Society's Child

Facebook confirms Instagram made girls with body issues feel worse - but denies it is harming teens in other ways

Adam Smith
Independent
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 10:55 UTC

The company claims that for users struggling with loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and eating issues, that Instagram made them feel better rather than worse.

Facebook has claimed it is "not accurate" that its photo sharing app Instagram is "toxic" for teenage girls, pushing back on a series of damning reports from the Wall Street Journal.

In a series of investigations, the Journal reported that internal Facebook research showed that one third of teen girls said Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies.

Comment: More from RT:

Facebook's head of Instagram announced on Monday that the company is "pausing" its plan to launch a version of the app for under-13s, dubbed 'Instagram Kids', after the project leaked before employees were ready to reveal it.

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri took to Twitter to say the project would be shelved for the time being, despite the company still believing that "building it is the right thing to do," as "U13s are getting phones, misrepresenting their age, and downloading 13+ apps."

Despite the criticism leveled against Instagram over the project, Mosseri cited similar apps from YouTube and TikTok that give parents "the option for their children to use an age-appropriate version."

In a post shared on Instagram's blog, the app's CEO stated the pause would allow employees to consult parents, experts and policymakers about their plans, giving them the chance to build confidence by demonstrating "the value and need for this product."

The decision to temporarily halt 'Instagram Kids' comes after the Wall Street Journal accused the app of making body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls, citing Facebook's own data. Facebook swiftly rejected this, arguing the Wall Street Journal's coverage misrepresented the research, presenting a view that was "not accurate."

WHO looks to revive probe into COVID-19 origins: report

Olafimihan Oshin
The Hill
Sun, 26 Sep 2021 07:23 UTC

The World Health Organization (WHO) is looking to revive a probe into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, assembling a team of 20 scientists to hunt for new evidence, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The new probe comes after an initial WHO inquiry — including visits to Wuhan, China, the site of the first confirmed COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019 — found that that the data provided by Chinese scientists was insufficient to answer critical questions about the virus' origin.

Comment: Chinese authorities probably know much more than they publicly speak.The Chinese officials have repeated in many ocations that COVID-19 emerged from Fort Detrick, a U.S. Army biomedical research laboratory in Maryland. Other available information points out that it is probably the true origin of the Covid-19 virus.

It is very unlikely that the US authorities will allow any kind of investigation into their hi-tech bio labs.
The PTB intentions is obviously to blame China for the virus.

See also:

R. Kelly convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking by a federal jury in New York

Sonia Moghe
CNN
Tue, 28 Sep 2021 03:09 UTC

Jurors have found R&B singer R. Kelly guilty of racketeering, including acts of bribery and sexual exploitation of a child, along with separate charges of sex trafficking.

In this federal case in the Eastern District of New York, Kelly faced a total of nine counts -- one count of racketeering, with 14 underlying acts that included sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and sex trafficking charges, and also eight additional counts of violations of the Mann Act, a sex trafficking law.

Kelly was found guilty of nine counts -- one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act. Of the 14 underlying acts for the racketeering count, he needed to be found guilty of at least two to be convicted of that count. Jurors found prosecutors had proven all but two of the 14 underlying racketeering acts.

Comment: This scumbag should be behind bars for the rest of his life.

See also:

UK Met Police upgrades 'massively invasive' face recognition tech net, watchdog warns of 'public trust' cost

RT
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 13:55 UTC

Scotland Yard is set to expand its controversial facial recognition surveillance dragnet across London in a £3 million deal that allows the UK's largest police force to track suspects using older images from CCTV and social media.

Last month, the Mayor of London's office quietly signed off on the purchase of 'Retrospective Facial Recognition' (RFR) systems that processes existing images accessed by the Metropolitan Police from a variety of sources and matches them against the force's internal database.

Under the four-year agreement, Japanese tech firm NEC Corporation will supply the RFR systems - which will afford the Met Police "opportunities... not previously available to support the detection and matching of faces" and enable the force to "effectively exploit" investigative opportunities from the rapid growth of "image data sources".

