Israel Braces for More Upheaval as Judicial Bill Edges Forward
Israel is braced for a new wave of turmoil as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government pushes ahead with
2023-07-10 19:57
Fertilizer company OCI bets big on climate-friendly ammonia
By Rod Nickel and Victoria Klesty Without a single sales contract in hand, Dutch fertilizer company OCI is
2023-07-10 19:22
Threads ‘666’ logo conspiracy theory can be undermined by one simple historical fact
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.
2023-07-10 17:54
Reliance Rallies on Finance Unit Listing, Retail Buyback Plans
Reliance Industries Ltd. rallied the most in more than three months after India’s biggest firm by market value
2023-07-10 15:59
Instagram Threads hits 100 million users, becoming easily the fastest growing app ever
Instagram’s Threads app has reached 100 million users, making it easily the fastest growing app ever. The site reached the number early on Monday morning, according to a tracker that looks at the numbers that are made public on each Threads account.
2023-07-10 15:52
Ocado launches first robotic warehouse in Asia with Aeon
LONDON British online supermarket and technology group Ocado said on Monday its first robotic warehouse in Asia, built
2023-07-10 15:51
BT CEO Philip Jansen to Step Down in Next 12 Months
BT Group Plc is searching for a new chief executive officer after Philip Jansen told the board he’d
2023-07-10 14:50
TSMC Sales Ride AI Demand Boost to Beat Estimates
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported better-than-expected sales on a boom in artificial intelligence applications demanding more of the
2023-07-10 13:58
Vietnam Orders Netflix to Remove Chinese TV Drama Over Disputed Map
Netflix Inc. and FPT Telecom stopped offering the Chinese romantic TV drama Flight to You in Vietnam after
2023-07-10 11:25
There’s More Pain Ahead for S&P 500 as Profit Warnings Loom, Investors Say
There's more pain on the way for the S&P 500 as profit warnings and fears of higher interest
2023-07-10 08:23
Bitcoin Bulls Take Heart From Litecoin’s Market-Beating Surge
Bitcoin investors are drawing succor from a surge in the smaller token Litecoin over the past year that
2023-07-10 07:18
Yellen’s China Trip Offers Economic Guardrails in Tense Rivalry
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s two-day engagement with top officials in Beijing offered a way for the US and
2023-07-10 05:18