CHESTERBROOK, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2023--

Since Instagram’s text-based alternative to Twitter, Threads, rolled out last week, a handful of memes and conspiracy theories have surfaced around the app’s unusual ‘at symbol’-like logo – from the inaccurate suggestion it was predicted by The Simpsons (it wasn’t), and now, to claims it’s actually linked to the devil (it isn’t). The baseless theory - seemingly backed by Twitter owner Elon Musk himself, if his public tweet likes are anything to go by – suggests the swirly icon secretly contains the number ‘666’, often referred to as “the number of the beast” and considered a link to the Antichrist. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Claiming they “can’t stop seeing it”, one Twitter user asked: “Does anyone else think the Threads logo just looks like 666? The first 6 is forward and white, then the second one is smaller and backwards, and the third one is the black space inside.” “How to put 666 ‘the number of the beast’ into a logo,” wrote another, in a tweet liked by Musk. Several other accounts have branded Threads “satanic” over the supposed link. In fact, the baseless claim became so popular that Instagram boss Adam Mosseri shared a thread on Friday explaining the real meaning behind the logo. “The Threads logo, in Instagram Sans, is inspired by the @ sign, which stands for someone’s username, the individual, and voice. “It’s a single unbroken line, inspired by the loop seen in the app when a thread is started,” he wrote. When one user commented that it “would have been entertaining” if Mosseri jokingly confirmed the conspiracy to be true, the exec replied: “It was tempting, but I feel like that kind of sass would just blow up in my face.” Sensible. Of course, this is just one fact which dispels this conspiracy theory as nonsense and baseless, but one lesser-known bit of historical trivia also exposes just how outlandish the claim is. All the way back in 2005, it was reported that a newly discovered fragment of the oldest version of the New Testament – the second part of the Bible – from the third century gave a different number entirely for the number of the beast. Found in historic dumps near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, the text from the Book of Revelation indicates it’s not 666 which is the fiendish number we should all be fearing, but the far less aesthetically pleasing 616. Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, said: “This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people’s names. “Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.” This is in contrast to the far more popular 666, which is understood to have referred to Emperor Nero. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Regulators have revealed when they expect to approve a launch license to SpaceX for the next major flight test of its Starship rocket. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) commercial space division said a mishap investigation from the last test in April had been concluded and a license would likely be granted “somewhere in mid to late October”, assuming SpaceX make the necessary changes. Starship is the biggest rocket ever built, measuring 394 feet (120 metres) and capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of thrust, however it is yet to make it to orbit. An attempt on 20 April, 2023, saw it blow up just over three minutes into a 90 minute flight. The debris that came down in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as from the destroyed launchpad in Texas, became the subject of an FAA investigation. The federal agency said SpaceX would need to take 63 corrective actions before another launch license is approved. Kevin Coleman, the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, told SpaceNews this week that 27 of the 63 corrective actions are related to public safety. “So one thing that we’ll need to see before the next operation is evidence that shows that the company has closed out the corrective actions that are specifically tied to public safety,” he said. “We’re on a pretty good schedule. It probably set us somewhere in mid to late October for conclusion of the safety review.” A separate environmental review from the US Fish and Wildlife Service is also required in order to comply with the Endangered Species Act, though Mr Coleman said he hoped it would be wrapped up by the time the safety review is complete. Earlier this month, SpaceX boss Elon Musk said Starship is “ready to launch” after it was pictured on the launchpad of the firm’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The tech billionaire plans to build hundreds of the rockets in order to establish a permanent human colony on Mars before 2050. SpaceX has already secured a multi-billion dollar contract with Nasa to develop the craft for use in the US space agency’s Artemis programme, which aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon this decade. Read More ‘It’s becoming like an airport’: How SpaceX normalised rocket launches Elon Musk makes prediction for imminent Starship launch SpaceX launch of Starship rocket on hold amid ‘mishap investigation’ India’s solar mission completes key manoeuvre, slingshots towards Sun

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Elon Musk has questioned reality after speaking with a man with a voice that sounds “exactly like him”. The tech billionaire took part in a Spaces event on X, the company formerly known as Twitter than he purchased last year. Also taking part in the discussion was Adrian Dittmann, whose voice and laugh sounds remarkably similar to Mr Musk’s. “That was next-level,” Mr Musk posted on X following the encounter. During the eight minute interaction, the X owner frequently questioned whether Mr Dittmann was a real person or an artificial intelligence voice clone. “My mind is literally melting out from my ears right now,” Mr Dittmann said. “This is a fully recursive psy-op, that’s what this is. We are the simulation. I literally put out a tweet saying, ‘hey, we are the matrix, like we make our own things real... I don’t want to break the matrix, I want to reshape it such that it agrees with us’. That’s my mission, personally, I don’t want to break, I want to shape.” Mr Musk responded: “At some point there’s just going to be like 100 AI clones of me that sound exactly the same.” Mr Dittmann pushed back by saying he was not an AI, adding: “This is what I unironically sound like all the time. This is natural me.” Another member of the X Spaces, Borovik.eth, defended Mr Dittmann, posting: “Adrian isn’t really an impersonator. He’s just a guy who sounds exactly like him. I’ve been on a lot of spaces with him over the last few months.” In an effort to prove that he was human, Mr Dittmann made a chomping noise into his microphone. “You can hear my meat flaps,” he said, to which Mr Musk burst out laughing. “I’ve got Elon dying right now, that’s great,” Mr Dittmann said. Another member of the Spaces event said: “I can’t tell if the real one is talking or...” Mr Musk questioned Mr Dittmann about his background, though they did not share much in common. Mr Musk grew up in South Africa before moving to Canada and eventually settling in the United States, whereas his voice doppelganger claimed to have grown up in Gibraltar and Morocco before moving to somewhere in Oceania – he did not reveal where for privacy reasons. Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Elon Musk’s Twitter bans ad showing Republican interrupting couple in bedroom Kanye West allowed back on Twitter following his ban over antisemitic conspiracies As Twitter becomes X - Seven disastrous rebrands from Royal Mail to New Coke

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