Comment: Governments and the police have already abused the 'emergency' powers that they snatched at the beginning of the manufactured crisis, and there's every reason to believe that any new legislation, and technology of all kinds, will ultimately be used to further consolidate the dystopia that seems to be subsuming much of the planet. Lest we forget that in Britain the government has already made it law that its agencies are legally allowed to commit crime both at home, and abroad:

Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

Antifa member charged with shooting anti-vaxxer in Washington

Andy Ngo
New York Post
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 22:07 UTC

An Antifa member with a long history of posting far-left extremist content online has been arrested and charged with the shooting of an anti-vaxxer in Olympia, Wash.

Benjamin Anthony Varela, 36, of Olympia, was arrested on Thursday and charged with first-degree assault while armed with a deadly weapon.

On Sept. 4, a couple dozen Antifa from around the Pacific Northwest traveled to the Washington state Capitol building to try to shut down an anti-COVID vaccine mandate protest. The black-clad group was met by the rally's volunteer right-wing security, who included Proud Boys members. When the Antifa group ran to the Intercity Transit Station, one of their masked members turned around and fired five 9mm pistol rounds in the direction of the right-wing group, which was about 50 feet behind, according to security footage. Proud Boys member Tusitala Toese was injured in the shooting.

Varela, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, deleted most of his social media accounts before his arrest, but posts still available on Twitter show he corresponded back and forth with the Spokane and Olympia DSA chapters as well as Libcom.org, an anarchist-Communist website. Prior to deleting his Twitter account, his bio read, "professional anarchist, thug, and paid protester." His YouTube account, which is still online but doesn't have any videos available to the public, features a red and black Antifa flag as its profile image. According to the affidavit, Varela ran into an alley behind the Union Gospel Mission after the shooting and discarded his black uniform.

China's tutoring ban hits overseas teachers and cultural links - creates instant black market

Laurie Chen and Poornima Weerasekara
Hong Kong Free Press
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 21:58 UTC

Every morning, Sam Josti logged on from her US home to teach children halfway around the world, just one of thousands of foreign language tutors giving Chinese students a rare window into Western culture.

But tutors like Massachusetts-based Josti have taken a sharp financial hit after Beijing's harsh crackdown on extracurricular classes pulled down the blinds over the world outside for Chinese students.

Foreign language teaching firms had long tapped into a vast demand for English in China, where armies of parents are eager to get their kids ahead in a cut-throat education system in which a single exam can determine a life's trajectory.

That came to a crashing halt in August when Beijing announced education reforms that banned tutoring firms from hiring overseas teachers.

The rules — which also forced tutoring platforms to turn their businesses non-profit and barred some classes during weekends and holidays — are framed by Beijing as necessary to alleviate stress on overworked students and reduce education costs.

Critics say they are also cutting off Chinese children from outside influences, as an increasingly nationalistic Beijing moves to reassert socialist ideology in the country's classrooms.

"I understand wanting to take pressure off parents... but not why it's been so sudden and harsh," said 44-year-old Josti, a former elementary school teacher who switched to full-time online tutoring in 2017.

"We were bridging the gap between the two countries, and it seems to have stopped before we could finish it," she told AFP, fearing cultural exchange will now be lost.

"On a personal level, it's heartbreaking."

Political leaders who deny basic biology to appease trans activists are leading our children into a dangerous fantasy world

Frank Furedi
RT
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 20:37 UTC

© Global Look Press/Keystone Press Agency/Joel Goodman
People take part in a Reclaim Pride march through Manchester City Centre , in opposition to the management of the city's 'official' Manchester Pride charity festival .

Sir Keir Starmer's assertion that it is wrong to say only women have a cervix is dangerous, particularly so in the message it sends to children. By ignoring biology, he is encouraging identity crises among young people.

It looks like the ideology of transgenderism has captured the British Labour Party. Without a hint of embarrassment, Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the party, has rejected the scientifically validated fact that states that there is a biological difference between a man and a woman.

Starmer declared on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that it is wrong to say "only women have a cervix," as one of Labour's MPs, Rosie Duffield, had pointed out.

