Society's ChildS


Eye 1

Amazon's Ring doorbell was used to spy on customers, FTC says in privacy case


The Guardian
Wed, 31 May 2023 20:02 UTC
dingdong
© Jessica Hill/AP"Ding Dong" Amazon ring cameras used to spy on customers for months in 2017
A former employee of Amazon's Ring doorbell camera unit spied on female customers for months in 2017 with cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms, the Federal Trade Commission said in a court filing on Wednesday when it announced a $5.8m settlement with the company over privacy violations.

Amazon also agreed to pay $25m to settle allegations it violated children's privacy rights when it failed to delete Alexa recordings at the request of parents and kept them longer than necessary, according to a court filing in federal court in Seattle that outlined a separate settlement.

The FTC settlements are the agency's latest effort to hold big tech accountable for policies that critics say place profits ahead of privacy.

Amazon, which purchased Ring in April 2018, pledged to make some changes in its practices.

Comment: Take a peek at these:

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Light Saber

Elon Musk discloses decade-old censorship code buried in Twitter algorithms

Ian Miles Cheong
Rebel News
Thu, 01 Jun 2023 17:26 UTC
elon musk
© The Babylon BeeElon Musk
This revelation was made public during Musk's conversation with The Babylon Bee, which was published on Twitter this Wednesday. Notably, Twitter's prior censorship of The Babylon Bee was a significant factor that led Musk to consider acquiring the social media giant.

During a recent interview, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, unveiled that Twitter's engineers stumbled upon an old line of code, over ten years old, programmed to suppress tweets containing specific keywords.

This revelation was made public during Musk's conversation with The Babylon Bee, which was published on Twitter this Wednesday. Notably, Twitter's prior censorship of The Babylon Bee was a significant factor that led Musk to consider acquiring the social media giant.

In the interview, Kyle Mann, the editor-in-chief of The Babylon Bee, brought up Musk's unusual decision to disclose the 'Twitter files' after taking over the company. He questioned why anyone would want to highlight the problematic elements within the company they have just taken charge of.

"One of the craziest things you did when you took over Twitter was start releasing the Twitter files," Mann said. "Who takes over a company and then says, 'Look, how horrible all this stuff is that's going on'?"

Comment: The full interview:



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Black Magic

Corporate death wish? Bud Light doubles down on woke agenda, donates $200,000 to LGBTQ charity

Connor Cavanaugh
DC Enquirer
Wed, 31 May 2023 15:52 UTC
bud light woke agenda
© Mike Moore / Getty Images North America
It seems that despite a record boycott that has seen the company consistently dropping 20 to 25 percent in sales every week, Bud Light has failed to learn anything as the company announced on Tuesday its donation of $200,000 to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).

Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch have been in hot water ever since its partnership with controversial transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, where they sent the internet personality custom beer cans that celebrated a year since he began his transitioning, per the DC Enquirer.

This partnership has made the beer giant the center of controversy with both sales and the company's stock seeing a major decline in protest of the company's decision, per the DC Enquirer. On top of the backlash from conservatives for the initial partnership, leftists have also begun to be upset with the beer manufacturer as they ran the reverse course on the idea in an attempt to save face.

Comment:

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2 + 2 = 4

How to solve violence in the US? Remove Democrat run cities and bring back asylums

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.us
Fri, 02 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC
street violence
One of the most common strategies used by the political left to attack 2nd Amendment supporters is to ramp up the anti-gun hype every time a crime involving a gun is committed. They don't care much about the tragedy itself, they only care about how they can use it for political gain. However, it's very important to understand that this is not only about removing gun rights for leftists - It's also about creating a false association in the public consciousness that guns = crime.

That is to say, they want to condition people to believe that once guns are gone, crime and murder will be gone also. But, firearms have been an integral part of American society for hundreds of years, and gun ownership has been present through times of relative peace as well as times of increased violence.

In the case of countries like the UK with incredibly strict gun laws, muggings, rape and homicides have been rising with knife attacks in particular increasing by 80%. While it is technically more difficult to murder a person with a knife, it's also a lot easier for larger, stronger assailants and gangs to succeed in harming people when those people have no equalizer. Disarmament makes life EASIER for criminals, not harder.

