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Donald Trump and Sean Hannity Set Off a Wave of Disinformation After Iran Bombing
Product Reviews

Donald Trump and Sean Hannity Set Off a Wave of Disinformation After Iran Bombing

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Trump’s effort to frame the bombing as a decisive end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while heavily disputed by arms control experts, was picked up by supporters who claimed the bombing raid had effectively ended any potential conflict.

“Nobody is celebrating war,” right-wing commentator Dave Rubin wrote on X on Sunday morning. “People are celebrating the end of war.” Pro-Trump commentator Ben Shapiro hailed Trump’s actions as historic on his YouTube channel: “President Trump was never going to start world war three … he played this absolutely perfectly … President Trump was not dragged into a war, he managed this with absolutely stunning professionalism.”

However, just hours later, Trump raised the possibility of an extended military engagement in Iran when he suggested replacing the current leadership in a post on Truth Social.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!,” Trump wrote. Trump’s suggestion came after his own vice president, secretary of defense, and secretary of state had all declared that the bombing raid had nothing to do with regime change.

A MAGA cohort had warned for weeks that any attempt to replace the Iranian government would lead to a protracted war that would see US troops on the ground in the Middle East getting involved.

Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist who had repeatedly voiced his opposition to war with Iran, appeared to make a U-turn on Sunday evening in response to Trump’s “regime change” post.

“A bottom-up revolution rises from the will of the people,” Kirk wrote on X. A top-down regime change is engineered by elites and the intel community. One is organic, the other is orchestrated, forced … President Trump is talking about an organic uprising.”

Kirk was mocked by other right-wing influencers for his U-turn. “Oh now it’s TOP DOWN US led regime change that your [sic] against,” influential podcasters Keith and Kevin Hodge, wrote on X in response to Kirk. “Not just regular old regime change. We get a new and improved regime change sponsored by the intel community and defense contractors!”

While some of the loudest opponents to engaging in military activity in Iran—such as Tucker Carlson—have yet to comment on Trump’s suggestion of regime change, many have criticized the weekend’s incidents.

“American troops have been killed and forever torn apart physically and mentally for regime change, foreign wars, and for military industrial base profits,” US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote in a lengthy diatribe on X after the bombings. “I’m sick of it.”

Meanwhile, Alex Jones, the school-shooting conspiracist and Pizzagate conspiracy promoter who filed for bankruptcy in 2022, said Trump’s regime change comments would drag US troops into the conflict.

“Now Trump joins in, essentially calling for regime change, that’s called sleepwalking us into total war, not what we voted for,” Jones said on his Infowars show on Sunday night.

On Monday morning, Trump himself indicated that the fallout from the US bombing raid may continue for some time, writing a post apparently in response to speculation that Iran will close one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, the Strait of Hormuz.

“EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I’M WATCHING! YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON’T DO IT!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, before adding: “To The Department of Energy: DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!”



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What Satellite Images Reveal About the US Bombing of Iran's Nuclear Sites
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What Satellite Images Reveal About the US Bombing of Iran’s Nuclear Sites

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When the United States bombed Iran in the early hours of Sunday local time, it targeted three facilities central to the country’s nuclear ambitions: the Fordow uranium enrichment plant, the Natanz nuclear facility, and the Isfahan nuclear technology center. Newly released satellite images show the impact of the attack—at least, what can be seen on the ground.

The brunt of the bombing focused on Fordow, where US forces dropped a dozen GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators as part of its “Midnight Hammer” operation. These 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bombs are designed to penetrate as deep as 200 feet into the earth before detonating. The Fordow complex is approximately 260 feet underground.

That gap accounts for some of the uncertainty over exactly how much damage the Fordow site sustained. President Donald Trump shared a post on his Truth Social platform following the attack that declared “Fordow is gone,” and later said in a televised address that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” His own military, however, was slightly more circumspect about the outcome in a Sunday morning briefing. “It would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there,” said general Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Satellite imagery can inherently only tell you so much about a structure that is situated so far below the surface of the earth. But before and after imagery is the best publicly available information about the bombing’s impact.

A satellite image from before the US bombing of Fordow.

Photo: MAXAR Technologies/Handout via Reuters

A satellite image from after the US bombing of Fordow.

Photo: MAXAR Technologies/Handout via Reuters

“What we see are six craters, two clusters of three, where there were 12 massive ordnance penetrators dropped,” says Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “The idea is you hit the same spot over and over again to kind of dig down.”

The specific locations of those craters matter as well, says Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues. While the entrance tunnels to the Fordow complex appear not to have been targeted, US bombs fell on what are likely ventilation shafts, based on satellite images of early construction at the site.

“The reason that you’d want to target a ventilation shaft is that it’s a more direct route to the core components of the underground facility,” says Rodgers.

That direct route is especially important given how deep underground Fordow was built. The US military relies on “basically a computer model” of the facility, says Lewis, which tells them “how much pressure it could take before it would severely damage everything inside and maybe even collapse the facility.” By bombarding specific targeted areas with multiple munitions, the US didn’t need bombs capable of penetrating the full 260 feet to cause substantial damage.