China seeks to "reduce non-medical abortion"

Kaamil Ahmed
The Guardian
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 17:40 UTC

© Visual China Group/GettyKaamil Ahmed
A fitness class in Shijiazhuang obstetrics hospital. After years of limiting population growth, Beijing now wants families to have more children.

China's pledge to limit abortions puts women's bodies under the state's control just as the one-child policy did and could endanger the lives of women seeking abortions, rights groups have said.

The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would seek to reduce abortions for "non-medical reasons" - a move seen as being in line with its attempts to accelerate birthrates.

Government guidelines did not provide detail on what constitutes a non-medical abortion.

Comment: Abortion is clearly a nuanced issue, but surely wanting to help women avoid the ordeal is a positive goal?

It's telling that those parts of the world that want to protect the rights of children and families, are also those looking to reduce abortion, whilst in the West the same countries promoting transgender ideology to children and allowing them access to harmful hormone blockers are also those pushing for sinisterly late, late-term abortions, for any reason:

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

'Liberal's hero' Liz Cheney corrects Lesley Stahl: Says waterboarding is 'not torture' in CBS interview

RT
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 14:52 UTC

These days one only needs to be against Donald Trump to win liberal hearts, it seems. Just ask Liz Cheney, who can be both a "hero" to the liberals while also favoring waterboarding, according to her recent 60 Minutes interview.

CBS News' Lesley Stahl caught up with the Wyoming representative to discuss her status as a Republican maverick earned after picking a public fight with former President Donald Trump.

Cheney's move cost her standing in the Republican party and may even cause her to lose her House seat. Trump has endorsed her opponent in next year's primary election in apparent retaliation - and whether the US establishment likes it or not, Trump's word has much sway with the Republican base.

The intra-party fight, along with a more personal moment, in which Cheney admitted she was "wrong" to oppose same-sex marriage even as her father Dick Cheney supported it in 2013, attracted the bulk of political attention on Twitter.

Comment: See also:

Scholz: Voters want Germany's election winner SPD to seek coalition with Greens & FDP, not Merkel's bloc

RT
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 08:13 UTC

The Social Democrats' candidate for Germany's next chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said his party has received a mandate to form a government with the Greens and liberal FDP rather than with its old partner, Merkel's center-right bloc.

"The voters have very clearly spoken. They said who should form the next government," Scholz said on Monday.

They strengthened three parties - the Social Democrats, the Greens and FDP [Free Democratic Party]- and therefore that is the clear mandate that the citizens of this country have given. These three should form the next government.

Scholz, the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) candidate to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor, made his statement after the party came first in Sunday's vote with 25.7%, while its chief rival, the center-right CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union) alliance, showed the worst performance since 1949 with 24.1% of the vote. The parties had governed the country in a coalition before the election.

'' '' So if the NBA is going to do those things, I would honor it, but at the same time I would ask like, it doesn't seem logically consistent,"...

Demore

I bet there's Twatter comments saying, "Well, if she had just worn her mask......"

DeliciousTears

"No" should be sufficient reason.

DeliciousTears

..... However, Tsitsipas changed his views as a couple of days ago he revealed he's planning to take the vaccine before the season ends...... So I...

DeliciousTears

That cop deserves the harshest sentence and the other cops should be clamoring for it.

Demore

Society's Child

Facebook confirms Instagram made girls with body issues feel worse - but denies it is harming teens in other ways

WHO looks to revive probe into COVID-19 origins: report

R. Kelly convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking by a federal jury in New York

UK Met Police upgrades 'massively invasive' face recognition tech net, watchdog warns of 'public trust' cost

Antifa member charged with shooting anti-vaxxer in Washington

China's tutoring ban hits overseas teachers and cultural links - creates instant black market

Political leaders who deny basic biology to appease trans activists are leading our children into a dangerous fantasy world

China seeks to "reduce non-medical abortion"

'Liberal's hero' Liz Cheney corrects Lesley Stahl: Says waterboarding is 'not torture' in CBS interview

Scholz: Voters want Germany's election winner SPD to seek coalition with Greens & FDP, not Merkel's bloc

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