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There are boy aquariums all over the United States,” a TikTok creator explains in a recent post. The video then shows a clip of someone carrying a bucket filled with hockey pucks. Come feed the fish at the boy aquarium with me, the closed captions read. The person tosses the pucks onto the rink as players skate past. On TikTok, ice hockey arenas have been rebranded as boy aquariums.” Videos show women tapping against the battered Plexiglas, filming the players warming up and encouraging others to go on a girls night to the rink. The players themselves are in on the joke. Earlier this year, the official TikTok of the Canadian junior ice hockey team Moncton Wildcats posted: So were calling this the boy aquarium now? as the players skate around the enclosed rink. Another video, posted last week, shows the University of Cincinnati mens ice hockey team on a field trip to an actual aquarium. Fans are encouraging others to go and watch the sport. You look happier, the on-screen text reads on one clip, Thanks, I went to the boy aquarium with my besties. The National Hockey Leagues fan base overall is young, diverse, and online. Over half, 54%, are under the age of 44, according to Sport Radar, the second-youngest among the four major U.S. leagues. And the new legion of overwhelmingly female fans filling stadiums can be traced, in part, back to the popularity of BookToks favorite ice-hockey romance genre. The uninitiated may be surprised to learn there are thousands of novels in this niche subcategory, the most popular being Hannah Graces romance bestseller Icebreaker, which went viral in 2022 with the story of a competitive figure skater and hockey team captain forced to share a rink (cue romantic entanglement). Capitalizing on the hype, social-media teams regularly publish videos of players reading spicy chapters of Icebreaker or Pucking Around, another hockey romance bestseller by Emily Rath. “Heated Rivalry”, currently airing on HBO Max, has only added to the hockey fever, spawning thousands of reaction videos on TikTok and Instagram. With its steamy gay hockey romance storyline, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels, the Canadian import has topped the streaming charts following the release of episode 4. While tongue-in-cheek, the boy aquarium trend also risks playing into harmful stereotypes of female sports fans. The puck bunny insult has long been levelled at young female hockey fans, just as groupie has historically been used to belittle female music fans. Ice Hockey UK and The Elite League recently condemned a Financial Times article about British romance readers discovering ice hockey. The tone of the article is not just absurd and inaccurate in relation to ice hockey, but also to women who watch sport in general, Ice Hockey UK CEO Henry Staelens said in a statement. Something that shouldnt even be a talking point in todays society. Female sports fans have long fought to be taken seriously, and social media trends – while harmless on the surface – risk erasing their passion and knowledge of the sport, replaced instead by a backdrop for a fictional trope. Whether lifelong fans, or recent BookTok converts, ice hockey as an industry is heating up. The NHL league’s 32 clubs average valuation climbed 15% year-over-year to $2.2 billion, Forbes recently reported, more than double where they were just three years ago. While some may come for the fictional hockey players, they stay for the sport.
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The value of cryptocurrency XRP continues to slide, dipping as low as $1.92 as of Monday morning. XRPthe native crypto token of the XRP Ledger, created by Ripple Labshas seen its value hover around the $2 mark for roughly a month, and has been on a downward trend since late July, when values peaked at more than $3.50. Values remained elevated through most of the summer months, catalyzed by U.S. regulators dropping legal actions against Ripple Labs, which had stretched on for several years. Additionally and subsequently, XRP ETFs have hit exchanges, theoretically broadening XRPs appeal and reach within the crypto space. That, it seems, should have increased demand and XRP prices, but that has not materialized. The question, then, is why XRPs price has continued to fallor seems stuck around $2? On a recent episode of the Paul Barron Podcast, Zach Rector, a crypto market analyst, said that the launch of numerous XRP ETFs is going to lead to price action, but as for why the price isnt going up more immediately with recent inflows into the ETFs, Rector says theres a simple answer. In the month of November, there was $808 million in outflows on centralized exchanges. Thats people selling to dollars or stablecoins and leaving XRP, he said. And on the other side, of the ETF equation, there was $803 million of inflows into the ETFs, he added, saying that in all, the movement of value has been somewhat mutedespecially since some of that money is moving over-the-counter, rather than on exchanges, meaning that it could also have little effect on market prices. In other words, public and private sales and demand for XRP may not yet be reflected in market value. Of course, what happens next is anyones guess. Its also important to note that Bitcoin, the largest and most popular cryptocurrency, has likewise seen values decline over the past couple of months, as has Ethereumso, XRP isnt necessarily alone in experiencing recent price declines. XRPs price history is volatile, too, especially given its legal hangups over the past few years. While its current sub-$2 valuation is the lowest in some time, XRP prices did hover between $0.30 and $0.80 for most of 2022, 2023, and 2024. It saw a major breakout in October of last year, with values rocketing from around $0.50 to more than $3 by January 2025.
