A group claiming affiliation with Anonymous posted a bomb threat on its Twitter account Monday, saying it plans to detonate a bomb in a government building on November 5. The threat prompted disavowals from other Anon channels across the web.
The threat was linked from @FawkesSecurity, which posted the following message on several paste-up sites, as well as links to a seemingly typical Anonymous video with a masked and suited figure gesturing as a robotic voice said these words: Read More
Last night, the now-notorious Reddit troll Violentacrez, whom Gawker recently exposed as a 49-year-old Texas-based programmer named Michael Brutsch, appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 for God knows what reason. In the painfully awkward two-part interview, during which Mr. Cooper thankfully gave us a commercial break to collect ourselves and tweet our thoughts, Mr. Brutsch invoked every possible excuse to justify his poor behavior, which includes creating controversial subreddits like PicsofDeadKids and Jailbait.
Throughout the interview, Mr. Brutsch referred to his Reddit username Violentacrez in the third person, echoing other statements he’s made about Violentacrez being a character he played and attempting to distance himself from taking personal responsibility for his actions. He also admitted that his sole purpose for creating racist and misogynistic subreddits was to get a rise out of people (he bragged he has a “gift” for it) in order to accumulate “meaningless internet points.” Read More
Shimmery fairydust composite Taylor Swift, who floats instead of walks and subsists entirely on a nutritional diet of rainbows, has decided not to let the trolls ruin a good contest.
Back in August, Reddit and 4chan galvanized for the all-important cause of gaming a VH1 competition that would send Ms. Swift to perform at a school that received the highest amount of votes. Soon, a hoard of trolls began liking Ms. Swift on Facebook and voting to send her to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston.
(Get it? Sending a musician to a school for kids who can’t hear music? “Lulz.”) Read More
A study conducted at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism seems to indicate that if friends say you’re hot in comments on a Facebook or Tumblr pic, others may agree.
Professor Kevin Wise and doctoral student Seoyeon Hong showed 100 students several photos of one person. They discovered something interesting about how people reacted to the images: Read More
