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Tommy Robinson banned from Facebook and Instagram

Alex Hern, Jim Waterson
The Guardian
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 19:40 UTC
Tommy Robinson
© Danny Lawson/PA
Tommy Robinson addresses a protest outside the BBC’s offices in Salford on Saturday.
Tommy Robinson, the far-right founder of the English Defence League, has been permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram for repeatedly breaking policies on hate speech, Facebook said.

The company said Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, broke rules that ban public calls for violence against people based on protected characteristics; rules that ban supporting or appearing with organised hate groups; and policies that prevent people from using the site to bully others.

The decision to ban Robinson from the social media sites could threaten his ability to reach large audiences. He is already banned from Twitter and the decision to cut him off from Instagram and Facebook will leave him reliant on YouTube as the only major online platform to provide him with a presence.
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Video

Hysterical: WaPo accuses Netflix of being a stooge for Russia because streaming service airs historical drama about Trotsky


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 02:58 UTC
WAPO Netflix
The Washington Post has found another Russian secret agent in America's own backyard, this time reprimanding US-based streaming service Netflix for doing the Kremlin's bidding by showing a Russian historical drama.

The WaPo has sounded the alarm over perhaps the most unlikely Russian stooge yet, putting Netflix on a par with the usual suspects, like RT and the St. Petersburg 'troll factory', as supposed tools of the Moscow propaganda game.

The liberal publication has taken aim at the 2017 Russian mini-series 'Trotsky', currently being streamed on the platform. The eight-episode series, which depicts the life of famous Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, was produced to mark the centenary of the Russian revolution and was initially oriented towards domestic audiences.

Comment: With every passing accusation, The Washington Post, NY Times, CNN, etc. make it clear that they are in fact hysterical - and aiming to further hystericize and polarize the West against Russia.

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Handcuffs

IDF soldiers get 6 months in jail for beating handcuffed, blindfolded Palestinian prisoners


RT
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:53 UTC
idf soldier
© Flickr/ Israel Defense Forces
Two of the five Israeli soldiers accused of severely beating restrained Palestinian prisoners have reached a plea agreement with military prosecutors. They'll be demoted in ranks and get six and a half months in jail.

The soldiers are the first of the five belonging to the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion to admit to beating a father and his teenage son who remain in Israeli custody without charges. While the plea agreement will help them avoid more serious charges of aggravated assault, they will still face six and a half months in prison and a demotion.

Negotiations are ongoing regarding charges against the remaining three soldiers whose detention has been extended until Wednesday. Two of the five are also being charged with obstruction of justice for attempting to collaborate their stories beforehand.

The Israeli soldiers were arrested on January 10, days after allegedly striking their Palestinian prisoners "with slaps, punches and bludgeons while they were handcuffed and blindfolded, causing them serious injuries," the IDF said.

Comment: No doubt Israeli society is for the most part outraged - not that IDF soldiers are engaged in torture, but that they were punished, however lightly. To a large segment of Israeli society - especially among Orthodox groups like the battalion in question - Palestinians are considered to be animals, to be pushed out of Palestine in order for the "redemption of the land" - and utterly destroyed like the Amalekites. It is a major sin to harm an Israeli Jew - to harm a Palestinian, not so much. Often it's a religious requirement.

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Cult

Justice: Australian Cardinal Pell convicted of molesting 2 choirboys

Rod McGuirk
Associated Press
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 17:21 UTC
Pell australia child abuse clergy
© Associated Press/Andy Brownbill
Cardinal George Pell leaves the County Court in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. The most senior Catholic cleric ever charged with child sex abuse has been convicted of molesting two choirboys moments after celebrating Mass, dealing a new blow to the Catholic hierarchy's credibility after a year of global revelations of abuse and cover-up.
The most senior Catholic cleric ever charged with child sex abuse has been convicted of molesting two choirboys moments after celebrating Mass, dealing a new blow to the Catholic hierarchy's credibility after a year of global revelations of abuse and cover-up.

Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis' top financial adviser and the Vatican's economy minister, bowed his head but then regained his composure as the 12-member jury delivered unanimous verdicts in the Victoria state County Court on Dec. 11 after more than two days of deliberation.

The court had until Tuesday forbidden publication of any details about the trial.

Pell faces a potential maximum 50-year prison term after a sentencing hearing that begins on Wednesday. He lodged an appeal last week against the convictions.

Comment: The Catholic church has a long way to go cleaning up its mess. Will it even survive?

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X

Twitter banned me for ideological reasons - which is why I'm suing them

Meghan Murphy
Quillette
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
twitter cencorship
This is a response to "Who Controls the Platform?"-a multi-part Quillette series authored by social-media insiders. Submissions related to this series may be directed to pitch@quillette.com.
Progressives who claim that "reality has a liberal bias" may be correct on certain issues. But problems emerge when the facts don't co-operate with the liberal narrative. We saw an example recently, when it emerged that actor Jussie Smollett had been formally charged with making up a hoax hate-crime involving MAGA-hat-wearing men assaulting him with bleach, a noose and racist, homophobic epithets. As Quillette's Andy Ngo noted, Smollett's original claim attracted an outpouring of performative sympathy from an all-star cast of liberal grandees. But when it turned out the attack never happened, most of those same commentators kept mum. A similar pattern played out with the boys from Covington Catholic High School caught on video at the Lincoln Memorial: Too often, observers seize on a fashionable narrative and either reject or ignore evidence that falsifies it-because what counts for them is less about the actual truth of a claim, and more about how much on-brand social-media value is associated with boosting it. Call it doublethink or virtue-signaling. But whatever label you choose, the phenomenon has real effects on public policy-as my own experience shows.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

7 US troops injured in Poland after van veers off the road and crashes


WRAL
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 10:23 UTC
US soldiers poland
© Staff Sgt. Ron Lee/Army National Guard
U.S. soldiers assigned to the 1st Armored Brigade Cavalry Team, 1st Cavalry Division’s, 91st Brigade Engineer Battalion begin loading their vehicles on rail for transport in Karliki, Poland, Nov. 6, 2018.
Polish and U.S. officials in southwestern Poland say that seven U.S. troops were injured, two of them, seriously when their van veered off the road and rolled over.

A police spokeswoman in Zagan, Anna Kublik-Rosciszewska, said the crash took place Sunday afternoon near Trzebien, on the A18 road as the troops were traveling in the direction of Wroclaw on a routine mission.

She said Monday that six of the troops were hospitalized and that two of them were in serious condition. The seventh was treated on the spot.

The troops are with the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, or TSC, based in Karliki, in Zagan region.

Comment: At least from the details so far, the fault appears to lie with the driver and/or the passengers. What's notable is that this is just the most recent in series of crashes and accidents within the US military:

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Stock Down

British children living in poverty "rising continuously since 2011"

Sarah Marsh
Guardian
Wed, 20 Feb 2019 00:01 UTC
poverty uk
© Alamy
Even before the coronavirus, living standards had flatlined amid wage stagnation and austerity.
The proportion of children in Britain living in poverty risks hitting a record high in the next few years as incomes stagnate and benefit cuts continue to bite, a report has warned.

A study by the Resolution Foundation thinktank said UK households had experienced flatlining living standards due to a lack of economic and pay growth in the past two years. Average incomes will not rise materially over the next two years either, it said.

The bleak forecast will hit lower-income families harder, according to the report, and child poverty could exceed previous highs reached in the early 1990s. Deprived families will bear the brunt of weak pay and benefit cuts, the report said.

While weak productivity and pay freezes were holding back living standards for most people, government policy was also hitting more deprived groups. The report noted the final year of the benefit freeze, which will reduce working-age household incomes by £1.5bn, will start in April, while the impact of the two-child limit on benefits will grow over the remainder of this parliament.

