Hello again from Open Measures! Our team is preparing for the upcoming US midterm elections. We’ll be actively monitoring for threats in the weeks surrounding Election Day, providing daily insights to our partners. Keep an eye out for more information about that in the next week.
We’ve also been experimenting with making short videos that explain how we approached research pieces we’ve published. We’re calling this series “Under the Hood” and our first two videos discuss our research on the “culture war” outrage campaign against the WNBA and the 4chan users looking to home-brew AI deepfake porn.
Violent Rhetoric Against Public Officials Seen in Comments on Hyperpartisan News Site Ahead of 2026 Midterms
Readers of a hyperpartisan news blog have shared violent and threatening comments about public officials in the United States ahead of 2026 midterm elections, a new analysis from Open Measures has found.
4chan Users Are Sharing Tools and Tips for Homebrewing AI Deepfake Porn
Users on 4chan’s “Technology” board have shown heightened interest in tools and techniques for using generative artificial intelligence models to create their own “deepfake porn” in recent months, new analysis from Open Measures and the American Sunlight Project
In 2026, New Threats Are Emerging on 6 Platforms. Here's What Security Teams Need to Know.
Security teams use online monitoring to help them predict where and how online activity may materialize into physical threats, but many of the tools available were designed to monitor major platforms that have since become less relevant. When online threats are first detected on a major platform, they are frequently a late signal, as threats have often …
What We’re Reading:
Key election denial activists in the right-wing media ecosystem (Media Matters)
As CNN, MS NOW, Politico Booted, White Nationalist Outlet Snags White House Press Slot (ConfrontTheHate.com)
Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet (404 Media)
The Real Threat to the Midterms Is Regular Americans Thinking Violence Is the Answer (WIRED)
Before you go…
There are a lot of great movies in theaters right now, and our team highly recommends the following: Resident Evil, Primetime, and The History of Concrete.