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As the rest of the world rushes to harness the power of artificial intelligence, militant groups also are experimenting with the technology, even if they aren’t sure exactly what to do with it.For extremist organizations, AI could be a powerful tool for recruiting new members, churning out realistic deepfake images and refining their cyberattacks, national security experts and spy agencies have warned.Someone posting on a pro-Islamic State group website last month urged other IS supporters to make AI part of their operations. “One of the best things about AI is how easy it is to use,” the user wrote in English.“Some intelligence agencies worry that AI will contribute (to) recruiting,” the user continued. “So make their nightmares into reality.”IS, which had seized territory in Iraq and Syria years ago but is now a decentralized alliance of militant groups that share a violent ideology, realized years ago that social media could be a potent tool for recruitment and disinformation, so it’s not surprising that the group is testing out AI, national security experts say.For loose-knit, poorly resourced extremist groups or even an individual bad actor with a web connection AI can be used to pump out propaganda or deepfakes at scale, widening their reach and expanding their influence.“For any adversary, AI really makes it much easier to do things,” said John Laliberte, a former vulnerability researcher at the National Security Agency who is now CEO of cybersecurity firm ClearVector. “With AI, even a small group that doesn’t have a lot of money is still able to make an impact.” How extremist groups are experimenting Militant groups began using AI as soon as programs like ChatGPT became widely accessible. In the years since, they have increasingly used generative AI programs to create realistic-looking photos and video.When strapped to social media algorithms, this fake content can help recruit new believers, confuse or frighten enemies and spread propaganda at a scale unimaginable just a few years ago.Such groups spread fake images two years ago of the Israel-Hamas war depicting bloodied, abandoned babies in bombed-out buildings. The images spurred outrage and polarization while obscuring the war’s actual horrors. Violent groups in the Middle East used the photos to recruit new members, as did antisemitic hate groups in the U.S. and elsewhere.Something similar happened last year after an attack claimed by an IS affiliate killed nearly 140 people at a concert venue in Russia. In the days after the shooting, AI-crafted propaganda videos circulated widely on discussion boards and social media, seeking new recruits.IS also has created deepfake audio recordings of its own leaders reciting scripture and used AI to quickly translate messages into multiple languages, according to researchers at SITE Intelligence Group, a firm that tracks extremist activities and has investigated IS’ evolving use of AI. ‘Aspirational’ for now Such groups lag behind China, Russia or Iran and still view the more sophisticated uses of AI as “aspirational,” according to Marcus Fowler, a former CIA agent who is now CEO at Darktrace Federal, a cybersecurity firm that works with the federal government.But the risks are too high to ignore and are likely to grow as the use of cheap, powerful AI expands, he said.Hackers are already using synthetic audio and video for phishing campaigns, in which they try to impersonate a senior business or government leader to gain access to sensitive networks. They also can use AI to write malicious code or automate some aspects of cyberattacks.More concerning is the possibility that militant groups may try to use AI to help produce biological or chemical weapons, making up for a lack of technical expertise. That risk was included in the Department of Homeland Security’s updated Homeland Threat Assessment, released earlier this year.“ISIS got on Twitter early and found ways to use social media to their advantage,” Fowler said. “They are always looking for the next thing to add to their arsenal.” Countering a growing threat Lawmakers have floated several proposals, saying there’s an urgent need to act.Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, for instance, that the U.S. must make it easier for AI developers to share information about how their products are being used by bad actors, whether they are extremists, criminal hackers or foreign spies.“It has been obvious since late 2022, with the public release of ChatGPT, that the same fascination and experimentation with generative AI the public has had would also apply to a range of malign actors,” Warner said.During a recent hearing on extremist threats, House lawmakers learned that IS and al-Qaida have held training workshops to help supporters learn to use AI.Legislation that passed the U.S. House last month would require homeland security officials to assess the AI risks posed by such groups each year.Guarding against the malicious use of AI is no different from preparing for more conventional attacks, said Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the bill’s sponsor.“Our policies and capabilities must keep pace with the threats of tomorrow,” he said. David Klepper, Associated Press
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