Sometimes the worst news stories lead to the best satirical memes. On Monday, Atlantic Magazine published an article by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg titled “The Trump Administration accidentally posted a plan for war for me.” While it sounds like a parody story in the onion, it’s too real. Goldberg somehow uses signal, open source, encrypted messaging services to add to the group chat, as well as Vice President Jade Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Michael Michael Waltz and other officials.
Read more: What is a signal, an application used to accidentally send journalists’ military plans?
Goldberg wrote that he thought the chat must be a prank or joke, but soon learned that it was a real battle plan. Prior to these strikes on March 15, senior Trump administration officials used chats to discuss military strikes in Yemen. White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes confirmed the authenticity of the news for ABC news.
This is particularly worrying news, because as CNET's Zachary Macauliffe pointed out in the signal's interpreter, Google's Threat Intelligence Team reported in February that Russian consistent malicious actors are targeting signal users, trying to access their accounts by abusing the app's legitimate “legal” link devices.
This is a meme
Can such a serious thing have a humorous side? If you've been using it for more than a few minutes on the internet, you know that almost everything can turn into a meme. Many focused on adding Goldberg to the group, while others speculated that Hegseth had many humorous goals.
Of course, a new meme restores the iconic meme format, showing 11-year-old Frank Giaccio, who is willing to return to the White House lawn in 2017. He pushed a photo of a lawn mower, whom Donald Trump apparently spoke to, has already spoken for him, has been captioned and reviewed hundreds of times, and has again raised the signaling incident.
Since then, the memes haven’t stopped.
