Russia’s Meta Campaign Against Ukraine; Fast Company Hack; Tesla-Fleet Deliveries; Samsung Galaxy S23 Leak

Meta caught and disrupted a highly sophisticated Russian influence operation that had been launched on its Facebook and Instagram platforms…as well as on Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, and LiveJournal. Theverge.com reports that the propaganda was being spread by a network of over 60 fake websites. A number of the sites impersonated actual mainstream European news sources like Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and Bild. The propaganda criticized Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, and railed against sanctions on Russia. Meta said “This is the largest and most complex Russian-origin operation that we’ve disrupted since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.” The Russians apparently spent around $105,000 on promoting the articles and memes via Facebook and instagram ads. 

Biz-tech magazine Fast Company reported this week that its Apple News account was hacked, and the hacker then proceeded to bomb subscribers with racist content. According to gizmodo.com, the magazine made the announcement on Twitter, saying that “Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent about a minute apart. The messages are vile and not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company,”  Apple News disabled the channel until they are able to resolve the situation. 

Tesla is shooting for a new all-time delivery record this quarter, and hypoing sales by pumping out a large volume of fleet deliveries. Electrek.co notes that Tesla is trying to fill a Hertz order for 100,000 vehicles by year’s end, and is also selling to other car rental companies such as Avis and Enterprise. EV subscription service Autonomy is expecting to take delivery of about 500 vehicles by the end of the week. Autonomy has 23,000 EVs on order…most of them Teslas. Unlike legacy car makers, Tesla doesn’t give a discount to car rental companies. 

There are always more and earlier leaks about Samsung’s smartphones compared to notoriously secretive Apple. Now, cnet.com says photos have leaked online of the upcoming Galaxy S23 that’s due out early next year. The pics don’t really show much of a change, save for a slight update to the rear camera. Again, the lenses aren’t on a ‘bump,’ but just protrude individually. the phone also appears to be just about 6.1 inches…like the S22. (It is actually a couple tenths of an inch bigger.) Word is that inside, the next Samsung will be powered by a new Exynos processor, and may get a 200Mp sensor on the Ultra model.