Society's ChildS


Megaphone

Ted Cruz rips Jack Dorsey over censorship of New York Post's Hunter Biden bombshell

Mark Moore and Aaron Feis
New York Post
Wed, 28 Oct 2020 12:00 UTC
ted cruz jack dorsey
© Getty ImagesTed Cruz (left) and Jack Dorsey during a hearing to discuss reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Sen. Ted Cruz teed off on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over the social-media giant's censorship of The Post's reporting on Hunter Biden, in a stunning rebuke during Wednesday's Big Tech hearings on Capitol Hill.

"Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?" Cruz thundered at the social-media mogul. "Why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?"

Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, testified via live feed before the Senate Commerce Committee on topics including election security and preventing the spread of misinformation regarding the coronavirus.

Comment: It seems many were more interested in Dorsey's beard than anything else that came out of the Big Tech hearings although Twitter's 'misinformation policy' certainly drew some ire. From RT:
Twitter's Dorsey raises eyebrows with 'wizard' beard & comment that Holocaust denial doesn't violate 'misinformation' policy
28 Oct, 2020 18:47

Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey found himself the biggest target at Wednesday's Senate hearing, with the tech head being attacked for everything from his laid-back look to confusing answers on censorship and Holocaust denial.

Before Dorsey even opened his mouth on Wednesday, the meme-makers had already got to work. Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Dorsey appeared with a long, disheveled beard, a look that left many on social media scratching their heads and instantly pouncing.

"I can't believe they made Ben Gunn the head of Twitter," conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted, in reference to a character from 'Treasure Island' marooned on an island for years.



"Okay, ban twitter," writer Stephen Miller joked, adding a photo of the bearded Dorsey.




...

Further confusing viewers was Dorsey's admission at one point that Holocaust denial tweets do not violate the platform's "misinformation" policy, a policy President Trump has been in violation of multiple times.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) asked specifically about tweets from Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei questioning the Holocaust and asked why they remained up while Trump himself has been censored.


"We don't have a policy against misinformation. We have a policy against misinformation in three categories, which are manipulated media, public health - specifically Covid - and civic integrity, election interference, and voter suppression. That is all we have a policy on for misleading information," Dorsey said.

The long-winded answer only further angered people already frustrated with Twitter's censorship in general, as the standards remain unexplained and questionable to critics.




Dorsey faced a different kind of scrutiny entirely from the Democrats, as some essentially called for more censorship and policing of posts from social media companies.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), for instance, told the committee and tech leaders that "the issue is not that the companies before us today is that they're taking too many posts down. The issue is that they're leaving too many dangerous posts up."


Asked about censorship of the Post's account, Dorsey said the paper will only be permitted to tweet again if they delete their original tweets on the Hunter Biden story. Once they do that, they can repost the same material and it won't be censored, the CEO said, confirming Twitter has amended their policy to avoid similar situations in the future.

The answer was not satisfactory with the platform's critics.

"This level of idiocy confirms the widespread impression that Jack's primary food source is weed," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said of Dorsey's answer.

See also:

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Megaphone

Poland's national women's strike sees mass walkouts in opposition to near-total abortion ban


RT
Wed, 28 Oct 2020 18:42 UTC
poland protest abortion
© Reuters / Maciej JazwieckiPeople take part in a protest against the ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that imposes a near-total ban on abortion in Warsaw.
A nationwide women's strike is being held in Poland on Wednesday, as people continue to demonstrate against the near-total abortion ban that was imposed after a court ruling last week.

On the seventh consecutive day of protests against the legal decision, people have begun a nationwide strike across the country, walking out from their workplaces and gathering in the streets to express their anger at the ban on abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities - one of the few remaining grounds for abortion in the country.

Demonstrators in Warsaw marched from the office of Ordo Iuris, a conservative group that has been fighting for a full abortion ban, to the country's parliament, where they were confronted with police in riot gear. Other major cities, such as Krakow, Lodz, Szczecin and Wroclaw, saw crowds fill the streets to make their voices heard.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Objective: Health - Law or Flaw? Let's Talk About Abortion

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Stormtrooper

Protesters ready in case Trump election result

Catherine Triomphe
AFP
Tue, 20 Oct 2020 16:11 UTC
Sean Eldridge
Sean Eldridge, at an anti-Trump meeting in New York in January 2018
Sean Eldridge says he's "preparing for the worst" in case President Donald Trump tries to undermine the results of next month's vote or refuses to accept a victory for the Democrats.

The 34-year-old is one of the organizers of a coalition planning protests across the United States if Trump loses to his election rival Joe Biden but refuses to concede.

The White House incumbent has repeatedly refused to say whether he would cede power peacefully in the event of defeat in the presidential vote on November 3.

He has suggested that massive voter fraud involving the tens of millions of ballots sent by mail this year and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic could prevent him from winning.


Comment: Good example of fake news and journalistic corruption. Trump is clearly talking about how mail-in voter fraud could try to skew the results, and that evidence of fraud would need to be challenged.

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Bomb

Bomb at seminary in Pakistan kills 8 students, wounds 136


The Daily Star Lebanon, AP
Tue, 27 Oct 2020 20:17 UTC
Pakistan bombing
© REUTERS/Fayaz AzizPolice officers and officials survey the site of a bomb blast at a religious seminary in Peshawar, Pakistan October 27, 2020
A powerful bomb blast ripped through an Islamic seminary on the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar Tuesday morning, killing at least eight students and wounding 136 others, police and a hospital spokesman said.

The bombing happened as a prominent religious scholar during a special class was delivering a lecture about the teachings of Islam at the main hall of the Jamia Zubairia madrassa, said police officer Waqar Azim. He said initial investigations suggest the bomb went off minutes after someone left a bag at the madrassa.