So, if guns are not the catalyst for rising violence, then what is? In reality, the very people who want guns taken from the hands of law abiding Americans are the same people largely responsible for the spike in homicide rates. Imagine that...
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Vader

Father of Gonzalo Lira, American jailed in Ukraine, speaks out against "political imprisonment"

Alexander Rubinstein
The Grayzone
Thu, 01 Jun 2023 06:55 UTC
Father of Gonzalo Lira
US citizen Gonzalo Lira faces a long prison term in Ukraine for criticizing the country's government. Shunned by the US government, his father is fighting to stop the "slow death of a son."

When US media have demonstrated any interest in the arrest of an American citizen, Gonzalo Lira, it has been primarily to celebrate his prosecution on the grounds that he has been "shilling for Putin." The US State Department, meanwhile, refuses to answer questions about the disappearance of an American at the hands of a government substantially funded by Washington.

The Grayzone spoke to Lira's father, 80-year-old Gonzalo Lira Sr., about his son's arrest. "I can only say that this episode has marked my life because it is living a slow death of a son," Lira Sr. said. He fretted that the Ukrainian government was preparing a "kangaroo court" for his son, and lamented that it could lock him up for over a decade for his political speech.

Lira is an American and Chilean citizen who has been living in Kharkov, Ukraine for several years. He first emerged as a novelist, then attempted a career as a filmmaker before marketing himself as a dating coach known as "Coach Red Pill."

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Lira earned internet notoriety as a war blogger. His analysis of the Russian military operation and harsh criticisms of the Ukrainian government from within Ukrainian territory instantly transformed him into a top target of Kiev's often rabid band of online supporters. On May 1, Ukrainian state security agents arrested Lira for the second time in just over a year.

Comment: This is a sheer demonstration of the power of the "empire of lies", that nobody can ask questions and speak the truth publicly against the official narrative.

And don't forget that this is nothing but to protect democracy, for our own good and he is probably working for Russia and Putin.

See also:

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Cardboard Box

Many Americans facing 'unprecedented hunger crisis' as food insecurity rises

Aimee Picchi
CBS
Sat, 01 Jul 2023 08:14 UTC
Los Angelos food bank line
Los Angelos food bank line
Anti-hunger advocates say the U.S. is facing an "unprecedented" rise in food insecurity amid persistently high inflation in the grocery aisle and cuts to the food-stamp program earlier this year.

The rise in food insecurity — lacking enough food to live a healthy, active life — comes as the nation has ended the pandemic emergency and the economy, by many measures, continues to be strong. The unemployment rate is near a 50-year low, while wages have been rising for many workers.


Comment: Even before the food crisis, the corruption of America's food supply had already helped turn it into one of the sickest nations on the planet. As for unemployment and wages, evidently the data proclaimed above has been twisted to push the establishment narrative, however, as this article shows, the truth of the dire situation is becoming nigh on impossible to deny: US jobless claims still sunk at 52-year low with just 206,000 new claims, labour participation at record lows



Comment: Across much of the Western world the situation is similar, and it's becoming ever worse:

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Bullseye

Censorship reversal: 'What is a Woman' doc reinstated on Twitter - head of Trust and Safety resigns

Citizen Frank
cf.org
Fri, 02 Jun 2023 20:38 UTC
twitter head of safety resigns
Ella Irwin, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety
Head of Twitter Trust and Safety is reported to have resigned on Thursday.

This comes after a deal between Twitter and The Daily Wire to promote the year anniversary of Matt Walsh's What Is a Woman? documentary was collapsed over "misgendering."

A report from Forbes stated that "Ella Irwin, Twitter's head of trust and safety and one of Elon Musk's top lieutenants, is no longer in Twitter's internal slack, according to a source familiar and a screenshot of her deactivated account viewed by Fortune."

Reuters reporter Sheila Dang said that Irwin's resignation was confirmed.

Comment:



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Bizarro Earth

2 women stabbed to death in brutal knife attack at Hong Kong mall before alleged assailant subdued

Clifford Lo
South China Morning Post
Fri, 02 Jun 2023 18:15 UTC
hong kong knife
© Yik Yeung-manPolice officers cordon off the scene at the mall in Diamond Hill.
Two women were stabbed to death in a shocking, seemingly random knife rampage at a Hong Kong shopping centre on Friday, before the man who attacked them was subdued and arrested when police arrived.

