Photo: Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Wired reports that following the tragic shooting in South Florida on Wednesday, Russian bots "flooded Twitter" to spread pro-gun messaging and sow discord.
Why it matters: Bots were being used to spread misinformation about who the shooter was and what groups he belonged to. Per Wired, the goal is "to amplify the loudest voices in that fight, deepening the divisions between us."
Go deeper with the full Wired report.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
President Trump's crackdown on TikTok suggests that the U.S. government is starting to see the internet more like China does — as a network that countries can and should control within their borders.
The big picture: Today's global internet has split into three zones, according to many observers: The EU's privacy-focused network; China's government-dominated network; and the U.S.-led network dominated by a handful of American companies. TikTok's fate suggests China's model has U.S. fans as well.
President Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Photo: Bill Clark/Getty Images
The reworked Republican National Convention will be a four-night spectacle including still-under-wraps venues, a 10 p.m. "nightly surprise" and guests and themes playing to "the forgotten men and women of America," two senior Trump campaign officials involved tell Axios.
Driving the news: The messaging will focus heavily on "very granular details" of what a second term for President Trump would look like — answering a question Trump left hanging in a Fox News event earlier this summer — and attack cancel culture, "radical elements" of society and threats to public safety.
Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to worry about in-person voting — with nearly two in three seeing it as a large or moderate risk to their health — according to this week's installment of the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
Why it matters: This could pose a significant disadvantage for Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates in November if the pattern holds — especially in states where high infection rates persist, or where there are significant hurdles to mail-in, absentee or early voting.