TV footage showed the damaged main hall of the seminary, where the bombing took place. The hall was littered with broken glass and its carpet was stained with blood. Police said at least 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of explosives were used in the attack.

Several of the wounded students were in critical condition, and hospital authorities feared the death toll could climb further. Authorities said some seminary teachers and employees were also wounded in the bombing.
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Arrow Up

Don't believe the polls - Trump is 'winning bigly'

Jonathan Jakubowski, Christos A. Makridis
The Hill
Tue, 27 Oct 2020 01:30 UTC
Trump
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesUS President Donald Trump
We predict that President Trump is going to win the 2020 presidential election — and win big.

While the majority of the polls suggest that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is leading, or at best that it's close, those polls suffer from at least three problems.

First, the tone of the questions. There is significant evidence from behavioral psychology that suggests that the way a question is framed predetermines the range of potential answers. In fact, Gallup has found that respondents can answer very differently to questions with the same topic even in the same survey based on the language that's used. And the use of metaphors can even dwarf the importance of preexisting differences between Republicans and Democrats.

One of the reasons respondents do that is because of a tendency to give socially desirable answers, which was the case especially during the 2016 election. Most people don't like confrontation, so the easiest, albeit not necessarily the best, solution is to avoid it. Right now, saying that you're voting for Trump/Pence is often not the socially desirable answer. In fact, a recent poll by the Cato Institute suggests that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that the political climate is sufficiently harsh that they don't want to give their genuine opinion about politics.
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Arrow Down

China's top censor orders another crackdown on dissent

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 28 Oct 2020 01:00 UTC
cellphone censorship
© Bitter Winter
While Facebook readies emergency measures to halt the spread of viral election day misinformation, contributing to a bout of social media hysteria that is starting to feel vaguely reminiscent of the perturbation that preceded Y2K, the censors over in Beijing are as busy as ever.

Reuters reports that China's "top cyber authority" has declared that it will carry out a "rectification" of China's mobile internet browsers. The campaign is a response to concerns about "chaos" in terms of information being shared online.

Doesn't sound too different from what's happening over at Twitter and Facebook. But we digress.

Anyway, the Cyberspace Administration of China, or CAC - the regulator in question - has told mobile browser owners that they have until Nov. 9 to finish a "self examination" (sounds fun) and rectify any previously unaddressed "problems."
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Syringe

Flu vaccine deaths: South Korea scrambles to control panic, says any link is 'coincidental'

Park Chan-kyong
South China Morning Post
Tue, 27 Oct 2020 02:31 UTC
flu shot
© ReutersFlu shot administered in a hospital in Seoul.
Numbers plummet with public concern following a number of deaths.
South Korean officials are scrambling to contain widespread public panic sparked by news reports of deaths thought to be linked to influenza vaccines, with President Moon Jae-in urging calm and saying any link was merely coincidental.

Over the past two weeks, 59 post-vaccination deaths have been reported, mostly involving those in their 60s or older with pre-existing health conditions.

Alarmist news headlines since the first death was reported on October 16 have deterred many people from getting vaccinated, and the Korea Medical Association recommended a temporary suspension of the flu shots.


Comment: See also:

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Smoking

Wales bans smoking in playgrounds, school grounds and hospitals


BBC
Wed, 21 Oct 2020 19:10 UTC
Smoking ban in Wales
© Getty Images
A ban on smoking in playgrounds, school grounds and hospital sites in Wales will begin next March.

Councils will have powers to issue fixed-penalty notices for breaches of the law, the Welsh Government said.

It means smokers at hospital will need to leave the grounds to have a cigarette. Smoking rooms in hotels will also be banned in 2022.

Senedd members backed the measure in a vote on Tuesday night, with 45 politicians voting for the regulations.

The law makes Wales the first country in the UK to ban smoking in playgrounds and school grounds.
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Fire

Anti-cop protesters leave trail of destruction in Downtown Brooklyn

Larry Celona, Joe Marino and Kenneth Garger
New York Post
Tue, 27 Oct 2020 18:11 UTC
vandalized Bank of America Brooklyn anti-cop protest
© Kenneth Bachor/NY PostA vandalized Bank of America at Court Street and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn
Dozens of marching protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday night after clashing with NYPD cops and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake in response to the Philadelphia police shooting death of an armed black man.

About 200 protesters met in Fort Greene Park before snaking their way through the streets, vandalizing police vehicles, torching an American flag and igniting at least one rubbish fire during their travels, according to footage posted to social media by video journalist Issa Khari.

"Burn the precinct to the ground, every city, every town!" the group, mainly clad in black, chanted as they marched near Boerum Place and Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

Near Willoughby and Jay streets, several protesters chucked rocks and bottles at police officers, sources said. Others in the group wielded pieces of wood.

Nearby, a man in the crowd stole a pumpkin off the steps of a brownstone and hurled it at a car windshield.
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Briefcase

Female prisoner suing UK govt after claiming sexual assault by transgender inmate


RT
Wed, 28 Oct 2020 18:05 UTC
prison security cameras
© Reuters / Darren StaplesFILE PHOTO
A female prisoner is suing the UK government in an effort to ban some trans women from all-female prisons, after claiming she was sexually assaulted by a biologically male inmate who had not undergone gender reassignment surgery.

A judicial review of the lawsuit, launched on Wednesday, will last about two days, and could overturn the government policy allowing biological men to be housed in women's prisons if they have procured a gender recognition certificate.

Before being placed in the Downview women's prison in Surrey, the alleged attacker was previously convicted of rape as a man, according to Keep Prisons Single Sex, a campaigning group supporting the claimant. Despite the past conviction, the trans woman was still placed in an all-female environment.

The legal action will specifically challenge the lawfulness of placing transgender women who have been convicted of sexual and violent offences in women's prisons.
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