Viral video footage of the crime taken from a security camera at the Plaza Hollywood mall in Diamond Hill shows the man coming up behind the two shoppers shortly after 5pm and repeatedly stabbing one of them in a sustained attack that goes on for nearly a minute.

Nobody comes to help for the duration of the attack as the second woman tries to intervene again and again, only to be slashed at and stabbed herself. Police later said the two women, aged 22 and 26, were unconscious when they were taken to United Christian Hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries.

Another video clip that went viral online shows a team of police officers with shields and pepper spray approaching the assailant and ordering him to drop the 15cm knife. They rush him together, dragging him to the floor and handcuffing him.

Comment: It's notable that attacks similar to that reported above have, at times, been occurring in clusters:

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Light Saber

Omni-Boycott

John Carter
Postcards from Barsoom
Wed, 31 May 2023 20:15 UTC
inferno graphic art
© Einar Martinsen
Ask not what the woke corporations can do to you, ask what you can do to the woke corporations

For years now we've been trapped in a seemingly inescapable vortex of woke madness, one of the most baffling aspects of which has been the seeming determination of every corporation on the planet to embrace whatever fresh new horror bubbles up from the mindless Marxcissist mob nurtured by the social media algorithms.

We know this is all desperately unpopular. Talk to normal people on the down-low, and they'll mutter dark imprecations against the injustice and insanity of this intolerable and incoherent police state. But they won't mutter too loudly, and they'll look over their shoulders as they do it, lest they draw the attention of the mob and find themselves unemployed and unemployable.

At least, that was the case until recently. Increasingly it seems that people don't give a shit.
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Chess

At Oxford students now live in fear - they think cancelling each other will help them get ahead

A Member of the Oxford Feminist Union
The Telegraph
Sun, 21 May 2023 20:07 UTC
Oxford
© Tracy Packer/Moment Editorial/Getty ImagesArchie Bland and Jon HenleyChrist Church college in Oxford.
I will admit that I used to relish telling people that I go to the University of Oxford, and to some extent I still do. However, now when I sheepishly tell another conference attendee this, it is met with sympathetic tuts and murmurs of "That must be tough". They don't mean the workload. They mean the abysmal culture of intolerance towards freedom of speech that has somehow manifested here.

And they're right. I'm careful who I tell about my dissertation on the topic of gender. My heart races when a new person asks what I'm doing, and I have to make a snap decision if it's safe to tell them, and if it's worth it. Peers have asked "Why are you going to Kathleen Stock's event?" with narrowed eyes and suspicious tones. I spend so much time biting my tongue in conversation. Even basic truths can be completely unsayable in the wrong circles. But I'm getting braver.

Surprisingly, those who are truly against free speech are fairly rare. These people are led by a very aggressive minority, often oppressors dressed as victims. Behind them are another small group of self-hating ideologues, and other confused but well-meaning supporters. However, the majority of students, I have found, are actually quite sensible. Yet at first glance, it is almost impossible to tell these groups apart.

Comment: This letter demonstrates two things quite well: 1) intraelite overproduction and competition, the best predictor of revolution and the collapse of societies, and 2) the pathological nature of ponerogenesis.

From Political Ponerology:
For the purpose of an intellectual exercise, let us thus imagine that [people with red-green color-blindness] have managed to take over power in some country and have forbidden the citizens from distinguishing these colors, thus eliminating the distinction between green (unripe) and red (ripe) tomatoes. Special vegetable patch inspectors armed with pistols and batons would patrol the areas to make sure the citizens were not selecting only ripe tomatoes to pick, which would indicate that they were distinguishing between red and green. Such inspectors could not, of course, be totally color-blind themselves (otherwise they could not exercise this extremely important function); they could not suffer more than near-blindness as regards these colors. However, they would have to belong to the clan of people made nervous by any discussion about colors.

With such authorities around, the citizens might even be willing to eat a green tomato and affirm quite convincingly that it was ripe. But once the severe inspectors left for some other garden far enough away, there would be a shower of comments it does not behoove me to reproduce in a scientific work. The citizens would then pick nicely vine-ripened tomatoes, make a salad with onions and cream, and add a few drops of rum for flavor.
...
The stubborn majority feels insulted in its humanity, restricted in its right to intellectual development, and forced to think in a manner contrary to healthy common sense. The other stifles the premonition that if this goal cannot be reached, sooner or later things will revert to normal man's rule, including their vengeful lack of understanding of the otherness of pathocrats' nature.


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