persistent creeping landslide. We derive a time series of motion vectors (magnitude and direction) using subpixel offset techniques from very high resolution TerraSAR-X Staring Spotlight ascending/descending data as well as from a novel high-resolution amalgamation of airborne lidar and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) Structure from Motion (SfM) digital surface model (DSM) hillshades. Deformation rates calculated from the spaceborne and airborne datasets show high agreement (mean difference of ~0.9 mm/day), further highlighting the potential for the monitoring of ongoing mass wasting events utilizing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) We compare pixel offset results from an 11-day synthetic aperture radar (SAR) pair acquired in July of 2016 with motion vectors from a coincident low-cost L1 only Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) field campaign in order to verify the remotely sensed results and to derive the accuracy of the azimuth and range offsets. We find that the average azimuth and range pixel offset accuracies utilizing the methods herein are on the order of 1/18 and 1/20 of their along-track and slant range focused ground pixel spacing values of 16.8 cm and 45.5 cm, respectively. We utilize the SAR offset time series to add a twelfth kinematic unit to the previously established set of eleven unique regions at the site of an established minislide within the main landslide itself. Lastly, we compare the calculated rates and direction from all spaceborne- and airborne-derived motion vectors for each of the established kinematic zones within the active portion of the landslide. These comparisons show an overall increased magnitude and across-track component (i.e., more westerly angles of motion) for the descending SAR data as compared to their ascending counterparts. The processing techniques and subsequent results herein provide for an improved knowledge of the Slumgullion landslide’s kinematics and this increased knowledge has implications for the advancement of measurement techniques and the understanding of globally distributed creeping landslides.

Development of granular radioactive reference source from 152,154Eu adsorbed on tin tungstate matrix

A reference source with the granular active portion was made using 152,154Eu(III) loaded tin tungstate material. Batch equilibration method was used to investigate the interaction of 152,154Eu(III) radiotracer (10−4 M) in acid solutions on tin(IV) tungstate gel matrix. The sorption behavior of 152,154Eu(III) showed high affinity towards tin(IV) tungstate gel matrix at low pH values. Tin tungstate gel matrix was loaded with 152,154Eu from batch at pH 3. Standardization of the source was done spectroscopically with reference to primary certified set of radioactive sources and with the aid of HPGe detector. Random and true coincidence summing was carried out by following-up coincidence in 152Eu and possible interference between γ lines of 152Eu and 154Eu. The relation between the grain size and the activity of samples was studied. Correction factor for capsule attenuation was applied.

Diffuse soil CO_2 degassing from Linosa island

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:HyphenationZone>14</w:HyphenationZone> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:HyphenationZone>14</w:HyphenationZone> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>IT</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--></p><p>Herein, we present and discuss the result of 148 measurements of soil CO<span>₂</span> flux performed for the first time in Linosa island (Sicily Channel, Italy), a Plio-Pleistocene volcanic complex no longer active but still of interest owing to its location within a seismically active portion of the Sicily Channel rift system. The main purpose of this survey was to assess the occurrence of CO<span>₂</span> soil degassing, and compare flux estimations from this island with data of soil degassing from worldwide active volcanic as well as non-volcanic areas. To this aim soil CO<span>₂</span> fluxes were measured over a surface of about 4.2 km<span>²</span> covering ~80% of the island. The soil CO<span>₂</span> degassing was observed to be mainly concentrated in the eastern part of the island likely due to volcano-tectonic lineaments, the presence of which is in good agreement with the known predominant regional faults system. Then, the collected data were interpreted using sequential Gaussian simulation that allowed estimating the total CO<span>₂</span> emissions of the island. Results show low levels of CO<span>₂</span> emissions from the soil of the island (~55 ton d<span>^-1</span>) compared with CO<span>₂</span> emissions of currently active volcanic areas, such as Miyakejima (Japan) and Vulcano (Italy). Results from this study suggest that soil degassing in Linosa is mainly fed by superficial organic activity with a moderate contribution of a deep CO<span>₂</span> likely driven by NW-SE trending active tectonic structures in the eastern part of the island.</p>