Comment: The situation in the UK is dire, and government 'austerity' is only making life worse:

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Attention

America's number one problem is their government, according to national polls

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 10:09 UTC
no to trump
On February 18th, Gallup bannered "Record High Name Government as Most Important Problem" and reported that, out of a list of 47 national "problems," the top ten that were selected (and the percentage of respondents who selected each) were:
  • The government/Poor leadership 35
  • Immigration 19
  • Healthcare 6
  • Race relations/Racism 5
  • Unifying the country 4
  • Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness 4
  • Environment/Pollution 3
  • Ethics/Moral/Religious/Family decline 3
  • Federal budget deficit/Federal debt 3
  • Economy in general 3
More than a third of Americans think that "The government/Poor leadership" is the "Top Problem" in America.

Comment: See also:

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X

Facebook promised a 'clear history' tool almost a year ago. Where is it?

Ryan Mac
BuzzFeed News
Fri, 22 Feb 2019 13:31 UTC
Last May, Facebook promised to create a "Clear History" function it said would give users more control over their data. Nine months later it's nowhere to be found and sources say it's a key example of the company's "reactionary" way of dealing with privacy concerns.
zuckerberg clear history
© Ben King / BuzzFeed News; Getty Images
Facebook spent most of 2018 embroiled in one scandal or another. But there was a point early on in the year when Mark Zuckerberg thought he could turn down the heat by offering a fix for the public's privacy concerns. It was just weeks after the news broke that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica had surreptitiously obtained and employed the personal data of millions of people. And as the company headed into its annual F8 developers conference in May, the chief executive proposed a dramatic change ahead of a rehearsal for the keynote address: What if they announced a tool that let users clear web-browsing information that Facebook uses to target users with ads?

The suggestion caught people involved in the event's production, where planning begins at least six months in advance, off guard. "Clear History" didn't exist; it was barely an idea. But organizers still scrambled to build its announcement into Zuckerberg's F8 keynote address. They'd already scrapped plans to unveil Portal, a video calling device that Facebook's leadership thought might be seen as too invasive given the company's predicament.

It was a bold public relations play. And for those familiar with the origins of the Clear History announcement, it demonstrated not only Zuckerberg's unilateral power over product direction, but also Facebook's long history of prioritizing optics and convenience over substantive protections for the people who use it. Company sources who spoke to BuzzFeed News characterized Zuckerberg's proposal as "reactionary," a response intended to ease the negative attention on the company following the Cambridge Analytica firestorm. They also said it might explain why the Clear History tool, whose announcement was proposed on the fly by Zuckerberg, is still not available nearly a year after he introduced it on stage at F8.

Comment: While "clear history" sounds like a nice idea, that Facebook would actually delete the information it has already collected is naive. It might be 'deleted' in so far as you might not be able to access it anymore, but their whole model is based on the sale of information. They're not about to start removing their 'inventory' - ever. And that goes pretty much for all big tech.

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Post-It Note

Warren Buffet warns of upcoming "MEGACATASTROPHE" in his annual letter to shareholders

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Warren Buffet
Billionaire Warren Buffet has issued a warning that there is an upcoming "megacatastrophe" on the horizon. Buffet says that when this apocalyptic scenario plays out, our losses will be immeasurable.

In his annual letter, Buffet warned of a "megacatastrophe," which he said will cause unprecedented havoc not just to victims but to the financial world as well. "A major catastrophe that will dwarf hurricanes Katrina and Michael will occur - perhaps tomorrow, perhaps many decades from now," the Berkshire Hathaway CEO wrote. "'The Big One' may come from a traditional source, such as a hurricane or earthquake, or it may be a total surprise involving, say, a cyber attack having disastrous consequences beyond anything insurers now contemplate."

Comment: Elites like Buffet are quite often "in the know", but he isn't saying anything that a regular reader of this site doesn't know already.

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