“They’re probably not trying to get all the way into the facility. They’re probably just trying to get close enough to it and crush it with a shockwave,” Lewis says. “If you send a big enough shockwave through that facility, it’s going to kill people, break stuff, damage the integrity of it.”



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Truth Social Crashes as Trump Live-Posts Iran Bombing
Product Reviews

Truth Social Crashes as Trump Live-Posts Iran Bombing

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Truth Social malfunctioned on Saturday night amid President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States had bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Starting around 8 pm ET on Saturday, attempts to load the social network, which is owned by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), displayed error messages. “Network failed,” a message on Truth Social reads. “Please try again.”

Trump’s initial Truth Social announcement that the United States had entered Israel’s war against Iran posted at 7:46 pm ET, stating that the US had waged a “very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.” Trump’s account on the social media platform X posted a screenshot of the bombing announcement at 7:53 pm ET.

“All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,” Trump continued. “All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Trump frequently shares posts to Truth Social about issues of national and international importance. The president appeared to post multiple times after news of the US bombings against Iran were first announced. A significant portion of Trump’s net worth is reportedly derived from his stake in TMTG, Truth Social’s parent company.

DownDetector, a website that crowdsources service outages, saw an influx of reports of Truth Social going down around 8 pm. The reason for the apparent outage was not immediately clear. NetBlocks, which monitors internet accessibility, posted on BlueSky just before 9 pm ET: “Truth Social is experiencing international outages for many users after US President Donald Trump announces strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran; incident not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.”

Truth Social did not immediately respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.

US and Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to The New York Times that US forces had conducted airstrikes on the Fordo and Natanz facilities. The condition of the US targets were not yet confirmed as of just before 9 pm ET.

Israel first began bombing targets in Iran on June 13. The two countries have repeatedly targeted each other since.

On Wednesday, Truth Social reportedly sent an email to at least some users encouraging them to follow Trump’s account. The email read in part, “If you aren’t following President Donald J. Trump on Truth Social, you’re missing an essential resource for navigating world affairs today.”

Trump will hold a televised address at 10 pm ET, according to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.



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With the Illuminate now on the verge of defeat, Helldivers 2 was just hit with a fresh barrage of Steam review bombing apparently rooted in a Galactic War comms mix-up
Game Reviews

With the Illuminate now on the verge of defeat, Helldivers 2 was just hit with a fresh barrage of Steam review bombing apparently rooted in a Galactic War comms mix-up

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Helldivers 2 has been hit with a fresh burst of negative reviews on Steam over the past couple of days, and it looks like the reason for this uptick is rooted in an alleged Galactic War messaging mix-up involving Chinese players keen to defeat the Illuminate.

The good news is that the squids may soon suffer that exact fate, with the battle for Super Earth now in the final stage of its final stage. Though, it has taken Super Earth’s president getting killed in action to get us to that point.

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Taking a look at Steam, HD2 has clocked up just under 3500 negative reviews across May 29 and May 30 so far, as opposed to 1514 positive ones. It’s a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the mass of over 220,000 negative reviews that came with last May’s PSN account linking controversy, but still noticeable.

A glance through these recent thumbs downs reveals that a good portion of them are rooted in unhappiness about recent bugs like the stratagem input one. Though, there are also a bunch that cite the percentage “99.9783%” and express frustration at Arrowhead over a recent development in the the Galactic War.

What’s happened looks to be this: with only two mega cities left to defend from the Illuminate invasion – Equality-On-Sea (located in China on Helldivers 2’s in-game map) and Prosperity City (Super Earth’s capital, placed in Sweden, home of developer Arrowhead) – there was a big effort put in by players, especially those in China, to hold on to the former.

Image credit: VG247

Their efforts meant the Helldivers’ hold on the city got to 99.9783%, but because the Illuminate are still invading en-masse in a manner the divers couldn’t put a full stop to at that point because the current order was still ongoing, there was nothing they could do to make Equality-On-Sea 100% theirs.

According to an alleged “level 150 Chinese Helldiver veteran” with the Reddit username Valkyrie_Yukikaze (thanks, GamesRadar), this lead to frustration among Chinese players, which they claim to have not been helped by the game’s Chinese translation apparently explaining defense percentages in a way that “makes it [seem] like that the city can be completely taken back from the invasion”.

Cue anger, coupled with conspiracy theories about Arrowhead and its game master J.O.E.L railroading players into specific outcomes or plot twists in the war, rather than rewarding them for their efforts and reacting dynamically to them. How you feel about that comes down to what you think the job of a D&D-style dungeon master is, but there are plenty of examples of Arrowhead embracing stuff players have done out of the blue in the past – hello mines people decided to save children over.

Anyway, here’s hoping everyone can chill out and come together for the climax of this pivotal major order. While Super Earth’s president has been killed in action overnight, Arrowhead’s latest news briefing says that the squids are “taking heavy losses” that could soon result in them being “forced to abandon the assault” of Super Earth. That’s assuming the divers can keep on holding out, so here’s hoping they stay strong.



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